Welcome the start of a week’s worth of race previews and daily analysis from Paris-Nice.
Today’s stage will work the derailleurs of many a rider thanks to a hilly finishing circuit and the postcard celebrates the lost art of gearing.
The Route: 171km and 1,950m of vertical gain, which is plenty of some sprinters. The climbing comes from riding around the Seine valley and tackling the flanks. The first climb out of Gargenville is a ramp out of town that levels off amid exposed farmland on a wide road before kicking up once inside woodland but it all feels like less of a climb and more a drag uphill. The next climb out of Vaux stings a bit more but it’s still wide.
The course then arrives on the finishing circuit with two times across the finish line and three times up the climb of Chanteloup, over a kilometre at 8% and it gets narrower in town and keeps climbing beyond the KOM point. It’s all on a long straight road. The descent features one wide hairpin bend which ordinarily isn’t a problem but on the last lap riders won’t want to lose position.
The second time across the finish line is an intermediate sprint with 6-4-2 seconds in time bonuses as well as points for the green jersey.
The Finish: a long straight road into Carrières and then a left turn with a rise to the line. It’ll be familiar thanks to crossing the line before for a boulevard finish.
The Contenders: the climbing makes it harder for heavyset sprinters but there aren’t many on the start line. A reduced bunch sprint seems the most likely scenario, especially as the top of the climb is 11km from the finish and after the descent the route to line is on a big wide road that won’t help a lone attacker.
Biniam Girmay (NSN) seems the best all-round pick, a fast finisher who is agile for these climbs and he’s already won this season, ending his drought.
Milan Fretin (Cofidis) is more than a sprinter and a Van Aert body-double, he’s after his first World Tour win. Team mate Bryan Coquard has said he’s done with sprinting but has two bunch sprint wins this season.
Marijn van den Berg (EF) is a contender but will he go for it or team mate Luke Lamperti?
Alberto Dainese (Soudal-Quickstep) might be the fastest in the field and gets the Quickstep lead out train but the climbs in the way and his low win rate make him hard to back. Similarly Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain) more often places than wins.
Rick Pluimers (Tudor) is fast when others have been dropped. After wiping out last week on the Molenberg and losing several teeth if he could smile here then it’d be a fairy tale result. Matteo Trentin brings experience and form too.
Axel Zingle (Visma-LAB) is sort of the team’s house sprinter but he’s much better suited to uphill finishes that last rather than today’s kick to the line.
Cees Bol (Decathlon-CMA CGM) has a Paris-Nice stage win to his name. He was going well in the UAE Tour as the rider who almost got Isaac Del Toro back in the opening stage’s uphill finish but the hilly circuit with repeat climbs makes things harder.
The likes of Ineos could try to force the pace on the climb in order to make life harder for the sprinters cited above and set up Dorian Godon. Similarly Orluis Aular (Movistar) is due a breakthrough win but he’s among the sprinters who would like a hillier circuit but if Movistar were to join in it would help.
Finally a couple of breakaway jokers in Ivan Romeo (Movistar) and Ewen Costiou (Groupama-FDJ).
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Girmay |
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Fretin, Godon |
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Bol, Dainese, Trentin, Van den Berg |
Weather: sunny, 17°C and calm.
TV: KM0 is at 1.10pm CET and the finish is due for 5.00pm. TV coverage begins at 3.30pm on France3 for locals and VPN users. Otherwise it should be on the same channel you watch the Tour de France.
Postcard from Chanteloup-les-Vignes
Chanteloup used to host a race called La Polymultipliée which was later branded the Trophée des Grimpeurs, literally the “Climber’s Trophy”. It seems audacious to hold a race with this name outside Paris rather than the Alps or Pyrenees but multiple ascents of the road to Chanteloup made it hard and climbers from Julio Jiminez, Luis Ocaña to Richard Virenque have won here before. Thomas Voeckler took the final edition in 2009.
The Polymultipliée was created in 1913 celebrate the derailleur. “Polymultiplication” meant gearing. To explain, a chainring and a sprocket bring multiplication, as in a 48T chainring will turn a rear wheel with a 12T sprocket four times. Poly meant several gears, a choice of ratios to select while riding as opposed to a single gear and obviously a hilly course was needed to make the most of gears.
Changing gears while riding was radical to the point where it was even portrayed as unsporting and lazy. Turning the pedals over was meant to be a manly act of brute force. It wasn’t until 1937 when derailleurs were allowed in the Tour de France as the sadistic organiser Henri Desgrange had long been opposed. So it was cycle tourists rather than professional cyclists that embraced and helped to perfect gearing. It’s no coincidence that the race wasn’t launched by a newspaper but by Le Cyclotouriste, a magazine.
While pro cycling belatedly adopted the derailleur it’s striking to see the likes of Fausto Coppi and Eddy Merckx riding up a mountain pass with their shoulders rocking – “pedalling with their ears” – as they toil to turn the pedals, partly because they did not know otherwise and above all they were limited with five or six sprockets.
This laboured style continued right up until the end of the 20th century, even Miguel Indurain and Marco Pantani wrestled with their bikes. Gear selection mattered. Raymond Poulidor in part put losing the 1964 Tour de France down to the wrong gearing, he didn’t have a low enough ratio for the Puy de Dôme. More recently riders have struggled with the Zoncolan or Angliru and these climbs arguably owe their legend in part to being introduced to the Giro and Vuelta just before “easy” gearing arrived in the pro peloton and so establishing a feared reputation just in time.
At times gearing crossed from mechanics to art and lore. Fitting a 24 or a 25 tooth sprocket at the back was a concession, a weakness. 1990 Tour de France mountains winner and 1993 Trophée des Grimpeurs winner Thierry Claveyrolat insisted on 44×23 as his lowest gear as a make-or-break for him. Some riders opted for or against even or odd-toothed chainrings out of superstition.
Today gearing in pro cycling is barely mentioned. Even the steepest roads can be tamed thanks to low gears and now at the press of a button too. The adoption of 2×12 speed means riders have gears to suit every occasion as standard. Some riders are using single chainrings as they don’t even need all that choice. In Paris-Nice many will opt the same chainrings and cassette today as they will for next Saturday’s stage to the Auron ski station. Watch today as riders climb the hill to Chanteloup and barely change cadence.