Tour de France Stage 17 Preview

The race returns to the Alps with an intriguing stage that’s open to many, assuming UAE agrees to them stay away.

Denim in Nîmes: not much action to write home about, the wind didn’t get up and so a brief solo flurry from Thomas Gachignard was enough to get him the day’s combativity prize, beating the Uno-X driver who almost drove his the other team car in the convoy after a Mario Kart mix-up on a roundabout.

The sprint was textbook copy from Alpecin-Deceuninck, lining out the field. Mathieu van der Poel accelerated with 400m to go, seeing the world champ working like this is like spotting a Lamborghini in a building supplies yard with timber being tied to the roof rack. By the time Jasper Philipsen launched he was ahead of the rest and stayed clear. Job done.

The day’s drama came with a crash for Biniam Girmay, he made it to the finish but the improbable “Philipsen has to win and Girmay not to score” scenario for the points competition became reality. Girmay stays in green but now leads by just 32 points with 20 points available at each of the intermediate sprints. The pair have been inseparable, three stage wins each and the gap in part by Girmay’s win at the intermediate sprint on Stage 15 after the Peyresourde.

The Route: 178km and 2,850m of vertical gain. It’s out of Saint-Paul on the road to Nyons and then a long valley road to Verclause. The Col de la Saulce starts here, unmarked but 16km uphill with some 5-6% sections. After Serres another valley road to Gap. The Col Bayard is a big main road but hard going at over 7%.

The Finish: déjà vu? This combo of climbs is identical to the finish used in the 2016 Critérium du Dauphiné. The Col du Noyer (“Walnut Tree Pass”) is hard with irregular gradients and a series of hairpin bends with stunning views of the valley below. The upper slopes are particularly steep. They’re followed a fast, technical 6km descent and then it’s straight to the finish, 4km at 5.9% on a bigger “ski station” road but the first kilometre is steeper.

The Contenders: some hard climbing and a finish that isn’t so steep? Tadej Pogačar (UAE) of course fits the bill. Today ought to suit the breakaway though, UAE are ahead and might as well defend although Nils Politt riding down the breakaway and Pogačar taking the stage and time bonus is a form of defence, no?

Today’s stage comes just before bigger Alpine stages so some pure climbers might prefer to wait but it’s risky to turn down a stage. The route with the long gradual approach and the flatter finish suits someone with a bit of a punch, think Stephen Williams (IPT) or Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) but former’s form isn’t obvious and the latter has to get over the Noyer. Carlos Verona (Lidl-Trek) fits too. Ben Healy (EF) is a pick if he can go solo, team mate Richard Carapaz is better suited to upcoming days but can try too. The real fit is Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X) but to get in the break, to see off the others and get a first big win, a big ask.

–
Pogačar, Healy, TJH
Grégoire, Verona, Carapaz, Williams, Gaudu

Weather: 32°C and sunshine. Watch out for the Mistral howling down the Rhone valley at the start but it’ll calm down quickly once in the hills.

TV: KM0 is at 12.45pm CEST and the finish is forecast for 5.10pm CEST. Tune in early for the scenery and the breakaway action. Gap and the Col Bayard are at 3.50pm, the start of the Col du Noyer 4.30pm.

Postcard from the Buëch valley
It’s common to see the Alps and Pyrenees juxtaposed every July. The Pyrenees are retro rural charm, the Alps are concrete ski stations and industry. Caricatures, but viewed via the prism of the Tour there’s logic given the race does visit some of the big ski stations in the Alps and takes major valley roads; even if it does visit the Tourmalet and often goes to Andorra too. Still there’s selection bias here because the Alpine resorts bid for the race so that’s what most people see of the Alps if viewed by the Tour.

Today’s stage visits some of the quieter parts of the French Alps, although before any geologists leap to the comments, yes the Prealps as well. Gap is a big town and the Col de Bayard a big traffic artery but turn off for the Col du Noyer and on a sunny day the view from the climb is spectacular. The Dévoluy and nearby Champsaur Alps are underrated for cycling and in large part because the Tour visits rarely. In short if you want to visit the French Alps and have some quiet roads to yourself, with nature galore and breathtaking scenery then there’s plenty just off today’s route. The kind of place you can send your own postcards from or post to Instagram.

42 thoughts on “Tour de France Stage 17 Preview”

  1. Like many others, including Jonathan Vaughters, I’m hoping that UAE will cut the breakaway enough slack to fight it out for the win and have a GC playground scrap a few minutes later.
    Realistically, Pog or even Vingo will take the stage.

      • Yes, I have begun to wonder whether resentment might set in. It’s a conundrum, though : should the most capable practitioner ‘hold back’ to give others ‘a chance’. We say that to children, but to professional sportspeople? Last year’s Vuelta demonstrated how that can play out, although enabled by the within -the -team phenomenon.

        I suspect that UAE would reply that that ‘attack is the best form of defence’ , we talk as if three or four minutes lead is a done deal, but how easily that can be eroded by a jours sans, or even a mechanical ( shades of Froome running).

        • One reason to like cycling is that it’s a kind of rolling reality show, where we’re watching society in a microcosm. I suppose this can be off-putting to someone just coming to the sport, but once you learn to see the fabric of that racing community and the different motivations, alliances, and rivalries I think it adds to the enjoyment.

          There is value in letting the break win, and I’m not sure it would be perceived as patronising by the winners of that day. It’s just another function the community on wheels has to have to allow it to get along longer term.

          We all have our preferences when it comes to racing, and I’ve found this Tour to be excellent with many interesting ‘storylines’ developing, and some exceptional moments. I’ve enjoyed very much the two-up duels between the leaders, Remco gallantly giving chase, and rich cast of riders mixing it up for the sprints. Another break away win would only add to that, and if we had a GC duel a few more minutes down the road then all the better.

      • We need some DEI-style positive discrimination: only people who don’t identify as possessing Pogacar’s genes shall be allowed to compete for victory on certain stages.

      • Was Cavendish in his most dominant years, led out by a superdominant train, supposed to let others win?

        Why is Pogacar’s situation different? Why should serial failures such as Mas, Gaudu, Carapaz or Healy win just because a better racer condescendingly lets them?

        I suppose breakaway wins today anyway, but don’t see any reason why a GC rider shouldn’t overtake them, if it’s remotedly possible.

        I remember the days when a dull breakaway won and – ten minutes later – Froome duly came to the finish on Quintana’s wheel. Struggle to see how that was better racing than recent pyrenean dyad.

        • I get what your saying @Fra,
          But – “Why should serial failures such as Mas, Gaudu, Carapaz or Healy win just because a better racer condescendingly lets them? – damn that’s harsh. Carapaz is the Olympic champion.
          Having said that – I didn’t get the “let Kuss win the Vuelta cus he’s a nice guy” movement at all. I actually felt that was a travesty.
          A detrimental example of politics (small p) intervening in sport.

          • Yes, it’s hyperbolicaly harsh on all of them, especialy Carapaz, who won a Giro of course, from a string field even. But my point was – if you want to win a stage from a breakaway, you must try and hope to be good enough, not to hope someone takes a day off.

            I’d say Mohoric’s tears of yesteryear are still important – road cycling is a cruel sport, where more then hundred racers give it all they have, suffer and overcome their suffering again and again and in the end just one of them wins – which is a travesty of sorts. All of them are winners and champions, overcoming themselves again and again.

            And still… just one wins and I suppose the right thing to do is to go for it, not to hold oneself back just to give a chance to others.

          • I think it just depends really. There are GC riders and there are GC riders. Some need nursing, to conserve everything, and have some luck to win. Some are Wiggins or Indurain style TT riders who aren’t out there to win mountain stages. If you have one as good as Pogacar and he can gallop off and make sure of his win by taking more time and the stage then thats fair enough as a legitimate tactic. Everyone else will likely have the Vuelta to fight over anyway!

        • The contrary argument to that is the GC have two stage on Fri & Sat, and that today is for the rouleurs day, just like the sprinters have their ‘day’

    • I get that, but I’m old enough to remember when people got mad at breaks taking GC stages because it usually indicated passive racing among the GC teams.

      As some people say, the peloton decides if the break wins, and pretty clearly the break never had any chance if, like on the PDB stage, a GC team decides it’s best strategy is to push the pace all day. I don’t see UAE doing that with their lead, so it’s more down to Visma and whether they want to try that tactic again.

  2. Thanks again for the always informative previews.

    Shame for Girmay on stage 16 but it’s given Alpecin a chance in the Green Jersey competition.

    Stage 17, hot weather, and the Alpecin guys will chase down any break to get a chance at the intermediate sprint so it’ll be probably be after the sprint that a strong break goes (If UAE lets them – although there is talk of Covid in their ranks).

    Would normally expect a breakaway day, but Pogacar might have itchy legs after a rest day and a easy day.

    • Yes, should hopefully lead to an exciting start of the next three stages – with Alpecin trying to get Philipsen into a breakaway without Girmay

  3. Are there any hard numbers on how this tour ranks in terms of difficulty? I have found a number for typical climbing metres (48 000) but would be interested in how this one compares. My intuition suggests that this tour is not the toughest of all time.

        • I’d say this edition has uncanny number of rather slowly ridden sprint stages, while some challenging terrain is ridden suprisingly fast. (E.g. the stage to Pau?)

          Also, for example the Bonette climb surely contributes a lot of height difference, albeit it’s plausible it’ll be ridden calmly. The height delta data -without context – don’t mean that much, probably?

  4. In some ways this is a strange Tour, swinging violently from the dullest of the dull (eg yesterday) to the most exciting (eg Vinny or Pog wins one on one). So I have my fingers crossed that today is going to be very exciting with two races for the price of one – a breakaway way ahead and a GC battle with others bidding to move up in the top 10.

    • We’ll even get three races for the price of one. Until the intermediate sprint the contest for the Green jersey is going to dominate the race. After that a break is going to get the green sign but it will be a fierce battle again to be part of it so I presume the most economical rider rather than the strongest has the best chance of winning. Then finally we might see some top ten action in the GC as well.

    • And this IMHO is the reason that they go around complaining if Pog wins more stages. Philipsen has also won 3 stages, as has Girmay. Why should they complain that Pog wins stages that suit him, if they don’t even bother trying to attack in stages that could suit a sprinter? Surely they need to try something different.

      • I guess it’s because the ability of sprinters’ teams to bring back a break on a flat day is greater than that of GC teams to bring back a break on a hilly/mountain day, for several reasons:
        1. On a GC day it’s usually down to the GC leader’s team to pull/control the peloton, whereas on a sprint day you usually have multiple teams (for each sprinter) willing to contribute. Historically this was the case, at least (and when you don’t have one outright dominant sprinter, as I’d argue this year).
        2. The drafting benefit of teamwork should be greater along the flat than in the mountains, and more people can contribute to a flat chase vs a mountain chase (where only the strongest climbers will be involved). At least I think this is the case.

        So, generally the chances of a break staying away on a hilly/rolling/mountain stage should be greater than for a flat stage. I’m not sure how you’d objectively assess this (could look at the % success rates for breaks that go on hilly vs flat stages? But perhaps the “flat stage” breaks will generally be weaker because the escapees know that it’s more of a doomed exercise?).

        A counterpoint to the above is that Pogacar and Vingegaard are so much faster on the climbs that their teams only need to get close enough to the break, rather than catch them, in order for Pog or JV to prevail

  6. I am really looking forward to a fight for the green jersey contested over intermediate sprints. It will give more value to the sprints and will bring deeper dimension to the usual breakaway/GC fight during non-sprinters stages.

    I don’t know whether you had a chance to follow this, but last year Tour de Pologne’s final GC has been decided in intermediate sprint on the 7th sprinters stage to Cracow. Before the stage Almeida sat only 1 sec. behind Mohorič in the GC and on the last stage there was (an usual for the TdP) 3-2-1 sec. bonus on a sprint. As you can imagine, UAE and Bahrain made total hell in the race for the first 70 km until the sprint was finally won Mohorič (or someone else from Bahrain, but definetely Mohorič secured the GC win). It was really entertaining and before the start of the stage entire cycling community in Poland was talking only about the intermediate sprint with almost nobody concerned about the REAL sprint finish in Cracow 🙂

  7. I don’t think anyone can complain about UAE being too controlling today, the race is all over the place & looks pretty much out of control! Yet about half-way through the race the break only has about a minute gap. So it might be a GC win again but if so then I don’t feel UAE can be blamed.

    • Indeed. At the Giro too. It was more often about the break collapsing out of lack of cooperation or excessive pressure to win, or other teams attacking the break from the main group, rather UAE keeping a tight lash, which was true only in a couple of stages which Pogacar had marked as desirable wins. Sunday it was obviously about VismaLAB chasing, but the break was far from perfect in their attempts to succeed. You often wonder if a good deal of cycling know-how went lost in the peloton or team cars.

    • After a stage like today, I imagine Pogacar, after downing some San Pellegrino, but before finding his team car to suck on the exhaust pipe, reads the comments here. Thus he knew to let the break have their moment today or risk further ire from us.

  8. Is this the first stage that Visma have had a rider up the road? They seem not to have been trying much this year as in years past. I assume this is a combo of their (relative) weakness in comparison to past years and UAE’s strength?

  9. I just read an article about the w/kg and beating Pantani, and Jonas saying an almost 7w/kg was pretty close to accurate for a 40m effort but it didn’t even ask how they did it.

    Has anyone read real logical explanations for the performances that isn’t just accusations of doping?

    I see every cyclist downing the little ketone bottles after the stage, I remember discussion of new super carb products allowing them to multiply their actual absorption of carbs per hour. Did they figure out a weight loss plan allowing them to have really targeted muscle retention like jonas (unbelievably massive quads, super tiny rest) or supplement regiment protein/creatine etc?

    I don’t think it’s bike tech – because they would be talking about this endlessly if they could.

    Is it really down to a breakthrough in nutrition that everyone is being mum about? Anyone have insight?

    The fact that modern GC guys are the best in both TT but also climbing and also finishing in sprint packs – which used to be contradictory.

    again: I really don’t want allusions or accusations that ‘it has to be doping’ unless you can also back that up (some link to a specific designer drug for example, which would explain it).

      • Yes, albeit… on a Czech public TV (off. broadcaster) podcast someone claimed Rodriguez was supposed to produce better numbers on Plateau de Beille than Vingegaard at Granon… if it’s true, I’m frankly just baffled.

    • A wider net of athletes is probably helping. Bigger range of genetics. Instead of just French, Spanish, Italian and Belgians, we have Danes and Slovenians winning. Definitely helps.

      • (Ironic I guess?)

        Yeah, Danes just arrived into cycling yesterday or so.
        Slovenia indeed didn’t exist in the 80s so they hadn’t had time to develop their own genetics. They slowly did through the 2000s when you noticed their genetics improving from Valjavec to Brajkovic and Spilak. Now it’s clearly the superior cycling DNA.
        ^___^

    • One factor that the CN piece left out was the change in gear ratios available to riders. What was Pantani on (apart from the obvious) – 39 x 25 maybe? Closer ratios, shorter cranks and bigger cassettes surely make it easier to maintain speed & power.

      • Very good point, indeed. One of the silent technical revolutions in cycling, probably the only one with a serious impact on uphill performance.
        Pantani was on a 39×23, he had famously opted for a 39×24 as his lower gear only for the Mortirolo. When he started his career, 8s groups where the norm and having a 25 meant the rest was too spaced.

          • 10sp came out for Campagnolo in 2000, 11sp in 2008 (and, by the way, FSA even had some TDF athlete racing with a compact crankset in 2003!). But it’s not just technology, you need a great athlete, too. Who can be brought to unprecedented by new technologies, too (several of them, typically…).

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