The Adriatica Ionica stage race starts today, a 2.1 race in Italy. Normally with Halle-Ingooigem yesterday that’s it for pro racing beside the national championships until the Tour de France. Now there’s a new race to supply some more more race days and it takes place in north-eastern Italy with a finish in Trieste on Sunday after a team time trial today and a summit finish on the Passo Giau this Friday.
A quick look at each of the Tour de France stages. If there’s a theme to this year’s route it’s variety with short stages, long ones, sprints, cobbles, new summit finishes and more.
Regularly used, rarely celebrated. The Col de Peyresourde is often a hyphen, linking different places during a stage of the Tour de France and that’s its charm, a crossing point with a useful halt at the top.
The Tour de France will use a starting grid to place riders ahead of Stage 17, the ultra short stage of 65km from Bagnères-de-Luchon to Saint-Lary-Soulan. It’s been in the rulebook of the race for some time but seems to have caught attention recently.
Yvette Horner was at the intersection of French popular culture in the 1950s and 60s when she played the accordion at the Tour de France, a publicity stunt that made her famous and jump-started a career that took her from the bars and cafés of Tarbes to Nashville, the big stage and prime time television.
A winning moment? The team time trial gave Geraint Thomas a big cushion of a lead, almost a hammock to swing in but he confirmed as soon as the race reached the mountains that he could rival the pure climbers, including at Valmorel where he jumped away once the road flattened out take time on Adam Yates and Romain Bardet, his principal rivals and again at La Rosière, taking time and time bonuses.
The final stage and the hardest finish with the climb to Le Bettex via Les Amerands. Remember the early finish time if you plan to watch on TV.
110km and packed with climbing, this is a copycat stage of one of the upcoming Tour de France stages. Tune in early because the final two stages have an early finish.
The race rides into the Alps and a summit finish at Valmorel, a long and gruelling climb that should help hone the hierarchy ahead of this weekend’s decisive stages.
The Dauphiné heads for the mountains and the unheralded but stunning Vercors plateau and the first of four summit finishes.