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Morning all, a pleasant rest day for the peleton yesterday, lets see what we have on store today at CyclingStages.
Tuesday 23 July - The 16th stage of the Tour de France is played out after the second rest day. The flat race of 177 kilometres is an out-and-back leg in Nîmes.
The iconic viaduct Pont du Gard features in the finale. Chances are that the breakaway will be swallowed up by then, since the route is tailor-made for sprinters. It is far from flat, but the rolling landscape should not worry fast men.
Five years ago it was a close call in Nîmes. Jack Bauer and Martin Elmiger attacked at kilometre 5 and rode 220 kilometres ahead of the peloton. It was a no chance breakaway, yet Bauer came incredibly close as he was overhauled in the last 25 metres. Alexander Kristoff won the bunch sprint to succeed Mark Cavendish, who was the fastest finisher in Nîmes in 2008.
Nîmes is famous for the Roman monuments, such as the Arena of Nîmes and Maison Carrée, possibly the best preserved Roman temple in the world.
The Big Start of the 2017 Vuelta a España was in Nîmes. The TTT moved through the Arena and BMC took the win ahead of Quick-Step Floors and Team Sunweb.
Time bonuses of 10, 6 and 4 seconds are awarded to the first three riders on the line.
The profile? Flat.
And the last KM? Also flat.
So who is in the mix? Inrng have got us covered.
The Contenders: we’re back to our trio of Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal), Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) and Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-Quickstep). Loyal readers might be bored of this but if you ran a Monte Carlo simulation of a sprint finish then the result wouldn’t always be the same and this theory probably holds true in the Tour so far, nobody has the edge. Ewan has been the most consistent so far, never out of the top-three and would could see a Giro-like scenario where once he’s won once he wins more so he gets the first pick today. Groenewegen though has been very close and he’ll miss Wout van Aert so he’s the next pick. Viviani is third because both he and his train might be that little more tired because of working for Alaphilippe but if there are crosswinds they could be the ones to exploit them.
Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) should be close to score points, Alexander Kristoff (UAE) rides on and has won in Nîmes before but that was 2014.
And to finish, the current GC:
And a few pics from stage 15 from CyclingTips:
Yates makes his move.
Pinot
.
GC battle continues.
I'd like to say Sagan, but you'd have to go with Ewan i think.
You never know we may get to see a split if it's windy etc again.
Morning Lunge, my totally fanboy based prediction is Sagan. Hope though that its a day for a big break so the glory can be spread around the peloton.
I shall be watching live.
Groenewegen or Viviani.
When WvA beat Viviani in that last sprint you could physically see the anguish on Viviani’s face.
I suspect he doesn’t want that to happen again.
Sunflower day then 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☄️☄️☄️☄️☄️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Juju to effortlessly out-sprint Sagan for the time bonus... but, mostly Sagan. It's kind of what he does.
The cycling news website has a really cool graphic - it show Julian Alaphilippe as a line and his position as point zero, and all the other riders position relative to him across all the stages. Or something. Anyway it is pretty cool!
http://www.cyclingnews.com/tour-de-france/
@hels; that is really cool, inkd of like the roots and ain lap charts. Funny seeing ciconne (sp?) and then others take a dive
I'm going for Ewan again today
I'm also going for Caleb Ewan - Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) and Viviani (Deceuninck-Quickstep) won't have as much help from their respective teams as their efforts will be concentrated in supporting their GC contenders in the 3 days in the Alps.
Wee tumble from G there... Bike change and back on the bike it seems...
Yes, it was hard to see how that spill happened.
Come on Ewan.
Yes, it was hard to see how that spill happened.
Because he's incapable of riding a bike for more than 5 consecutive days [b] without [/b] falling off!
Did his pinarello break in half?
Askin’ fo a freind..
It looked like he turned too sharply into a corner and high sided it. Weird incident with no-one else affected. That's trackies for ya!
Because he’s incapable of riding a bike for more than 5 consecutive days without falling off!
Should be OK to the end of the race then.
crazy-legs - sad but true. Let's hope that's the last 'off' this tour for Geraint.
It looked like he turned too sharply into a corner and high sided it. Weird incident with no-one else affected.
No, it looks like he swerved to one side before he needed to turn for the corner - maybe caught by another rider just off-camera. He changed his bike though, so I’m guessing that something weird happened to his bike.
Was definitely a strange one whatever happened. All riders bin it sometimes but G seems to be living up to the crash-magnet name.
Fuglsang not so lucky.
Was definitely a strange one whatever happened. All riders bin it sometimes but G seems to be living up to the crash-magnet name.
He claimed his gears jammed. Highlights programme on ITV4.
I hadn't seen any of today's stage, deliberately stayed offline so I enjoyed that.
Daniel Oss of BHG lost 4kg in weight in today’s temps...🤒💦💦💦💦
One of my tour highlights is Sean Kelly trying to pronounce Caleb Ewan in this:
disappointed Whitey wasn't necking a can of rich energy!