Tour de France:- Stage 14: Grenoble - Risoul *Spoiler*

blazing_saddles

Stage 14, Saturday, July 19th: Grenoble / Risoul - 177km
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Col d'Izoard (2 360 m) - Souvenir Henri Desgrange

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Weather

thomthom

Now, that's how you start a race thread!

Lovely stage. Kittel will win this easily.

type:epyt

Thank you BS, for the lack of, well, BS ...

frenchfighter

84km of climbing followed by a HC then a cat 1 with no valley!! If they race this moderately hard its going to be a blood bath.

type:epyt

Izoard's HC status seems a bit generous.

FJS

Not counting Armstrong, who is the last to win the Tour with more than 3 stage wins? Indurain never did I'm sure. Hinault?

Yellow Peril

a tough day in the saddle. Will Nibs follow the wheels or put the peleton to the sword?

Wigster

Should be a good watch - anything could happen IMO.

davidof

The Lauteret is not too bad a climb, only the last few km are relatively hard but the Izoard is a hard climb and merits its HC tag I think.

Oh, here's an image for the start at Grenoble



they will pass by the foot of l'Alpe d'Huez en route but up to la Grave the gradients are relatively mild; even the sprinters should be able to hang on that far.

type:epyt

The Izoard is (ok looks, I've never ridden it) no harder than something like the Klausenpass, which if you're fit can be done in the 50T.

davidof

type:epyt wrote:

The Izoard is (ok looks, I've never ridden it) no harder than something like the Klausenpass, which if you're fit can be done in the 50T.

It is a hard climb after les Laus.

Lanterne_Rogue

Those temps sensible don't look terribly sensible to me.

Does the hive mind think this stage is short enough to really kick off from the start, or will it be cagey until the final climb? Would be good to see some of the teams without any GC hopes but with strong riders start to animate for stage wins, but not sure how likely that is to happen.

dave milne

Izoard at 19k is pretty easy to be fair

DeVlaeminck

Agree the Lautaret probably looks harder on that route profile than it is, partly because it's a nice wide well surfaced road that they'll roll up as a bunch, a headwind wouldn't make it easy to be on the front

Haven't been over the Izoard but it's probably HC because it's such a historic one if the gradients aren't quite deserving of the title, as I say I've not done it. The 30k between the summit and the foot of the final climb has to be enough to stop discourage anyone up the GC having a go on the Izoard.

joelsim

ThomThom wrote:

Now, that's how you start a race thread!

Lovely stage. Kittel will win this easily.

Just put a fiver on him at 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000/1.

Each Way just to be safe.

Funnily enough a guy at work asked me after the London stage why Kittel wasn't top given he'd won 2 out of the 3.

RichN95.

Joelsim wrote:

Just put a fiver on him at 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000/1.

Each Way just to be safe.

That's a coward's bet.

joelsim

RichN95 wrote:

Joelsim wrote:

Just put a fiver on him at 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000/1.

Each Way just to be safe.

That's a coward's bet.

Well I have to get the fiver back that I'm going to lose on Mollema.

tbh I had a match bet. Cav to beat Kittel tmw at 3/5 on.

ben@31

Shhhh Davidof ! Your photo will be sending the yanks NSA computers that spy on other peoples tinterweb, crazy.

Hang on a minute, a blacked out saloon car with 2 guys in suits and sunglasses has just pulled up outside. Ones talking to his cufflink.

RideOnTime

hamish_mctavish

No wine today.

powerbookboy

Yellow Peril wrote:

a tough day in the saddle. Will Nibs follow the wheels or put the peloton to the sword?

If he's got any brain he'll follow wheels until the last 4km. If you blew on the final climb, you could easily lose, what 1min/km? Would be fun to see the French really dig at him, but I think they'll looking for a podium rather than gambling on yellow.

What odds someone making a dig ~1km from the top of the Izoard, doing a mental decent to try to get a workable gap for the finale? Gotta be someone who Astana would give some leeway to. Costa, Rolland, G, Horner, Ten Dam or how about J-Rod? Or Porte, assuming it was heat-stroke.

Vino'sGhost

ThomThom wrote:

Now, that's how you start a race thread!

Lovely stage. Kittel will win this easily.

Vino'sGhost

It will be interesting to see if this is going to be Nibalis bad day.......... Brutal stage

blazing_saddles

The Lauteret is "Classified" for 34kms at a tad under 4%.
The last time it was used early on, I remember the sprinters all lined up across the road
at the head of affairs, trying to neutralize attacks!
When it did kick off, there were soon groups all over the mountain.
For those guys, it's a real day of survival. Their reward being the single, "transition"
(sprint) stage, tomorrow.

This is the type of mountain stage that defines the Tour.
Endless climbing, (3800 metres) but on moderate slopes.
However, the final half of the ascent to Risoul is certainly tough enough
to give us a repeat of yesterday's GC bottom rung scrap.

Macaloon

I think Bardet and Pinot - Bardot! - should be encouraged by Valverde's back door attack on Thibaud 5km out. If he was confident in his form, he'd have worked with Pinot to put more time into Bardet, delivering a routine humping on the line as usual. But he chose to try and drop 4th place?

On the other hand Bardot need to be en garde re Van Garderen. This is an interesting race. Bardot could make the podium.

GentlemanBear

powerbookboy wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

a tough day in the saddle. Will Nibs follow the wheels or put the peloton to the sword?

If he's got any brain he'll follow wheels until the last 4km. If you blew on the final climb, you could easily lose, what 1min/km? Would be fun to see the French really dig at him, but I think they'll looking for a podium rather than gambling on yellow.

What odds someone making a dig ~1km from the top of the Izoard, doing a mental decent to try to get a workable gap for the finale? Gotta be someone who Astana would give some leeway to. Costa, Rolland, G, Horner, Ten Dam or how about J-Rod? Or Porte, assuming it was heat-stroke.

I fancy Ten Dam for today, been relatively quiet but showed well yesterday.

milton50

If Nibali is feeling as good as it looks like then he should keep putting 40-50 seconds into his rivals. Anything can happen in the remainder of the race and if Nibali were to crash and lose 4 minutes he would never forgive himself for not extending his lead when he had the chance.

I think there is a decent chance of the breakaway winning today if there are some strong riders in the group. Sky won't help in setting the pace anymore so it's up to the likes of Movistar, FDJ, AG2R and BMC. I don't think those teams have enough strength to bring back a strong breakaway.

RonB

What about Bauke Mollema and his steady rise up the GC?

July 15 10th place, July 16 9th place, July 17 8th place, July 18 7th place. How long can this go on?

FJS

RonB wrote:

What about Bauke Mollema and his steady rise up the GC?

July 15 10th place, July 16 9th place, July 17 8th place, July 18 7th place. How long can this go on?

As long as riders in front of him keep crashing out or having off days. That's how you ride into the top 10 or top 5 of the Tour. Not the most exiting...

narbs

Are we having a cheese?



Reblochon of course only has one use, and that's to stick in tartiflette.

The_Boy

Whist having breakfast on bed this morning, I predicted blue trousers for Stefano. Should have posted my prediction on here.