The race begins and the first stage seems to have a known ending: surely a sprint finish? Probably but the riders have to get to the finish first and there are some obstacles in the way including plenty of crosswinds and a fraught finish. It’s live on TV from start to finish.
Who’s going to win and do you really want to know? The problem last year was that it was all too obvious too early rather. Ideally this would all come down to the final moments of the final mountain stage, a showdown over the top of the Col de Joux Plane and the toboggan run down into Morzine.
Two riders stand out in Nairo Quintana and Chris Froome but the route will reward others and the irregular climbs and several downhill finishes mean it’s as much a test of W/kg as a test of nerves. Here’s a look at the contenders and pretenders for the 2016 Tour de France.
With the Tour de France coming into view a monthly reminder that you can get supporter kit from Prendas. As well as getting some nice kit it helps keep the wheels turning here, paying from everything like website hosting and photo accounts to funding route recons to ensure insightful stage previews for the Tour de France rather than relying on the race roadbook and Google.
Take your pick from the summer jersey, a cap with a new design or comfortable Coolmax socks. all sold via the friendly British shop Prendas Ciclismo who ship around the world.
There’s also a house-keeping discussion below where your feedback would be appreciated.
An iconic jersey and an accidental competition. If a big name rider wins like Chris Froome did last year then it’s incidental, a bonus on top of the yellow jersey. If a lesser rider wins then we may appreciate the effort but it can feel like the triumph of arithmetic rather than a genuine award for the best climber. Either way it’s a fine prize and many riders will try to wear it, even one day can mark a career. Here’s a look at the competition for 2016 with the contenders and what’s new with the points scale.
A trick question? Peter Sagan was such a convincing winner of the Tour de France points competition last year that it’s hard to imagine anyone else winning. He’s taken the green jersey home four years in a row and even when they changed the rules to tilt the competition against him last year he still won.
So why ask the question? Because it’s still worth posing and also gives us the chance to assess his rivals. Above all if last year’s rule tweak was anti-Sagan, this year’s route is too. Here’s a closer look at the competition from the points scale to the likely scorers.
The UCI has announced a fresh set of reforms to the World Tour. Last September saw cycling’s governing body announce plans for 2017 but these prompted rebellion from race organisers with ASO, the largest of them, saying it would pull all of its races out of the 2017 World Tour and register them as HC-status events in 2017. The result is that last September’s plans have been abandoned and a press release issued today announces a new start.
Here’s the guide to the Tour de France stages, all the profiles and a quick take on each day, as well as ancillary information like the points scales for the green and polka-dot jersey classifications and more.
With 10 days to go here’s a downloadable calendar of the Tour de France for your electronic diary or smartphone with brief details of each stage.
One side-story to the Tour de Suisse was the deal with Velon and the Infront marketing agency to bring live speed, power, heart rate and cadence data from the race to television viewers, as well as added on-bike camera footage. It’s been done before but now feels like the start of something that’s here to stay but if this is going to happen it requires context, explanation and a little less hype.
Miguel Ángel López attacks over the top of the Flüela Pass. He started the final day of the Tour de Suisse with three riders within 16 seconds of him on the overall classification and once he’d run out of team mates on the climb he took matters into his own hands and attacked to distance his rivals. This aggression was the hallmark of López’s win.