The Dauphiné race starts on Sunday and whilst it will take a week to discover the winner, Stage 1 doesn’t waste any time in testing a riders’s climbing legs, ascending a first category for the first twenty minutes.
But the big mountains are yet to come and this is more a test for ambitious teams to control the race and we’ll see if any of the sprinters have what it takes to get over the climbs, a skill they’ll need all week.