TdF 2017: Stage 9 Nantua - Chambéry 181.5KM *Spoilers*

above_the_cows
above_the_cows Posts: 11,406
edited July 2017 in Pro race
OK I'll kick this one off because I am really really excited about it because I KNOW these roads well.

Nantua - Chambéry, 181 and a sneaky .5 km with 3 HC climbs and the Prettiest Road in the Whole Wide World™ in the D210 to the Côte de Jongieux.

CARTE.jpg

PROFIL.png

PROFILCOLSCOTES_1.png

The beastly cat mountain with its descent of doom!

PROFILCOLSCOTES_2.png

I'll be back with some useless trivia and random photos.
Correlation is not causation.
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Comments

  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,156
    For some reason I've been looking at this stage and struggling get excited by it, I think it must be down to there being more than 25k from the final summit to the finish. Hopefully I'm wrong and the support riders will get shelled on the Grand Colombier leaving a long, hard battle through the valleys. Today will hopefully catch up on people early in tomorrow's stage.
  • above_the_cows
    above_the_cows Posts: 11,406
    edited July 2017
    Prettiest Road in the Whole Wide World™, although the picture doesn't do it justice. The view back towards the Grand Colombier is special.

    2-2218638.jpg

    Wine from the Prettiest Road in the Whole Wide World™.

    eugene-carrel-fils-jongieux-mondeuse-savoie-france-10360204.jpg

    Evil Cat Mountain from the Côte of the Prettiest Road in the Whole Wide World™.

    IMG_1782_zpsvgmgljzl.jpg

    We have a dog and cat mountain on this stage. This stage has everything including the Prettiest Road in the Whole Wide World™
    Correlation is not causation.
  • above_the_cows
    above_the_cows Posts: 11,406
    Pross wrote:
    For some reason I've been looking at this stage and struggling get excited by it

    But it has the world's prettiest* road!





    *Citation needed
    Correlation is not causation.
  • above_the_cows
    above_the_cows Posts: 11,406
    edited July 2017
    Le Grand Fromage of The Ginormous Bunting has the following to say...
    Even in the Alps and the Pyrenees, climbs with average gradients of close to 10% on their entire length are pretty rare. There will be three on this Jura stage with a total ascending elevation of 4600 metres. The riders will first discover the climb up the Col de la Biche, followed by the unprecedented and fearsome side of the Grand Colombier, known as the Directissime (gradients up to 22%), and will finish the battle off with the Mont du Chat, not on the Tour map since 1974. It'll be a real...

    He clearly doesn't know about the World's Official Prettiest Road™. Sad.

    Even the Le Tour website when talking about Jongieux does not know about the Official Prettiest Road in the World™.
    Dominated by the Château de la Mar, a 13th-century fortified house at the foot of the Marestel hillsides, Jongieux also has a Michelin-starred restaurant, the Morainières, headed by chef Mickaël Arnoult.

    Who CARES about the Michelin-stared restaurant, what about the PRETTY ROAD?

    These people are philistines.
    Correlation is not causation.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,156
    The first two climbs are odd, from the profile it looks like one climb that flattens slightly in the middle.
  • above_the_cows
    above_the_cows Posts: 11,406
    Pross wrote:
    The first two climbs are odd, from the profile it looks like one climb that flattens slightly in the middle.

    You mean the Col of the Bîtch?
    Correlation is not causation.
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,241
    Pross wrote:
    For some reason I've been looking at this stage and struggling get excited by it, I think it must be down to there being more than 25k from the final summit to the finish. Hopefully I'm wrong and the support riders will get shelled on the Grand Colombier leaving a long, hard battle through the valleys. Today will hopefully catch up on people early in tomorrow's stage.
    I'm not sure any team is willing to start throw hand grenades around yet. All the GC guys still think they are in contention.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 27,760
    Sky have got to be tired after today. If they want to isolate Froome, this is the stage.
  • Lanterne_Rogue
    Lanterne_Rogue Posts: 4,325
    KingstonGraham wrote:
    Sky have got to be tired after today. If they want to isolate Froome, this is the stage.

    Which is why BMC told GVA and Roche to soft-pedal today and save their leg-

    Oh.

    Kind of funny hearing LRP saying that he hopes Sky have knackered themselves out today. I'd love to see his face when he gets back to the bus and finds out what that pair were up to...
    Twitter: @canocola @thedreadships
  • squired
    squired Posts: 1,153
    My bet is that this stage will do very little in terms of the GC due to the distance between the final climb and the finish. Sky will look to reach the top of the final climb with enough riders to do tempo on the front to the finish. After a pretty uninteresting GC race so far I'm hoping to be wrong, but no one is going to want to ride solo for GC to the finish. Maybe a small group of GC guys at best, but who knows.
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,241
    squired wrote:
    My bet is that this stage will do very little in terms of the GC due to the distance between the final climb and the finish. Sky will look to reach the top of the final climb with enough riders to do tempo on the front to the finish. After a pretty uninteresting GC race so far I'm hoping to be wrong, but no one is going to want to ride solo for GC to the finish. Maybe a small group of GC guys at best, but who knows.
    Froome will want to use that descent at the end. He went down it well at the Dauphine and someone like Quintana is less familiar with it.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • wombly_knees
    wombly_knees Posts: 657
    My pipe dream for this stage was to see Froome and Valverde bomb down the descent. That was shattered an hour into the race. Screw this stage... 25 man slow motion sprint finish
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,156
    Odd isn't it. When we have a GC contender taking loads of time on the first MTF to TT we get 'well that's the race over with 2 weeks to go' but we have 9 riders within a minute of the lead and it gets called an uninteresting GC race.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,648
    Queen stage this one, no?
    _
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,156
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    Queen stage this one, no?

    I'd say Stage 17 is, one less HC but two peaks over 2000m.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,648
    Kind of stage sky are set up for.

    Survive the climbs and still there on the flats....
    _
  • Richmond Racer 2
    Richmond Racer 2 Posts: 4,698
    underlayunderlay wrote:
    KingstonGraham wrote:
    Sky have got to be tired after today. If they want to isolate Froome, this is the stage.

    Which is why BMC told GVA and Roche to soft-pedal today and save their leg-

    Oh.

    Kind of funny hearing LRP saying that he hopes Sky have knackered themselves out today. I'd love to see his face when he gets back to the bus and finds out what that pair were up to...


    Sky are living rent-free in LRP's mind innit
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,704
    Richmond Racer 2 wrote:
    underlayunderlay wrote:
    KingstonGraham wrote:
    Sky have got to be tired after today. If they want to isolate Froome, this is the stage.

    Which is why BMC told GVA and Roche to soft-pedal today and save their leg-

    Oh.

    Kind of funny hearing LRP saying that he hopes Sky have knackered themselves out today. I'd love to see his face when he gets back to the bus and finds out what that pair were up to...


    Sky are living rent-free in LRP's mind innit

    Apart from Sir Dave. He living in Richie's camper van.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • salsiccia1
    salsiccia1 Posts: 3,725
    Richmond Racer 2 wrote:
    underlayunderlay wrote:
    KingstonGraham wrote:
    Sky have got to be tired after today. If they want to isolate Froome, this is the stage.

    Which is why BMC told GVA and Roche to soft-pedal today and save their leg-

    Oh.

    Kind of funny hearing LRP saying that he hopes Sky have knackered themselves out today. I'd love to see his face when he gets back to the bus and finds out what that pair were up to...


    Sky are living rent-free in LRP's mind innit

    Yep, hence BMC trying to out-Sky Sky, but not having the horses (or the jockey)
    It's only a bit of sport, Mun. Relax and enjoy the racing.
  • knedlicky
    knedlicky Posts: 3,097
    Above The Cows wrote:
    Prettiest Road in the Whole Wide World™, although the picture doesn't do it justice. The view back towards the Grand Colombier is special.
    2-2218638.jpg

    You mean this view? (though it's a pity the higher ground in the distance, i.e. GC, being missing/cropped off)

    photo_13_fr_jongieux-_2_.jpg?w=1000
  • knedlicky
    knedlicky Posts: 3,097
    Pross wrote:
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    Queen stage this one, no?
    I'd say Stage 17 is, one less HC but two peaks over 2000m.
    Eitherway, the stage could determine who'll have the polka-dot in Paris.
  • above_the_cows
    above_the_cows Posts: 11,406
    ^^No they don't take that road in the photo. There's a road between the church and where the photographer is standing, you can see it in the dip where the track disappears.

    The road goes north to south, that road in the photo goes west to east.

    To see Grand Colombier you'd have to twist the camera about 25 degrees to the left/north west.
    Correlation is not causation.
  • knedlicky
    knedlicky Posts: 3,097
    Above The Cows wrote:
    ^^No they don't ...
    You don’t mean the road through the vineyards in the centre of ‚my’ photo? I mean as the prettiest road in the WWW.
    That’s actually a road coming up from Barcontian, to the north of Jongieux (whereas the road rising on the hillside and going off into the distance, on the right of the photo, eventually leads to Les Puthod).
    I understand the riders don’t go along the roads shown in ‘my’ photo, I was trying to locate the prettiest road in the WWW. :-)
    The riders, however, will go along the ziggy-zaggy road beyond the church in ‘your’ photo, as they go to Jongieux-Le-Haut and gradually approach the côte (Yes they do!)
    Eitherway, I feel pretty certain that’s GC in the far distance with its head cut off (in ‘my’ photo).
  • inseine
    inseine Posts: 5,788
    The col du chat is the first big climb I ever did. Next day I did le Plagne. I can't wait fir this stage
    http://cyclinganddesign.blogspot.fr/
  • inseine
    inseine Posts: 5,788
    Dan Martin in yellow tonight ? :)
    http://cyclinganddesign.blogspot.fr/
  • norvernrob
    norvernrob Posts: 1,448
    inseine wrote:
    Dan Martin in yellow tonight ? :)

    It's going to be difficult for any of the GC contenders to hold a gap due to the amount of distance left after the descent, but if a few can get away together then there's definitely a chance.

    Watching Froome fly down it during the Dauphine, I fully expect some ditch-related excursions if riders start coming under pressure to chase.
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 21,532
    I can see a few contenders no longer being contenders after today (Contador and Quintana for example). Otherwise, I'm not expecting too much GC action.
  • Mountains09
    Mountains09 Posts: 23
    We've seen ultra hard stages end up neutralising action in the past and if it rains at the end of the stage that might discourage someone really going for it on the final climb/descent.

    That said yesterday was so hard and the climbs are so tough today even if it's generally conservative I can see a few being dropped. Friebe was interesting saying on the podcast that he thinks BMC/Porte have to do something becuase he maybe at his peak and his form may dip in the final week. I can see Froome trying something on the final climb especially as he seems to have a bit of an advantage on the descents thesedays.

    Either way I think we'll find out who has and hasn't got proper climbing legs and form today.
  • kleinstroker
    kleinstroker Posts: 2,133
    Looks like a great stage, have to work though. I never seem to get the good stages off.
  • FocusZing
    FocusZing Posts: 4,373
    Brilliant the main protagonists are all still bitchen, ready for a mixup today. Hoping for general allied shenanigans.

    Powermeters, I'd sh+t-em!

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