A straight battle between Mark Cavendish and Peter Sagan? That seems to be the settled view. But how does the route suit each rider and what of other contenders?
The more you look at the 2013 Tour route, the more chances Mark Cavendish will have but if he’s good, he’s got plenty of competition from others. The Tour de France is arguably the only race of the year where we get to see all the top sprinters in competition.
After a busy weekend of racing here is the table of the men’s and women’s national road race champions for 2013.
If you want a simple and accessible online Tour de France guide, here it is. There’s a concise preview of every stage, with my quick take on the day added.
In addition, before 8.00 am on the morning of every stage you’ll find a dedicated preview for the day ahead. This daily analysis will be as freshly baked as a baguette, updated to reflect current news, race strategies and detailed information on the route with the kind of precision normally reserved for a team briefing as well as trivia on the route, riders and race.
A ride doesn’t just clear my mind, it fills it with fresh ideas. If I go out for more than an hour then often answers appear and new ideas flash into my mind. This might sound like spurious justification but for me it’s true, issues I might have been weighing up can often get resolved. Some say sleeping on a tricky decision helps, I say go for a ride.
Tour fever might be building but ahead of daily previews, TV, L’Equipe and more, it’s time to go away for a few days riding.
Want to put details of each stage of the Tour de France into your electronic diary or smartphone? Here is an electronic Tour de France calendar to download.
Details. If you’ve ever ridden down a road that you haven’t taken for a long time you’ll often find it takes longer than you think. the mind can miss out sections. Along the way you’ll spot things you’d forgotten about, a building, a view, a pothole. It’s the same with revisiting past events like the Festina scandal or the Athens Olympics, you can remember the big picture but the journey and its small details escape you.
William Fotheringham’s “Racing Hard” is a collection of his writing for British newspaper The Guardian and its weekend sister The Observer. Over the years he’s produced more 2,500 articles for the paper and this is a collection of the best pieces. But it’s more than a bound copy of press cuttings, pieces are grouped by theme and there’s added commentary and notes to explain context or the writer’s view at the time.
Convention says Switzerland is a boring place but convention doesn’t ride a bicycle. The Tour of Switzerland waited until the last day to pick the winner and even on the duller stages during the race the scenery made you want to dash to the Alps for a ride with a cowbell soundtrack.
Rui Costa wins the the mountain time trial up the ski resort of Flumserberg, putting enough time into race leader Mathias Frank to take the overall lead at the last minute. This was the moment the race was won.
After eight tough stages, it’s now time to settle the overall classification. Tour de Suisse often ends with a time trial but never one like this.
Despite the distance of just 26.8 km, the riders are in for a day full of pain. The profile is extremely brutal with a final section of 10.3 km uphill with an average gradient of 9 %. The first 16.5 km are flat so we can expect the riders to start out on a time trial bike and then change to a road bike before the climb starts.
This 8th stage of Tour de Suisse seems like a good one for a breakaway to make it. The GC favorites will be happy to get a quiet day before the final time trial and for many teams this is the last chance to get a stage win in the race.
L’Equipe in English
Having reviewed their app yesterday, French newspaper L’Equipe get a mention again. They’ve produced a superb interactive piece about the climbers and the mountains of the Tour and it’s even available in English. With giant photos, videos, graphics and more it’s a good scroll even for the illiterate but the writing is a bonus too. More at lequipe.fr/explore/born-to-climb