Tag: Tour de France

My problems with current women’s cycling situation and how to improve it

Today I would like to jump into the hot moment thanks to UCI weird decision to ruin men’s ITT World Championships deciding that Men Elite and Women Elite should run the same ITT kms, even against their rules, and buried it without any discussion behind the usual “equality” – magic word that keeps everyone silent if posted as reason and don’t you dare discuss it.

I can’t stand it anymore and I want to broke the wall of silence behind and want to speak out loudly about the problem, according to my opinion, of the women’s cycling situation, the current point and what we can do to improve the movement for the future.

DISCLAIMER: These points are my only and doesn’t represent the point of view of the other people managing LFR account (blog is personal).

The calendar

It’s unclear what is UCI direction now because they are trying to make actual men’s race having a women’s version but making them co-existing with already existent races. You get so a mirrored calendar in spring, then you lose tracks in the summer until ECs and Worlds brings them back together. From this point of view it’s indeed clear that the women races creating under the brand of the men’s races are the most followed because they are on the same day of that and it usually are bigger classics.

We then in Calendar the Tour de France Femmes following the Tour de France, Ceratizit challenge in the end of Vuelta but still Giro d’Italia Donne is not related to the main Giro and this caused it to be in a terrible spot of the calendar because whatever is running at the same time of Tour de France will not get enough attention.

Stage races are indeed a problem because after the cancellation of California there isn’t a good quantity of mountain battles that is what makes cycling epic. Waiting to see Itzulia Women at the moment true mountains are provided only by Giro Rosa – the same faced by Giro d’Italia. Tour de France Femmes in first edition brought in Vosges, that are hard but aren’t Alps or Pyrenees. Tour de Suisse and Romandie are finally adding stuff on the field in 2022, honestly something in earlier season is missing (UAE/Tirreno period) but level seems definitely improving.

The real problem – at least for me – come when I noticed that this year I barely watched them in comparison to the classics. Sure, got a 2nd screen on Giro Rosa and even the Suisse, Burgos and Ceratizit stages – but the rest? While for other is surely different I noticed that I struggled a bit in following copy-paste races with sprint and punchy stages. Timeslots are also important and the rest got basically overlapped a lot with Romandie or even Giro d’Italia making it difficult to follow both at same time.

Would like to have numbers to see if the number of this races are good in absolute terms or there are other people having the same problem.

TV coverage

We covered this aspect two articles ago – situation is now increasing with almost every race covered. I am still of the opinion that the most important aspect is to bring a decent coverage to Girodonne being the most ancient Grand Tour and the only one featuring difficult and iconic mountains that men did. 2021 coverage suffered all the problems of a 4g TV coverage including spectator not being able to see the mountain finish of Prato Nevoso or the Climb Time Trial. Giro was indeed the race that did most for women’s cycling, being there since 1980s before everyone jumped on the virtue signaler / politically correct bandwagon and now going to be slashed by Tour de France.

Today we have essentially a good TV coverage for classics and a terrible TV coverage for Stage Races even if situation improved from the time these races existed only on livetext. Tour de France Femmes can be a game changer for both because will surely bring more attention to the movement. More Paris-Roubaix, Giro Rosa and a general increase of the rest of stage races are surely the main priority.

Lack of data

That’s terrible if you are used to do live-tweeting of the races. For almost every WT race you got a live tracker from the organizer, possibly with distance, breakaway composition, gaps and so on updated in real time. For women races there is nothing like this and you have to do all on your own from the TV. It has a terrible impact on the real time narration and doesn’t help the spectator also. It can be maybe secondary – but a personal appeal here is: improve your real-time data.

Field situation and governance

People in charge of the women’s cycling development are in my opinion now doing more harm than good: token gestures of the UCI like the ITT length are a problem because it doesn’t help the development, it just helps some PR relationships and people obsessed with matching equality in every aspect, doesn’t matter if to achieve this you have an impact on men’s cycling.

Let’s look at the current number – at the moment according to UCI official riders list there are 569 World Tour riders, 119 Women World Tour riders, 451 ProSeries riders, 2013 men’s Continental Team riders, 651 women’s Continental Team rider. So there are more or less 3300 men vs 700 women in continental peloton. UCI acts like if these numbers are equal. They aren’t.

Problem is not only in numbers, it’s in depth. You can easily open a World Ranking and check – for example – riders around position 50 in both rankings and you’ll realize how much more deeper men’s field is. It’s so correctirating Colbrelli’s Roubaix victory as more difficult than Deignan’s one. Comparison is a problem because at the moment it harms women’s development and it focuses on the outcome rather than the current situation.

While men’s movement is pretty much settled, women’s movement needs to improve the depth and not going immediately demanding from equal outcomes like if it’s settled. At the moment women’s cycling started mainly from money of men’s races but it’s not sustainable in long terms. As Van der Spiegel (CEO of Flandersclassic) reported on Twitter earlier in the season, for example, media should start to pay for TV rights now being offered for free.

The right step is so to increase the WWT teams in number and in number of riders thanks to different races being added in the calendar year by year, add a ProSeries level and hoping to have a comparable depth. Then you can act like today. Sad reality that people doesn’t want to read or hear is that currently field is like men’s were in the 90s with really few riders that can win a race and that there are differences.

Women are not men: Men’s cycling is currently tailored on that market and that field, copy-pasting doesn’t work. You have to tailor the suit to what you have in front creating a value with your field instead of continuing with useless comparisons. Worlds ITT is the perfect example: while in men 30 and 50 km ITT have different type of riders winning it, in Women you get what you get after 30 km with more gaps. This is basically because top field is much stronger than the rest now, but situation can (should) be different developing the movement in 4-5 years.

The social justice warriors fans…

Fans sometimes are a plague, in the women’s cycling narration especially. If you disagree on Demare or Sagan deviating in a sprint you get some complaints and then is over. If you disagree on UCI making men and women’s ITT the same length you get aggressed by the Women’s Cycling Talibans. I’ve done my idea of these people being prevalently from a certain culture that for unknown reason judge everyone and everything with that standards.

These aggression are unfortunately tolerated but are not normal as it was not normal what happened to Van der Spiegel last time he tried to talk on Twitter about why Flandersclassic prize money aren’t equal and why TV is a priority over it, getting aggressed by sjw screaming it to take it from men. The whole logic of “if we can’t get it, at least the others shouldn’t get it“ it’s honestly terrible also in life, but that’s another stuff.

Roubaix case I think it’s also the most evident and ungrateful at the same time. ASO finally put a race with the second best WWT TV coverage after Plouay and was basically got slaughtered because it doesn’t match what men had instead of thanking them to have put it and said it’s a good beginning for the first year. At the same time Lombardia Women and Sanremo Women, for example, doesn’t exist and get 0 criticism. How do you think an organizer will plan to open a race if every time there is the run to the wailing wall by the social justice warriors creating a bad image and basically spitting on what they got?

Races aren’t earned by any right, they are organized if there is a market – and market is fortunately free because we don’t live in a communist country (thank God). Also, market for women’s cycling is mainly composed by the “white males” (not used as a dispregiative like ignorants) that also watch men’s cycling and that are accused by the “fans” above. To improve it you should convince them to watch it – more audience, more revenues into the sport – and whining on them doesn’t help.

It’s also not normal to get aggressive with Lefevere for expressing his opinion about not wanting to risk to run a business in loss and for that ask for sponsor to leave and making the team close, leaving riders and staff without a job (did you think about that when you ask sponsor to leave, right?) while there are other teams that have more money, doesn’t have a women side without providing any motivation about it and for that 0 criticism.

It’s honestly sad seeing a part of the fans living this as politic matter and not as a sport and using it to show that they are “on the right side”. Following a sport isn’t mandatory, investing in a sport isn’t mandatory and politicizing it in my opinion risks to keep more people out than in the sport. It’s even more sad that you can’t even have a talk with people speaking for slogans – but fortunately for that Twitter has a block function. For the rest of normal twitter users: don’t be afraid to stand up – you are the silent majority.

My appeal to the fan is so to be positive and propositive. Don’t blame and insult who freely chose to not watch the race – try to persuade them to watch it. Give them the background of the riders they ignore. Don’t be aggressive to organizers who decide to invest in new races just because they don’t immediately match your standards – and so on.

… and media feeding them

Narration of women’s cycling is terrible on mainstream media. There is no doubt on it. I would take two example over all the rest: Van Aert / Evenepoel in worlds and Van Vleuten / rest of the team in Olympics. While we know everything about the first we barely know something about the second because all we got is some statements after San Sebastian and barely someone searching for the athletes.

Dualisms are good for cycling. Polarization bring audience, it always was like that, it will always be. We had the same for Pogacar-Roglic for example in 2020 with backgrounds on the two riders but we barely get these things in women’s cycling articles. I want to know what’s Van Vleuten’s background, what is her relationship with Van der Breggen, what brought Wiebes to start professional cycling and so on. Lorena Wiebes, the best sprinter in women’s peloton by far in this moment, has barely 1300 followers on twitter. Something isn’t correct here.

Then you look at the media and what you get are all clickbaiting articles for the social justice warriors. Giro d’Italia put a chairlift of Zoncolan winners and didn’t put women. Nokere-Koerse matching prizes. Some criterium in USA that we don’t even know it exists put equal prize between men and women and so on. I am pretty sure these articles are written to cause easy indignation between the subjects above, generating clicks and revenues for who writes them but doesn’t help anybody the movement in development itself.

My appeal is to stop calling out people from your workplace as free hobby and go interviewing Cecile Uttrup Ludwig or Emma Norsgaard. Give more background, write about the rivarlies, give fans reasons to get closer in riders knowledge and support them. There is nothing bad if there is some beef between riders – it’s actually even good for the movement. And of course give tactical insights about races and how they were won – on that of course I strongly reccomend Lanterne Rouge Cycling Podcast to find out good points about the racing.

Conclusion

This article was written as a positive contributes from my points of view to develop women’s cycling as a thing on it’s own, less dependant from the men’s side and as a thing that ideally gets a market value and lives on it’s own. Women’s cycling is amazing if you live it as an addition to what we always have and not as a political stuff in competition with men. Let’s get rid of the toxic crap surrounding it and develop it as it deserves, without shortcuts. Having a chicken tomorrow it’s surely better than having an egg today.

Ten worthy climbs Tour de France should visit

While in the last post we revisited ten climbs Tour de France did, it’s now time to check ten climbs that Tour de France never did and we would like to see in the route. Have a look at them and tell us what do you think.

1. Val Pelouse

Need a steep mtf in the Alps? Val Pelouse can provide you what you need. The climb is near La Rochette and can be easily paired with climbs like Grand Coucheron before it. Don’t have a full video of the climb but the surface can be seen in the one posted and it’s doable in a race with the usual resurface. Having a finish on the top can bring a steep finish that Tour de France usually misses

2. Lac d’Aumar

Pyrenees doesn’t usually have long climbs – so why not adding one? Lac d’Aumar starts from Saint-Lary-Soulan when people discovered Portet thanks to the Tour de France. This climb is not as steep as Portet but can be good as a stage finish being long and with an hard middle part forcing riders to attack before the last ramp. Finish would also deliver to the TV a beautiful sightseeing of the lakes near the Pic de Neouvielle

3. Col de l’Arpettaz

An interesting climb on the Alps, starting from Ugine. Probably not suitable for a MTF but it has also a descent and it’s another hard climb on the Alps never done by the Tour, potentially pairing it with Mont Bisanne. Road surface seems good and with a bit of usual pre-tdf work can be done in a race.

4. Col de Moissiere

Tour de France usually ends a lot in Gap but Col de Manse delivering usually boring breakaways and no GC gaps. Trying to make a different route like inserting the Moissiere before the finish. The climb is a bit longer and steeper than the Manse, delivering some potential GC action

5. Col de Parpaillon

If Tour de France did the Col de la Loze, why not bringing the race to another iconic climbs in the Alps? Parpaillon isn’t ideally suitable for a road race at the moment, but with the refurbishing road works done in Col de la Loze (and Portet) this climb can be featured in the Grand Boucle. As a big plus, this climb can be paired with Izoard or Bonette-Restefond depending the side you pick. The only problem can be the tunnel at the top in which a race like TDF can struggle to pass.

6. Puigmal

You don’t usually find good finishes in the French zone around Pyrenees 2000. One of them is the ski station of Puigmal that recently reopened featuring a 14 km climb with final part around 7-8%. It would be a normal climb in another zone – but in this one can bring a new MTF in a zone that is usually bad for the stages.

7. Station des Karellis (Col d’Albane)

Is Tour de France lacking hard MTF? This ski station in Savoie would perform an interesting finish that can follow immediately Galibier or Croix-de-Fer never going under 6% average. This makes it an ideal finish for a “normal” stage that anyway never happened in the Grand Boucle.

8. Montee de Villard-notre-Dame (Col du Solude)

This climb starts from le Bourg d’Oisans and it’s enough to classify it as interesting. It’s in front of the Alpe d’Huez on a small panoramic road that makes it wonderful. It’s currently not doable in road cycling because the descent is on a small, gravel road that makes it not possible to pass with the caravan. There were rumors of surfacing work and doing that part makes this climb indeed doable in the Grand Boucle – of course followed by Alpe d’Huez for a memorable finish.

9. Pic de Beillurti

The climb is in a zone that Tour de France sistematically forgot exists, near the Basque Country Pyrenees. Road surface is narrow but generally good and not different than the Horquette d’Ancizan making the climb suitable for a race. It will bring Tour de France a steep climb giro-vuelta like that is actually missing in the race.

10. Col du Jandri

Imagine having Zoncolan and Finestre together, starting from a normal climb. This is the Col du Jandri, the end of the climb of Les Deux-Alpes. The climb is paved in first Kms, then after Km 12 is suddenly gravel on a public road. It will probably need some road work to make it a racing sterrato like Finestre but the result would be delivering in the Tour de France the hardest climb ever doable in a road race and an historical day in cycling history.

Ten worthy climbs the Tour de France forgot

In today’s post we are going to revisit some climbs that were actually part of Tour de France routes but are not anymore in the route in the last years. I’ll hope you enjoy the post featuring profiles and stage videos and will let us know your opinions.

1. Cime de la Bonette-Restefond

Despite being one of the hardest climbs in France and probably the only one comparable to the Stelvio, Bonette has been included only four times in the TDF, last time in the Cuneo – Jausiers stage of Tour de France 2008. The climb pays the habitude of Tour de France of rarely visiting or doing crucial stages in the Southern Alpes. Last time it was climbed it didn’t gave bigger gaps between the peloton riders but in the previous one (1993, finish in Isola 2000) was a crucial part of the stage. The col has been recently climbed in the Giro d’Italia 2016 stage ending in Sant’Anna di Vinadio and it was the last time that we saw it in a Grand Tour. It offers excellent chances to do a stage like Laghi di Cancano picking one of the sides and pairing it with a climb after it: Pra Loup, Super Sauze, Auron or Isola 2000 are good finishes for a stage featuring the highest mountain pass of Europe.

Tour de France 2008, Cuneo – Jausiers

2. Puy de Dome

The Puy de Dome was one of the most iconic finish of Tour de France, featured 11 times between 1952 and 1988. The uniqueness of the climb was being out of both Alps and Pyrenees, starting from Clermont Ferrand and being in Massif Central, offering a chance of having a MTF closer to Paris (like in 1988 stage). There are unfortunately two things preventing Tour de France going back on a such iconic climb: the first is the monorail built alongside the road that prevent any circulation of emergency vehicles – the second is that the site has been inserted in the “Gran Site de France” lists, having as requirement to reduce the impact of human activities on the climb. Mountain has also been inserted for two years in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites and actual city councilors didn’t want to waste the work with UNESCO hosting a Tour de France finish on the top of the Puy de Dome. There are anyway some hopes and planning for a finish there in 2024.

Tour de France 1988, stage 19

3. Courchevel – Altiport

Courchevel was a finish visited three times between 1997 and 2005 and in each one of them stage have marked an iconical step in TDF history. In 1997 there was Pantani crisis sending him out of podium, in 2000 there was a duel between Pantani and Armstrong won by the Italian and in 2005 the first victory of Alejandro Valverde in the Tour de France in front of Armstrong himself. Courchevel was also featured as a finish in 2014 dauphiné where Talansky turned upside-down the GC stripping Contador the yellow jersey – but finish was not in the Altiport that hosted three times the Tour de France finish.

Courchevel in Tour de France 2000

4. La Plagne

Not so far distant from Courchevel, La Plagne was also featured four times in Tour de France, between 1984 and 2002. There is maybe some hope of having it back as it was featured in Tour de Dauphiné route this year in one of the two stages won by Mark Padun. The climb is long and hard – constatly on 7% average and is one of the classic Tour de France climbs with no extreme slopes but constant hardness. Fignon won twice on this MTF in 1984 and 1987, then Zulle and Boogerd.

Tour de France 2002, la Plagne

5. Superbagneres

Superbagneres has been featured in Pyreenes six times as a MTF, two of them as a climb time trial and one of them as the shortest Tour de France stage history: Bagneres-de-Luchon > Superbagneres of 19,6 Kms. Climb is not as hard as the previous ones, but it’s a good finish considering you can pair it with Peyresourde or Port de Bales. Last time it appears in TDF was in 1989 with Tourmalet, Aspin, Peyresourde before it, Robert Millar won the stage beating Delgado with Fignon taking the yellow jersey from Greg Lemond.

Tour de France 1989 – Stage 10

6. Guzet-Neige

Guzet-Neige ski station hosted three times a TDF finish between 1984 and 1995. The climb perfectly pairs with Pyrenees of Ariege region offering a steep finish that can be placed after Col de Latrape. Marco Pantani won on this climb in 1995 during the 5th Indurain Tour de France in a stage featuring Port de Lers and Col d’Agnes before ascending from Col de Latrape side. Stage of 1984 was instead a key day in Robert Millar’s career as it was sent in TDF as a domestique but winning the stage and being 4th in GC at the end of the TDF (best result for a british rider at that time – only Wiggins 2012 will beat it) and winning the KOM jersey pushed the team to give also him his chances.

Tour de France 1995 – Guzet Neige

7. La Ruchere

A forgotten climb of the TDF that was featured only once – and in an ITT of 20 km with a finish on this steep climb in Chartreuse. While Fignon won the stage, Delgado had the best climb time – having so the record. While it’s pointless having it as a single finish, this climb can be paired with several climbs in the zone, also forgotten, like Col du Coq. It’s unclear why it has never been featured again after that day.

Tour de France 1984 – Stage 16

8. Les Arcs

Being near la Plagne, les Arcs has been once a MTF in Tour de France, in 1996 with Luc Leblanc winning a stage with La Madeleine and Le Cormet de Roselend on the menu before the climb. The climb starts from Bourg Saint-Maurice and is near la Plagne, even if it’s a less harder than it. It’s an idel pair for a stage featuring Iseran from southern side or the Roselend but has never been used again in TDF despite its length (23,7 km)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A6KHXX8Uic
Tour de France 1996 – Stage 7

9. Les Deux Alpes

Despite being the finish of one of the most iconic days of Tour de France history, Les Deux Alpes was not used since 2002 and was only the 2nd time it was featured in TDF after 1998 stage. Surely the climb pays being nearby the iconic finish of Alpe d’Huez, often used by the department as a mountain top finish for Tour de France – but considering the descent of Alpe d’Huez being doable like in 2013 it can be an interesting solution for stimulating long-range attacks on the Alpe itself. Will it ever come back in the Grand Boucle?

Tour de France 1998 – Les Deux Alpes

10. Isola 2000 (Col de la Lombarde)

Closing as we open – Southern Alpes. Isola 2000 was the MTF of the iconic 1993 stage starting from Serre Chevalier where Indurain held on all the attacks of Rominger that had to recover more than 5 minutes after the time trial. After that day the climb was never featured again in TDF – it has been in Giro as Col de La Lombarde (going in Italy onto the top and then ending in Vinadio) and in 2008 stage of Jausiers from the other side. Climb it’s long enough for a finish and we saw Nibali destroying Chaves and the rest here in Giro 2016. It’s unclear why TDF continues to ignore southern alps.

Your time now: do you remember any of these climbs in TDF? Do you want to see them again? Do you think there may be other climbs being added to this list? Let us know in comments section.

Tour de France 2022 route review

After the Giro d’Italia 2022 review it’s time to review the Grand Boucle. As usual, like the Giro, and every other UCI race, you can find the stages on our website (and this is even more important than the Giro considering that for TDF all the profiles are out in end of May / beginning of June – so we have reconstructed them from the videos. There will be small changes of course, but not something that will change significantly the stages themselves). Let’s take a look, first, at the list of stages.

Overview

The Tour de France goes more or less over the skeleton of 2014 edition, the one won by Vincenzo Nibali and heavily influenced by the crashes of Alberto Contador and Chris Froome in the first day. All stages was set for a race between the two best riders of that moment – that was just delayed to Vuelta – but ended in Nibali domination for a boring Tour at the end. This brought that type of route to being put on hold for one year, being put back again in 2016, then being put again on hold after Froome dominated it.

TDF 2014 had cobbles, 5 mountain top finishes + Gerardmer and the final 54 kms ITT to define the winner. This race put on the table cobbles, 5 mountain top finishes + Chatel and Mende and a final 40 kms ITT putting a significant change in 2020 route when the MTFs were three and two of them were put in two short stages. It’s a race that unlike tradition of TDF of neverending boring stages in which group is all together try to shift the TDF in a different plan increasing the chances of stages with GC gaps.

Having GC gaps in TDF is something unusual more than Giro and Vuelta due to the high level of the competition. You always get riders grouped and big gaps like Pogacar this year in Le Grand Bornand are usually the exception and not the rule. Giro in last year is able to obtain them in the third week after long efforts making the riders being tired due to the level becoming high also there.

TDF usually never felt the need of doing an hard race after Giro having usually one stage (not even the hardest) as the main decider of the race and the rest just being in control of it. 2019 was a good edition countering the previous ones maybe due to lack of dominant riders resulting in gaps since Prat d’Albis stage – after one year in which Geraint Thomas was able to distance Dumoulin “only” 27” between La Rosiere, Alpe d’Huez, Portet and Mende with the dutch man losing the Tour on a crash in Mur de Bretagne and not being able to take the time back.

Will the choice pay? The last hard route that I remember was 2011 with 4 MTFs (a record for that time) resulting in a first part in which Pyrenees were basically ridden at slow pace because of Contador not being dominant and everyone else being scared of what’s coming. TDF is trying to put an hard route again on the table hoping that different style of racing of Pogacar and Roglic (and even Bernal) can bring something different on the table – stages like Andorra or Quillan are a problem in terms of TV viewers, so the more we get GC action the better for the race sponsors and stakeholders. And this is what this route is all about.

Grand Depart

Tour de France 2022 – Stage 1
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 2
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 3

The Grand Depart in Denmark finally makes it after 2021 and for the first time since 1987 the Tour de France it’s not starting on a Saturday. Last time was for a start in West Berlin that needed an extra rest day to move from West Berlin to Karlsruhe in a TDF of 25 stages + prologue starting on a Wednesday. After that TDFs had always prologue and 21/22 stages of which two of them often being held in the day after it as a normal stage + TTT in same day. The actual format of 21 stages + 2 rest day was there since 1999 and went untouched until now. TDF finally gets an ITT as stage 1 and this will help in the following days – ITT means gaps, gaps means that there won’t be the usual rush because someone may crash and I random rider can get yellow if I stay up making my day out of my career.

Crashes will surely be important in first week and unlike the other races we should here pay attention also to the size of the road – we saw last year Roglic being out in a stage with finals being ridden on narrow roads. Stage 2 is ridden all along the danish coast with the final being on a long bridge in an attempt to get some echelons and gaps like in Zeeland stage of TDF 2015 – the same, but with far less probability being in the mainland, for the Stage 3 that is likely to be a sprint. Rest day, race in France.

First week

Tour de France 2022 – Stage 4
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 5
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 6
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 7
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 8
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 9
3 / 6

There is an interesting thing we can notice in the first week draw: there aren’t any expected mass sprints. There can be one in Calais but surely won’t be a mass sprint with these climbs on the road (even if you should probably start the acton in the three climbs in the middle of the stage). The stage is classified “hilly” and won’t give full points in the shameful anti-sagan rule introduced in 2016. Honestly it’s time to put the rule back as it was in 2010s, with a better level of the green jersey points across the different type of stages and enjoy multiple riders having the chance to compete in it against the sprinters. Calais stage is the classic stage that would end in a breakaway in 2nd week – in the first week may not because of the yellow jersey battle.

Stage is then followed by the “cobbled day”, back in TDF after 2018 with entirely new cobbled sectors not done in the actual version Paris-Roubaix. There is only one sector classified with four stars according to our map and it’s Tilloy à Sars-en-Rosieres and it’s the sector in which Van der Poel made the attack that allowed him to drop the rest of the peloton going back on Colbrelli group. Stage is only 144 km and it’s on the paper easier than 2018 stage ending in Roubaix that didn’t do any significant gap. To be fair, after 2014, there were barely gaps between GC contenders in the cobble stages (every single one of them ridden in dry conditions). Mathieu Van der Poel can drop the peloton and go for the solo victory, Wout Van Aert also can but we’ll have to see first if he can ride freely or he’ll be bounded to Roglic babysitting like Sagan with Contador in 2015 cobbled stage. At GC level of course the best outcome for ASO is Roglic/Pogacar losing some time here, forcing them to attack in the mountains.

Longvy seems tailored on Alaphilippe. There is a decent length and a punchy final. It’s like having two classics in a row but being Stage 6 this seems designed for a good chance of a breakaway finish specially because 220 kms are a lot to chase for a single team. Stage 7 will feature the first MTF on la Super Planche des Belles filles. We know this climb by heart considering how many times we got that in the last years – the finish will be the same of 2019 and this means that the final wall is likely giving us 10-15” gaps between contenders neutralizing any attack before it. 2019 stage was also way harder than this one before the final climb. Lausanne will be again a MTF but for different type of riders – this is another stage that is likely having “breakaway” written all over it considering being between two hard stages.

Last one is the first mountain stage and it’s the only one being on a weekend. Pas de Morgins will act as a deciding climb for the day – there surely will be some attacks that should be done in the first part of the climb – the only problem here is the first part of the stage that could and should’ve been harder. Likely 8-12 riders here in the finish unless Pogacar goes thermonuclear immediately – we’ll see who will lose the tour.

Second week

Tour de France 2022 – Stage 10
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 11
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 12
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 13
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 14
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 15
4 / 6

Second week follows the trend of the first, but with mountains. Personally I am a bit disappointed for the opening stage in Megeve because the finish was the same of Dauphiné last stage of 2020 – and that was one of the best races of the year – but they’ll basically remove whatever there is before the final ascent to place this stage in the middle of the Tour de France high mountain stages. Considering the two upcoming days this is another stage with “breakaway” written all over it.

Race will then go with the Col du Granon and I am excited to see this climb back in TDF. Someone will probably have played the same final in one of my Pro Cycling Manager Fantasy Tour de France variants – and if you played it you’ll know that Granon is hard. 11 kms – costantly 9-10%. Would not instead reccomend attacks on Galibier but to use it, instead, to select the group – the descent is not so technical and a group vs a single person here can easily recover a gap if they cooperate properly: in 2017 Tour did the same descent with finish being in Serre Chevalier and Roglic lost easily 40 seconds vs the yellow jersey group (and in final the yellow group slowered down a bit due to the bonifications)

There is nothing to say on the Alpe d’Huez stage. It’s a classic. Stage is the same of 2008 except for the length, on that day the start was in Embrun for a total of 210 km that allowed Sastre to win the race gaining 2 minutes basically on everyone in the peloton also thanks to the Schleck brothers that being teammates had to stay on wheel despite Frank was in yellow (even with few seconds on Cadel Evans and an ITT coming). We’ll see gaps and we’ll know that everything before the Alpe is useless except pacing and making the rivals putting fatigue in their legs. Descents are long, you need to push, riders likely regrouping here. Hoping for some crowd control on the climb after 2018.

Saint-Etienne on the paper is a flat stage. And i mean on the paper because it can be a breakaway day or a restricted sprint day. The climbs are enough to drop most of the sprinters if properly paced giving WVA/MVDP a chance to go for the day. Final is the same of the stage Thomas De Gendt won – without the small climb in the park.

We know also everything about the Mende stage – puncheur stage, hard final, gaps likely to be happen. It’s a stage that being for GC riders usually goes to the breakaway with GC riders saving the watt for giving everything on these three steeps kms. Carcassonne is again a sprint on the paper but with several climbs in it it’s unlikely to be – the city hosts again a finish after the Cavendish record (and some criticism for the three turns before the mass sprint). Final is indeed hard than last year and even here there are chances of avoiding the mass sprint.

Third week

Tour de France 2022 – Stage 16
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 17
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 18
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 19
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 20
Tour de France 2022 – Stage 21
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Third week fixes the main error of the last year and put finally out of the table the baby stages with two climbs. Foix brings back on the race the Mur de Peguere where due to the steepness something will happen even if the descent doesn’t favour riders on the move. Peyragudes stages features four climbs in 130 km, all short and fast with one technical descent on the Horquette. The big flaw of this stage like the Horquette is the final ramp of Peyragudes being steep (it’s the same of 2017) and not favouring the riders who will want to attack earlier in the climb.

Hautacam will so be the last day on the mountains – the “now or never” day in an unfortunately short stage but better than Luz Ardiden 2021 featuring Aubisque and Spandelles (you may also know this climb from one of the my Pro Cycling Manager TDF variants) before the final in Hautacam. Descent of Spandelles is also technical on a narrow road (unless resurfacing will happen before july) and the final climb of Hautacam done in third week has always delivered some good gaps.

Stage 19 can probably feature a mass sprint. I’d say probably because usually this stage has been given to the breakaway all the time with breakaway riders having their last chance before Paris and sprinters+teams wanting to save energies for the last day after having battled to survive in the mountains (TDF time limits are the most tight by far in comparison with Giro and Vuelta).

Stage 20 will be the usual, traditional, classic penultimate day ITT with punchy finish and proper stage distance. It’s the third year in a row that TDF decides to go back with the final ITT instead of a KOM. Wishing for one hour ITTs back in the game, we can be satisfied with what’s on the table. Nothing to say with Stage 21 that is the usual criterium on the Champs.

Overview

Tour de France 2021 – Global Elevation

The official website defines the route “a route for attackers“. This TDF seems in fact heavily designed for taking advantage of the dualism between Van Aert and Van der Poel bringing them rightly into the green jersey contention due to the lack of stages for pure sprinters. Van Aert could’ve easily won the green last year but he didn’t had the green light to go into sprints – in 2020 for domestique duties, in 2021 also being scared of getting injured for Olympics. While we can discuss if it’s fair for Van Aert to go also for his own ambition while helping the captain we cannot unsee how TDF designed a lot of stages in which top 10 gaps can happen likely every day.

ASO picked an experimental route following the “modern cycling” in which you prefer to having more gaps alongside the whole Grand Tour than the big day – will it pay? It didn’t in the last times they tried due to lot of conservative racing but they’ll hope things to change with the current peloton. Lack of the mountain stage over 200 kms remains, there are some proper climbs in the mountain stages unlike last year and the number of MTFs has been increased. The big difference in comparison to Giro remains in the middle mountain stages that are too easy to see any GC contention and the only ones that will feature GC gaps it’s because of a steep climb placed in final.

You won’t see here stages like Diamante – Potenza or Torino – Torino of Giro 2021 (the last one was Porrentruy 2012) and this is first due to lack of infrastructures in French territory, then due to organizers choices. In this sense some different choices for example could’ve been taken in Calais (Cassel in the final) and Saint-Etienne stages. A Team Time Trial would’ve been good on a route like that, first to set some times between Roglic and Pogacar and second to force some teams to take some good TTers instead of mountain superdomestiques making the roster choice more tactical.

As a cycling fanatic I’ll have to hope that the experiment will work and ASO will so be motivated to put other similar routes in the future – and that means a close GC battle and a lot of stages in which it happens. Stages like Nimes, Quillan and Andorra of TDF 2021 are good only for the riders who won it – less for the spectators, considering that last two happened also on a weekend. Target of ASO is trying to bring the first week racing of last year over three weeks and while the profiles of the Tour de France are not necessarily as difficult as the Giro d’italia – the intensity of competition still makes it the hardest grand tour in terms of average level and level required to win stages. Up to the riders now riding like if there is no tomorrow every day and hoping ASO plan to not backfire again.

Tour de France 2021 – My ideas about the upcoming race

I am honestly excited about TDF 2021 battle. For the first time we have not a clear favourite – or better, we have, it’s Pogacar – but team balanced the individual skills. Pogacar on the top 3 has the weakest team – can be easily isolated and unlike the last year won’t be dragged for free around France. He is still owerpowered compared to the rest and in a normal route he would probably be the favourite. But this isn’t a normal route.

This tour present a correct amount of ITT KMs but lacks about an hard mountain stage. And this is why, for example, Thomas is the INEOS leader. Thomas isn’t as strong as Carapaz in mountain (and of course is not better than Roglic and Pogacar), isn’t as fast as Roglic in ITTs.

INEOS has indeed the better team, but they don’t have the better rider. They have to play how they are not used to do in TDF: tactical superiority. About that, i will take into account Porte or Carapaz – probably the 2nd over the first. In a situation in which Carapaz has more than 1 minute, he can come back in GC counterattacking after INEOS had isolated the peloton and rest of captains are one by one. Similar with how he won Giro with Movistar. If INEOS take the train tactic, instead, they are unlikely to win and we’ll get a boring TDF. We have then Roglic and Jumbo-Visma. Where did Roglic lose the last TDF? In the ITT. Why he lost it? Because he rely on a tiny gap. Pogacar did a super ITT, but you should take care into account that you can have a mechanical, or a bad day, and try to increase the gap where you can. Roglic could’ve increased twice: on Glieres stage, where Pogacar suffered and he stopped and on Loze, pacing hard before the climb when Bahrain stopped. He was better than Pogacar on that day, he didn’t. For sure Roglic learnt the lesson – he didn’t race before TDF to avoid to have troubles of keeping form for 3 weeks (remember he suffered in last Vuelta too) and if he have legs, he’ll surely attack.

Another error of Jumbo-Visma in 2020 was to not keep a 2nd rider in GC. Dumoulin was out of contention in Peyresourde. Could’ve helped them a lot in stages like Glieres in which everyone was isolated while they got 3-4 riders. Send him to the move, let the other chase. With this route, I’d try to keep WVA in the GC the more I can. Could help a lot, specially in covering INEOS.

Pogacar, then. Pogacar in this TDF has only to hope to get the jersey the more late he can. He don’t have the riders to decimate INEOS when attacking, even if he’s the strongest. With this route, he can make the difference on Portet and Ventoux stages – my only concern on Ventoux is that descent is 0 technical, so you have to gain a lot of time. 10-15” gaps are likely to be closed. You have then to see how he performs in hot temperatures – he suffered in NCs ITT last week.

All the above can get simply get void by stages 1 and 2. It’s TDF, there are two uphill finishes with no 3 Kms rule. One crash and you are out, like Dumoulin in 2018 at Mur de Bretagne. And first stages are the one with most crashes as everyone wants to be in front and take the yellow – EVERYONE. Take 2 minutes for a crash and you have already lost the tour.

Possibile outsider: Alaphilippe. He is here for GC. Zero doubts. Route suits him in his limits, suited more Evenepoel or Almeida, but they are not here. Alaphilippe will skip olympics so he’ll probably be focused on tdf. In 2019 his problem was the third week (and the resistance over 21 days). Now we’ll discover if he worked on it.

Green jersey: can’t see someone beating Sagan. Maybe only Demare, but Demare won’t take points in First two stages. Ewan can win it if he goes for intermediates, but in the past he didn’t. Van der poel Is not going to finish the tour, Van Aert would be a contender and the favourite but only if he will be allowed to attack and go into breakaway in mountains to take the IS points, like Sagan can and will do.

KOM Battle: two options here according to peloton attitude. Kom battle will be played on big climbs, namely Ventoux 2nd passage, Portet and Luz Ardiden. These climbs will give 40 to 1st, other HC will give 20, 1st cat 10. The stage to win it is Le Grand Bornand that has four 1st category and in this final race always ended with a breakaway reaching finish since I have memory.

So, that’s all for this my personal ideas of TDF 2021. Who will be your winner? My guess is INEOS taking it, but not with Thomas.

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