The final week of the Tour de France sees the race head into the Alps. As soon as the route was unveiled last October the talk turned to the tough stages in the Alps, almost to the exclusion of what came before. Now we’ve had two weeks of hard racing with attacks and surprises along the way that have left riders tired and many are anxious about the stages to come.
Today has breakaway branded in bold on it although Peter Sagan and his Cannondale team might have second thoughts.
Team Sky have been fielding doping questions at their press conference. Whistled by some on the way up Ventoux, last night’s TV news in France on TF1 discussed “suspicions” and this morning’s radio bulletins, France Info, relayed a similar topic. The story beat genuine news of positive tests in athletics where some of the biggest names have been caught. It shows how suspicion in cycling appears to trump actual positive samples in athletics.
Just like the profile above, Mont Ventoux dominates the landscape of Provence, as ominous as a volcano. It’s also a special place in cycling history, a climb that is rarely used but often cited.
Today’s stage is the longest in the race and finishes at the top of arguably the hardest climb in this year’s race. To put the distance in context, this as long as a spring classic with a giant mountain climb added to the end and this after two weeks of racing. If that’s not big enough for you, it’s Bastille Day, the French national holiday and huge crowds are expected.
As part of a series exploring the famous roads of cycling, here is Mont Ventoux. The idea with this series is to discover the road and its place in the world, whether its part in cycling’s folklore or to explore what it is like on a normal day without a race.
Having covered Alpe d’Huez and the Ghisallo so far in this series, Mont Ventoux is different. It dominates the landscape and the road leads to nowhere except summit. Apart from the view there is little at the top, a sky-blue vacuum to be filled by the imagination.
A fixture in the Tour de France and other races this is another Mecca for cyclists who ride up “the giant of Provence” every summer.
Sandwiched between yesterday’s surprise “gone with the wind” action and tomorrow’s Bastille Day Mont Ventoux bonanza, today’s stage might struggle. But it’s got all the ingredients of a good stage with a varied route, some late hills and even crosswinds too as it makes its way to Lyon.
As well as the preview of all the action, there’s also a short film below that shows the reality for many an ex-pro once they retire from the sport.
I enjoyed Issue 1 of The Cycling Anthology and now Volume 2 is out with a Tour de France theme. Whether planning or luck there’s a take on Colombian cycling history – ¡ Hola Quintana ! – as well as a look into German cycling – fünf stage wins and counting – via the curious career path of Linus Gerdemann.
The idea behind The Cycling Anthology is simple, a collection of essays about pro cycling. Some of the writers will be familiar if you read the various cycling magazines. But here there are no glossy photos nor adverts. It’s almost retro but portable despite over 300 pages. If it fits into your pocket, the prose stands out.
Another day, another sprint? Yes and if I’d pencilled in today’s run as the most boring of this year’s Tour de France there’s always room surprise, especially for the superstitious on Stage 13. Yesterday we saw Chris Froome narrowly avoid a crash whilst team mate Edvald Boasson Hagen left the race with a broken shoulder.
There are not many chances left in the Tour for the sprinters. Perhaps tomorrow but that’s uncertain and then all that remains is Paris. With so few chances left for the sprinters to win this means high pressure to deliver.
The Tour goes to Tours, better know in cycling as the finish of Paris-Tours, the so-called “sprinters classic” held every autumn. No sprinter is towering over their rivals and the various sprint trains seem evenly matched too which promises another close finish, especially because today’s stage ends with two bends in the final kilometre.
Time trials are crucial in the Tour de France. Yet for all their importance, watching a rider pedal solo rarely offers great TV. Barring a crash or puncture, the only action comes at the time checks and finish line meaning 95% of the video output features a rider tucked into an aero position, face masked by a visor. It’s like watching a metronome set to 90 bpm.
Can more be done to make a time trial more interesting on TV? The answer is yes, from low tech ideas all the way to telemetry and graphics software and other sports show the way.
A stage to reshape the overall classification. If the 2013 Tour is all about the mountains, today is the exception with a flat course that’s exposed to the wind, a route to scare the climbers.
But it’s short and the time gaps should be deliberately small in order to preserve the suspense of the race. Tony Martin is everyone’s pick to win the race but the suspense comes in seeing how the overall classification changes.