A sprint finish although the crosswinds could play their part again.
Boulogne, bilan court: a start so wet it was delayed and then a downpour as the day’s breakaway rode to a three minute lead.
The Haut-Pichot climb saw the peloton split. It regrouped, but a sign of things to come. The next climb of St.Etienne-au-Mont was only a kilometre long and a modest 111m above sea level but sufficiently vertical to make this into GC stage. Jonas Vingegaard in person even tried an attack over the next climb.
Kévin Vauquelin was on the rampage throughout the finale, in part because he could not count on winning a sprint. Florian Lipowitz attacked in the streets of Boulogne but he too struggled to get a gap. Their moves were closed down with UAE having numbers in the finish this time.
Van der Poel led out on the sprint and it was no bad idea as he started a bike length ahead and stayed there to do the double: stage plus jersey. A reconciliation too, he seemed happy to find terrain to suit at the Tour de France.
Van der Poel is of the few capable of beating Tadej Pogačar… and the surprise was Jonas Vingegaard in third place. The Dane was active in the final, he even attacked once, almost pleasantly out of character but we saw him do this in the Dauphiné. Still for all the panache Visma didn’t overturn UAE and Pogačar took time thanks to the time bonuses. That was the short term win, the long term version was he stayed seated for most of the day and held back, content to mark rivals.
The Route: 178km and 800m of vertical gain. Note places like Orchies and Pévèle, often so decisive in Paris-Roubaix but no cobbles (see Saturday’s postcard for the reason why).
If today is going to be a sprint there’s not much to incentivise an early breakaway, no climbs to aim for.
Mont Cassel is climbed the same way with the cobbles as Saturday’s stage, the difference is a different approach.
The Finish: flat, the final 5km sees the elevation vary between one metre and five metres above sea level and no more, all on a boulevard finish… but it’s not a big one, the road is six metres wide.
The Contenders: will we get a sprint royale? It depends on the weather and if things split up. Again Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quickstep) has the speed as we saw him win the intermediate sprint ahead of Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) the brute force and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) the train. Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) is looking active too but now has a sore knee after hitting the bars yesterday.
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Jonathan Milan, Jasper Philipsen |
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Tim Merlier |
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Girmay, Meeus, Groenewegen, Lund, Démare |
Weather: 18°C and sunshine. It’ll be windy but the 30km/h breeze comes from the NNW so rarely a crosswind, more often a headwind. But there are sections to exploit this, look closely for changes in direction, like after the intermediate sprint or around Mont Cassel.
TV: KM0 is at 1.25pm. The intermediate sprint is around 4.00pm and the finish is forecast for 5.20pm CEST.
Postcard from Dunkerque
The most northerly place the Tour has visited? Jyderup in Denmark in 2022. The Scottish start in 2027 could go further still, we’ll see as Edinburgh shares almost the exact same latitude.
But Dunkerque is almost as northerly as you can get in France, even the name, Dunkirk to the English, Duinkerke to the Flemish (“dune church”) evokes a foreign place. But it is staunchly French. The only place further north is Bray-Dunes just up the road, then comes the Belgian border and then De Panne.
There are regional differences in food, architecture and more, but from Bray to the Puig Coma Negra 1,200km away to the south it’s also homogenous space in a way that you won’t find in Spain, Germany, Britain or Italy. There’s one language, one law and so on. The geography can change but the branding stays the same in so many ways.
Another branding effort is the Tour de France logo. Ubiquitous in July as it is painted on the road, placed on the TV captions and available on merchandise. Look closely and the O is the rear wheel, the R is rider with the yellow front wheel which evokes the “torrid sun of July” according to design agency Saguez which created it.
It wasn’t an easy brief. The race is already packed with logos from numerous race sponsors and so the Tour needs a neutral image, even more so since it can’t clash with any team nor their sponsors. This is why the Tour logo is black or white, easy to paint on the road but in graphic design a form of neutrality. The logo is almost hand-written, the Saguez agency says it stresses the “human saga”.
But what’s striking is it’s also quintessentially French, evoking Roger Excoffon’s Mistral and Choc typography which throughout France’s boom years began to adorn many bakeries, butchers across small town France – like the friterie above from Nelly Monnier and Eric Tabuchi’s Atlas des Régions Naturelles – and just the places where the Tour passes. It also evokes Pablo Picasso’s signature, a blend of which was used by Citroën too.
So they can produce “cool and wet” up there in July … just not in the spring!
It’s BBQ weather for Roubaix almost every year.
There’s a side issue here as a lot of riders will have done heat training before the race, it’s sort of the new altitude training, not just acclimatisation but the effects on blood plasma. And just as the benefits of altitude training fade gradually after leaving altitude, the heat training effects decline and quicker too. So all this cool weather is de0training the riders. Wonder if any are doing top-ups but it’s a big stress to do it on an ordinary day, let alone after a Tour stage and bus transfer.
Graphics and logos are a matter of taste of course though this fan finds the TdF effort undistinguished, confused and cluttered. Something hexagonal/geometric would be better maybe on the lines of E3’s clean triangle.
A Démare victory would be a big surprise but would cheer Arkéa and much of France. Impossible with no train of note?
The logo is from 2003 and so due a remake but at the same time the typography does evoke that old France. Démare a long shot but the long flat roads suit if he gets an opening.
Wonderfully excellent postcard, thanks.
Two stages, two splits and only six riders made the split both days. That combination of power, alertness and desire to fight for the front has to count for something. So ignoring VdP, I wonder if we are already getting a glimpse who the strongest on GC will be? Pogaçar and Vingegaard obviously, but I wonder if the pretenders to the throne will come from Mas, Jorgensen and Vauquelin rather than Evenepoel, O’Connor and others?
Exceptional postcard today, this blog is just amazing..!
Is Jonas wasting energy by trying to keep Pog on his toes with these mini attacks? Thought Pog looked nonchalant following attacks yesterday.
“Bilan court”, tres bien. Have you had that one ready to go for a while?
All previews are freshly baked, like a tray of croissants put into the oven at dawn.
1+++. Buenisimo
Can you explain it for a dunce pls….
“Bilan court” means “short summary” in French. But Boulogne-Billancourt is a wealthy suburb of Paris.
So a play on words – “Boulogne, short summary” but evoking Paris.
After all the stress & excitement, the outcome was very predictable. The point made above about the supporting cast turning out to be different than predicted seems likely to be a good one.
A quick look at the weather radar suggests a damp start this morning, headwind all the way (which will slow things down, no bad thing) but the wind increasing as they get nearer the coast / later in the day.
Only concern would be that it is often on supposedly “quiet” uneventful days when the worst crashes happen.
Will pick Jesper Philipsen simply because Visma seem so organised and his lead out is head & shoulders above the rest.
Vinny’s turn of speed was an interesting development – it’s not often he’s that close to MVDP in a sprint of any kind.
The highlight mid-stage for me yesterday was Marcel Kittel joining the ITV commentary team for quite some time (he was always one of my favourite riders, even though sprinting isn’t really my thing).
Really enjoyed listening to him and Chris Boardman talking.
And Caleb Ewan on SBS Australia. He has some more recent insights from “inside the peleton.”
Alpecin won’t like the shampoo reference above…
Does anyone know what the beef between Milan and Girmay was following the intermediate sprint?
It wasn’t on TV but before the sprint was launched Milan didn’t like Girmay trying to get in on the Lidl-Trek sprint train. But he later went (read he was ordered) to the Intermarché bus to apologise.
Thank you!
Intermarché interviewee on TNT suggested it was the other way round with Milan trying to get into their train, and Girmay robustly defending his position.
Might have been lost in translation though, and the end result was the same
Pity they’re not having the finish right on the sea front like they did when Blijlevens won there almost thirty years ago (!) to the day.
A comfortable win, with Zabel, Cipollini, Abduzhaparov, and Jalabert all in the top 10, after 264km.
Yesterday’s 209km is the longest stage this year.
Thank you for leading us to the Atlas des Régions Naturelles. I’d never heard of it. What an amazing thing!
I’ve shared it before, think in a Paris-Nice preview, but it’s a great project and captures a lot of the parts of France that the race visits, but in the mood when the race isn’t there.
What are the chances that Visma is not trying to attack and surprise Pogačar, but instead to fatigue his teammates before the mountains?