2015 Critérium du Dauphiné Route

More than the race resembles a mini-Tour de France, this race as an Alpine dress-rehearsal for the Tour, complete with an identical mountain stage and a comparable team time trial. Held between the 7 and 14 June, here’s a look at the stages and what to expect along the way.

Stage 1 is  is a circuit race with several ascensions of the same climb near Albertville, base of the 1992 winter olympics. The climb isn’t much but the repetition will get to some sprinters. Stage 2 leads the Alps for Villars les Dombes, a flat region that was once marshland is now full of lakes and at the time of writing there’s no info on the route, it could be sprinter-friendly but a tweet from the race account shows a picture of the Grand Colombier, a climb that is as long and as steep as the Galibier, on the way.

Stage 3 is a team time trial and a test for teams ahead of the Tour de France. Stage 9 of the Tour offers a 28km route between Vannes and Plumelec and the Dauphiné promises a 24km test. It’ll be particularly interesting to see how the French teams fare, Thibaut Pinot has made great improvements in recent years in the time trials but FDJ have been shocking in team time trials (19th in the Vuelta, 16th in the Giro) so the Dauphiné will tell us how much time Pinot, Rolland, Bardet and Péraud could lose. This stage alone will suck in a lot of riders and encourage squads to bring their A-teams rather than tour Switzerland.

Stage 4 gets a slow handclap because we only know the start, the finish and that there will be 228km in between. The finish in Sisteron – pictured above – has been used by the Tour and Paris-Nice before but the approach has varied. A late hill or a flat finish? Nobody knows.

Stage 5 is the copy of Stage 17 in the Tour de France. It’ll be different in July as the stage comes after two weeks but the route is identical. It’s a scenic stage whether to ride or watch on TV. After some small climbs the Col d’Allos is the high point of the week, literally and figuratively, it’s a stunning place followed by a cliff-hanging descent before the final climb to Pra Loup, more of a functional ramp to a ski resort which is selective but not savage. A total of 3,700 vertical metres suggests a hard day but not too fierce.

What Stage 6 lacks in big climbs it makes up for in scenery as it crosses the Valbonnais, the heart of the French Alps, before tackling the Vercors plateau and the finish above Villard-de-Lans, last visited in 2004 when Lance Armstrong took the stage after a lively day’s racing against Jan Ullrich with long range attacks from the GC contenders with 60km to go. The Côte 2000 hints at the heights of the ski slopes above rather than the stage finish, the road to the line is more a gradual 6%. This is a good day for a breakaway rather than a GC shoot-out but a hard stage with 3,800 vertical metres.

Stage 7 sees the Alpine racing resume with solid climbing all the way. An easy opener before the Forclaz, it’s average softened by some flat sections then the Croix-Fry/Aravis combo before a long drop to Megève and then St Gervais before climbing to the Le Bettex ski station via Les Amerands, a “shortcut” with 12% slopes. In just 155km there’s almost 4,000 of vertical gain.

Stage 8 sees the race back where it started as it passes through Albertville before tackling the gradual drag up the Mauienne valley via the Lacets de Montvernier to Modane and then a “new” road for the race, the tight hairpins of the road to Valfréjus. Not quite a summit finish but a slog and if the time gaps are still narrow a chance to change the final result.

Route Summary: a very Alpine edition with a wide variety of climbs and regions visited, the winner needs a strong team for the TTT and then to control the stages before they go solo for stage wins. Chris Froome already looks like a strong pick even if we don’t know who will ride. The sprinters won’t rushing to take part with only two opportunities all week.

Strip out the TTT route around Roanne and the whole week would make a fine route for a tour operator with many stunning roads and if the sun’s shining watching the race on TV will be a treat alone. Add in the TTT and this is a big pre-Tour test and it’ll encourage squads to bring their Tour teams. As some profiles are missing there are more details to come including whether they’ll be time bonuses to make this even more like the Tour de France.

Teams: the 17 World Tour teams + Bora-Argon 18, Cofidis, MTN-Qhubeka and Europcar.

On or Off? For years this was the race not to win, in fact many were convinced that Bradley Wiggins would not win the 2012 Tour de France precisely because he’d “peaked too soon” with a victory in the 2012 Dauphiné. Chris Froome won in 2013 before taking the Tour and the Dauphiné became fashionable again, indeed the 2014 Dauphiné was probably the best stage race of the year as Froome and Contador duelled and Andrew Talansky took the win. However Vincenzo Nibali cut a quieter figure and some might copy him and race for training rather than the win.