An uphill dash to Auron as bad weather prompts a course change to avoid the climb and especially the descent of the Col St. Martin from La Colmiane.
If you’ve been tuning in during the week, today’s finish is earlier than usual.
Beurk! Le Temps: add wind and rain, subtract Tim Merlier and the result is Mads Pedersen. The Dane got his stage win thanks to grim conditions. A tailwind saw the stage finish well ahead of the fastest schedule and it wasn’t just because the riders longed for a hot shower.
After Remi Cavagna went solo, Visma-LAB split the field and the likes of João Almeida and Lenny Martinez were caught out.
Pedersen’s victory looked like a formality but he hadn’t been sprinting so well recently and Josh Tarling came very close.
The Route: last year’s stage to Auron was re-routed to the Madonne d’Utelle so it’s back to Auron but snow means a late change and the climb of the Col St. Martin to La Colmiane has been scrapped because the descent could be icy.
The first climb goes to Aspremont via the Col de Baisse, listed as 9km at 5% it’s more like 6km and with no big surprises. Anyone who can escape here will find the long valley roads afterwards suit the chasers.
The Finish: a 7km ski station summit finish, it’s a big wide regular road for easy access. But the slope does vary in places. It’s a question of measurement as the profile above says the fourth kilometre is “only” 7% but this mid part of the climb has some of the steepest parts too. Either way the last five kilometres are sufficiently steep to be selective. Once into town the course takes a right turn onto a side road and it’s this that has the steepest slope as it takes a short cut to the finish.
The Contenders: it’ll be hard for a breakaway to get clear as the long roads suit a chase but Visma-Lease A Bike might be happy to see a group of riders without a GC threat stay away for the day, especially as this saves energy for tomorrow’s finale.
Among those down on GC but able to win the stage is local Neilson Powless (EF Education-Easypost), plus Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull) and Pavel Sivakov (UAE) come to mind but the latter two could be on team duty and neither looks sparkling either. Ben O’Connor (Jayco) is six minutes down on GC so could try the breakaway or to move on the final climb when others don’t need to mark up.
Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-LAB) is an obvious pick, in yellow, a local and he’s been punchy for time bonuses even if a stage win on two climbs has eluded him.
João Almeida (UAE) and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain) have both shown what they can do uphill and both have a bit more room to move today even if they might prefer to wait as late as possible.
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Jorgenson, Almeida |
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Skjelmose, Powless |
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Martinez, Tejada, Champoussin, O’Connor |
Weather: sunshine and showers, it’ll be 14°C on the coast but gradually get colder in land with 7°C by the foot of the climb to Auron.
TV: 90 minutes with the finish forecast for 3.00pm CET. This then allows you to watch Tirreno-Adriatico’s summit finish which should arrive at 5.00pm Euro time.
Postcard from Auron
This is the twin ski resort with Isola-2000, both are owned by the Alpes-Maritime department and sit almost opposite each other on the Tinée valley, Auron to the west, Isola to the east, don’t turn off but stick to the valley road and you begin the mighty Col de la Bonette. Paris-Nice tried to come to Auron last year but there was too much snow in the valley. Bad for a bike race, but just the sort of publicity a ski resort loves.
Cycling and skiing are almost opposite sports, one involves sliding down a mountain in winter while the other often requires pedalling up in summer but there’s of course overlap.
1989 Tour de France winner Greg Lemond started out in downhill skiing. It’s not a thing of the past either as Visma-LAB’s Axel Zingle was also a downhill skier, attending a special sports school where classmates went onto win downhill ski world cups. He stopped and switched to mountain biking.
Cycling’s quest for safety improvements could learn from downhill skiing. As said here before cycling is really looking at trying to adjust the rate and severity incidence rather an absolute quest to prevent accidents, this is a subtle difference but worth noting as a starting point. Skiing’s governing body FIS has looked at the same and introduced things such as airbags, with the idea that skiers will crash so how to reduce the harm. Similarly bindings are being regulated and race clothing has to be cut-resistant too so that the sharp edges of skis don’t cut into flesh.
Quite a surprise to see Tarling almost match Pedersen in a sprint. He’s evolving from the pure TTer we saw a couple of years ago. A long outsider for P-R?
I enjoyed yesterday’s stage which provided a pleasant change from the futile breakaway we see so often.
Tarling’s sprint reminded me of Ganna in Milan San Remo a couple of years ago – well positioned in the final & simply having a lot of watts in the legs after a long, hard day, where others have faded more… as opposed to having become a fast-twitch monster overnight!
Paris Roubaix definitely seems like it would be within range for Tarling though.
Indeed impressive to see Tarling yesterday. In these conditions sprinting is obviously not easy as every body reacts differently to these harsh conditions. Sometimes it’s almost impossible for a rider to get out of the saddle. And in a power equation Tarling surly can add some torque to it.
Greg Lemond was a keen cross-country skier, too.