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Morning all, welcome to the weekend.
Saturday 10 July - The 14th stage of the Tour de France is a lumpy race from Carcassonne to Quillan, situated in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The route amounts to 183.7 kilometres.
183km into the Pyrenees and almost 3,000m of vertical gain. This is an intriguing route using lesser-known roads in the Pyrenees including several passes climbed for the first time by the Tour. After a flat start out of Carcassonne there’s a small climb to Montréal (yes Montréal like Canada, literally “royal hill” and there are many in France, there’s even an association of towns called Montréal in France of which today’s one is a member) but not much, just a point for the big ring sadists to try and create a break. The road continues and often with good visibility, riders can keep a breakaway with a small lead insight.
The Col du Bac is the first marked climb and a regular ascent on a big road and the descent is alright too, just with some wide hairpins. Then it’s along the Hers valley and to Lavelanet for the intermediate sprint, the town known in France for its famous goalkeeping son. Soon after comes the steeper climb towards the Montségur castle, 4km at almost 9% but on a big wide road. The climb is like a gateway, cross it and it feels like you’ve gone from the foothills into the mountains. The Croix des Morts is another steady climb, no surprises but no descent either as it leads to a plateau. After a while there’s a sudden descent and the road gets narrower.
The Col de la Serre, labelled the Côte de Galinaugues, is a scenic backroad chiselled into the side of the cliffs and begins with a sharp corner and a narrow bridge and over two kilometres at 9% and then some narrow roads over the top. The unmarked Col de Campérié is a gentle main road. The last climb is the Col de Saint-Louis, 4.7km at 7.4% but with a middle part at 9-10% before reaching the fun spiral bridge to help gain altitude for the pass, readers who are familiar with the Sa Calobra climb will recognise the engineering here. From here it’s not far to the top.
The Finish: the descent is more gentle not too technical but one of those places where it’s hard to chase back: neither steep and twisty enough to reward risk-taking, nor flat enough for a powerful rider to know they’ll mow down a lone climber ahead. The final kilometre is flat and with a gentle left hand bend, but gentle bend more than a corner.
The first three riders on the line gain time bonuses of 10, 6 and 4 seconds. Furthermore, 8, 5 and 2 seconds are available at the Col de Saint-Louis.
The contenders?
he Contenders: today’s stage is accessible to a lot of riders as the climbs are shorter in duration so it’s a breakaway lottery day. The archetypal winner is Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quickstep) but he’s been burning matches like a bored teenager, as well as helping pull back breakaways so his energy levels won’t be high. Some riders are on GC duty for leaders which reduces the picks too.
Toms Skujiņš (Trek-Segafredo) can handle a hilly day. Magnus Cort (EF Nippo) can too and packs a good sprint and maybe Michael Valgren and Ruben Guerreiro too, all riding on the roads of their team mate Simon Carr who apparently rode the entire stage on 21 December last year. Bahrain have gone quiet of late but Dylan Teuns and Matej Mohorič come to mind for today. DSM are getting a dunking in the Dutch press of late with talk Søren Kragh Andersen wants to leave before his contract is up. Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) used to be the breakaway king by brute force, can he finesse a win today? Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) is an insurance pick, tomorrow is too mountainous so today suits if he can get in the break. Otherwise there are more riders capable of getting in the break and over the Col de Saint-Louis, take your pick…
congrats on the running thing (half marathon?) last weekend, but thank you for getting this up so i can have a read with my weekend coffee 🙂
punchy one today.
congrats on the running thing (half marathon?) last weekend, but thank you for getting this up so i can have a read with my weekend coffee 🙂
Absolutely pleasure!
Tomorrow’s will be a touch late but should be out before 10am, hope that’s not too late for coffee!!!
Normally I'd be expecting fireworks on a day like this but I'm wondering if, with the time gaps the way they are and everyone knackered from 2 weeks of full on racing, if this won't be another day where they just let the breakaway take it. 15 riders no threat to the GC up the road, bunch takes it easy.
There's always a chance I suppose that one of the riders 2nd to 5th shows a bit of weakness and the others try to capitalise on that though.
I'm hoping there will be a mad breakaway by some lower ranked French riders to give the locals something to cheer about. I'd love to be sat on my porch with a very large pastis watching them fly by
Why did they have to conjure up the image of Boris Johnson in lycra....?!?
Mind bleach please.
I’d love to be sat on my porch with a very large pastis watching them fly by
Ice cubes are ready go in the pastis this afternoon.
that's a depleted looking peloton 🙁
Warren Barguil is out.
That's about 4 from my fantasy team who are no longer there. 🙁
Remind me never to play again, I've clearly cursed everyone I've chosen.
Looks like the average 3rd Cat race so far. Lots of fruitless little disjointed attacks, no-one has the ability to control it.
and it still continues 😀
good stuff from Bulky Molayma
That's a beautiful climb. The viaduct doubling back on itself is quite reminiscent of Sa Calobra.
Everyone is wrecked - probably as good an indication as anything that things are mostly clean now. Makes for much better racing when it's evenly matched like this.
What's the thing shrink wrapped to the right hand fork leg on Mollema's bike?
“ What’s the thing shrink wrapped to the right hand fork leg on Mollema’s bike?”
It’s the transponder that records the official timings.
Ah ok thanks. I thought that was under the saddle normally as I couldn't see it on other bikes
No. It's the GPS tracker
and the device on the fork leg is sometimes wrapped in an inner tube* to make slightly more aero, marginal gains and all that...apparently...
* hence looking shrink wrapped...unless it is actually heated shrink wrap which you can get...heads off to look at bike set up;)