- cross-posted to:
- procycling@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- procycling@lemmy.world
The great Circus of July arrive in town on Saturday, for 3 weeks.
It starts in Catalunya, Spain and reaches France by the road. Strangely, while many days are spent in the area, Pyrenees as a mountain are almost avoided.
There are only 2 rest days this year, so the first week is relatively long: 9 days.
Again, there are no long stages this year: only 1 barely goes over 200 km. And the total course is probably the second shortest in history (just a few miles longer than last year’s edition…)
Another heatwave is expected over France in July, starting at the same time as the race. It may not be as bad as the heatwave of June, but it is still going to be significantly hotter than normal for days if not weeks.
Regulations
You’ve got the usual Yellow, Green, Red Polka Dots, and White jerseys. Mountain and Points final classifications bring UCI points for the first 3 riders (only).
On top of the Agressive rider daily and final prizes, there is now a smaller weekly and final ‘best teammate’ prize. Both are jury-based prizes.
Each stage brings almost the same UCI points as a 1.Pro race (!)
The scale for Green jersey points has been tweaked to favour even more the pure sprinters… There seems to be only 1 Intermediate Sprint per stage.
The scale for small GPM points remains as ridiculous as before: only 1 point for 1 rider on 4th category climbs, and 2 and points for the first 2 riders on 3rd category climbs…
There are no other secondary or tertiary classification to animate stage or give smaller teams an achievable goal.
Riders
The cream of the mutant crust will be present, probably for the only time this year.
Stages
Stage 1, Saturday 1, Team Time Trial
20 km, D+ 220 m
A very short TTT in the streets of Barcelona, with some climbing near and at the end (your usual Montjuic). Together with the new rules, it means that it is designed to bring the leaders to the front as soon as day 1.
Stage 2, Sunday 5
169 km, D+ 2000 m
A stage for punchers, again finishing in Barcelona’s Montjuic, pretty much like the final stage of the Tour of Catalunya even though the circuit is a little bit different
Stage 3, Monday 6
196 km, D+ 3900 m
Arrival in a ski resort in French Catalunya. Is this a mountain stage or a puncher stage? Or simply a very good day for breakaways?
Stage 4, Tuesday 7
182 km, D+ 2900 m
After a uselessly long bus transfer, this stage meanders in the Cathar Country, the Pyrenean piedmont, and may offer opportunities for breakaways, as well as sprinters if there isn’t too much action.
Press to see the finish profile
Stage 5, Wednesday 8
158 km, D+ 1600 m
A stage which looks very much like the first 2 stages of the Route d’Occitanie a couple of weeks ago. Despite some use of the hills of Gers, they will probably insufficient or too separated to get rid of the sprinters on their favourite finish city (Pau). There is almost no reward for breakaways, with only 1 GPM… I don’t suppose riding by my high-school (in a distant past) will be a motivating reward.
Press to see the map
Stage 6, Thursday 9
186 km, D+ 4100 m
The only mountain stage of the Pyrenees this year simply consists of the Aspin Pass, the Tourmalet Pass, and a strange never-ending (18 km) strongly uphill false flat as a finish.
Press to see the map and detailed profiles
Stage 7, Friday 10
175 km, D+ 700 m
A flat stage for the next favourite arrival of sprinters: Bordeaux.
Press to see the profile
Stage 8, Saturday 11
180 km, D+ 1300 m
The second flat stage for sprinters in a row. A grand total of 3 GPM points will have been offered in 2 days…
On top of this, this stage is utterly useless in terms of geographical progression between Bordeaux and the stage of Sunday, it even goes a bit backwards, and requires transfers before and after…
Icing on the cake, the last km looks slightly downhill, which is more dangerous.
Press to see the map and profile
Stage 9, Saturday 11
185 km, D+ 3300 m
After 2 flat stages, there isn’t one flat yard today, approaching the Massif Central. This will certainly be one of those stages where 150 riders want to join the breakaway.
Press to see the map and the finish profile
You must log in or register to comment.
Stage 2, Sunday 5
169 km, D+ 2000 m
A stage for punchers, again finishing in Barcelona’s Montjuic
This stage was turned into a joke. Nobody attacked, except for Johannessen (🇳🇴 Uno-X) followed by Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF), about 18.3 yards from the top of the very last climb. It was just a strong-ish pace by the lone McNulty (🇺🇸 UAE) all along. And then Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) won because Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) left him the victory. Yep.
Tomorrow, spectators will be banned from the part of the course in France, as there is a major forest fire developing (far) down the valley.
Well, it’s the TdF - people are reluctant to attack most of the time. That’s why it’s the third most exciting grand tour most years 😊😂
Reluctant with good reason! It’s the day after a time trial and more than a week to a rest day. Would you really risk a good classification place or later stage wins this early, attacking on a hillside crit circuit that the breakaway has maybe 1% chance of winning? Be serious.
There may be a story with the way Pog raced that finish, letting Del Toro ride ahead and watching to see if anyone tried to sprint it out. I wonder if he’s hoping to do a few one-two attacks on Jonas now a more isolated leader without help from WVA or Roglic̆, as revenge for the Visma “I’m dead” attacks on Pog a couple of years ago.
No, it makes sense from a purely logical point of view - though I do think Skjelmoses attack was good, same with Johannesen. But the TdF is always the most passive GT, people will defend a top 10 rather than risk something to go for a top 5. From a purely personal perspective this means it’s the least interesting GT of the year, though admittedly we have better riders here etc.
All right, but if I remember correctly, all typical punchers stages last year were fiercely contested.
Benoot (🇧🇪 Decathlon) did the same thing as on the Tour de Suisse a 2 weeks ago: he started pulling the peloton like crazy and as a result his leader went backwards. Luckily this time, there were enough riders between the first 3 and Seixas🇫🇷, so a split wasn’t created.
It appears that the car gave the order, while Seixas🇫🇷 wasn’t willing to accelerate or attack, after his difficult chase to get back into the peloton following his puncture and double bike switch.
STOP THE COUNT!!
Stage 1, Saturday 1, Team Time Trial
20 km, D+ 220 m
A very short TTT in the streets of Barcelona, with some climbing near and at the end (your usual Montjuic).
This format created quite some mess. Suffice to say that Bernal (🇨🇴 Ineos) will wear the Green jersey tomorrow 🤣
At FDJ, the two guys who were supposed to aim for a modest top-20 in GC crashed. G. Martin🇫🇷 and Berthet🇫🇷 finished the stage, but the latter won’t restart tomorrow. Grégoire🇫🇷 finished very well, but it looked more impressive than it actually was because he used a huge gear ratio with a low frequency while standing up .
Astana also crashed.
At Ineos, Vauquelin🇫🇷 who was supposed to be the final arrow and hadn’t taken any relay, got a puncture… Subsequently, Ganna, who had taken the heaviest relays on the flat, was forced to also lead the finish. This beast managed to almost win! He climbed faster than all punchers and GC leaders, but one.
At Bora, Evenepoel🇧🇪 dropped Lipowitz🇩🇪 in the last climb.
De Lie (🇧🇪 Lotto) was completely ill. Cian U. (🇧🇪 Movistar) overheated, blew up and had cramps. O’Connor (🇦🇺 Jayco) quickly sank.
Vinegaard (🇩🇰 Visma) and Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) are already on the podium. Top-10 favourites are already in the top-10… And there are still 20 stages to go.
I’m looking forward to the first stage. Interesting to see if its going to make a difference already and how its going to play out between the teams
It seems designed to create differences, so I guess there will be a few. What could happen to minimise them is one stronger leader with a weaker team vs the opposite; perhaps the Pogatchar-UAE vs Vingegaard-Visma will be along this line. But the flat section is relatively short (for a TTT), so I don’t know whether significant advantage can be gained there by a strong team.
I don’t expect much from Seixas/Decathlon, given what they showed on the Dauphiné.
It could be interesting to see what happens at Bora, performance-wise, but also circus-wise 😀
We can note that the organisers had the ‘brilliant’ idea of scheduling the last/favourite teams/leaders at the same time as the WC first 1/8th match of the day 🙄 As if they couldn’t have made it just 20 minutes earlier…
It should be a win for INEOS and everything after that is open. Maybe…
Ineos
Bora
Visma/uae/decathlon
?
