TDF 2018, Stage 18: Trie-sur-Baïse > Pau 26/07/2018 - 171 km *Spoilers*

blazing_saddles
blazing_saddles Posts: 21,832
edited July 2018 in Pro race
Trie-sur-Baïse > Pau 26/07/2018 - Stage 18 - 171 km

Stage 18 of the Tour de France 2018 is 171km from Trie-sur-Baïse to Pau. It's a flat stage which comes in the middle of the Tour's stay in the Pyrenees, and so for the sprinters it represents an oasis in a desert.
The stage starts at Trie-sur-Baïse, a small but historic ville bastide in the Hautes-Pyrénées département of France, which is home to about 1,000 people.
Eglise des Carmes, Trie-sur-Baïse.

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Pau and La Grande Boucle belong to each other like a dog to its boss. In last eight editions, the Tour de France visited the town in the Pyrenees’ foothills eight times. More often for a departure, although last year’s race saw a bunch sprint in the streets of Pau with Marcel Kittel speeding to his fifth victory of that edition ahead of Dylan Groenewegen and Edvald Boasson Hagen.

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Today's stage is in between the Pyrenees to the south and les Landes to the north. Stage 18 heads west north west out of town on the D17, and the départ réel comes after a few kilometres on that road.

The riders soon leave the Hautes-Pyrénées département, and enter the Gers. The first town of any significance is Miélan, which stands close to the Lac de Miélan.

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The biggest hurdles on the 18th stage are the Côte de Madiran and the Côte d’Anos. The first one is a hill of 1.2 kilometres at 7% (KOM at kilometres 53.5) and the second climbs for 2.1 kilometres at 4.6%. The mountain points on the Anos are up for grabs with 18.5 kilometres remaining. The route continues on the flat for 6.5 kilometres before the plunge, with one hairpin, runs to the false flat descending finale. Sprint teams should be aware of a sharp bend with 1.2 kilometres out.

Video of the final 5kms.
https://youtu.be/Mn7v1t3qlKg

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One more thing about the love between Pau and La Grande Boucle. In the race’s history the town was departure place on 52 occasions, while it served as a finish fifty times. The story of Trie-sur-Baïse stands in stark contrast, as the village to the northeast of Tarbes makes its first appearance in the Tour de France.

The publicity caravan sets off from Trie-sur-Baïse at 1155, and the peloton at 1355. The projected average speeds are 39, 41, and 43kmh, and depending on which is the most accurate, the riders will arrive at the finish line in Pau between 1738 and 1758cet.

Favourites 18th stage 2018 Tour de France
*** Peter Sagan? Arnaud Démare, Alexander Kristoff,
** Magnus Cort Nielsen, John Degenkolb, Edvald Boasson Hagen
* Sonny Cobrelli, Andrea Pasqualon, Christophe Laporte, Timothy Dupont, the random breakaway bloke.

The team hotels for this interlude stage.

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Trie-sur-Baïse

No previous stage

Chef-lieu de canton of Hautes-Pyrénées (65)

1,100 inhabitants (Triais)

The main vestige of the eventful history of Trie-sur-Baise, marked by the Hundred Years War and the wars or religion, can be found in… New York. On a bank of the Hudson, close to the Bronx, lies The Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts sheltering four medieval cloisters from abbeys in France and Spain. And among those features the old monastery of Trie-sur-Baise, destroyed by the Protestant troops of Montgomery and by the French Revolution. The original cloister comprised more than 80 capitals and the St Sever Abbey acquired 48, now visible in the gardens of the Massey Park in Tarbes. The rest were dispersed after the demolition of the monastery in the 18th century and were almost entirely recovered before WWI by American arts collector George Grey Barnard. The y can now be admired in The Cloisters, one of the most astonishing museums in New York.

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TRIE-SUR-BAÏSE AND CYCLING

The village is one of nine new localities on the Tour de France map but riders will not be too lost as the department of Hautes-Pyrenees is one of the most visited by the race. Close to Trie-sur-Baise, Lannemezan hosted the starts of several Pyrenean stages, often headed for Plateau de Beille. As for prefecture Tarbes, it has been hosting the Tour since 1933. Trie-sur-Baise saw the peloton ride through at full speed several times in the past, for instance in 2016 for the 7th stage between l’Isle-Jourdan and Lac de Payolle, won by Stephen Cummings. In 2012, the village was the start of a Route du Sud stage won by Nairo Quintana in Arras-en-Lavedan.
Trie-sur-Baise is also the birthplace of a larger than life character, René Sanders. In 1953, this French athlete walked from Lourdes to Rome, stopping along the way in the homes of fellow-sportsmen. He later ran a restaurant in Narbonne, regularly receiving cycling’s biggest names of the 1950s and 60s. His guests inspired his two sons, Dominique and Gilles, who both took part in the Tour de France three times.

Specialities: black pork of Bigorre, Tarbes beans, Gascony hen, cows.

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The Ader charcuterie in Trie-sur-Baise sells a wide variety of hams, all as tasty as possible. The ham on the bone remains a noble and traditional product. Given its proximity with Spain, the Ader charcuterie also produces Serrano hams mad from Spanish pork. Trie-sur-Baise was for centuries one of the biggest pork markets in the south of France.

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Pau

69 previous stages

Prefecture of Pyrénées-Atlantiques (64)

77,600 inhabitants (Palois)

162,000 in the 31 communes of Pau Béarn Pyrénées

While the city of Henry IV hosted the Tour 69 times, placing it on the podium behind Paris and Bordeaux in terms of fidelity to the race, it is also since 2016 the town of the Tour of Giants –– statues glorifying the winners of the greatest cycling race. On each of the totems feature the name and the picture of each winner by year with a text written by Pau-born writer Christian Laborde. The totems, nearly eight metres high, form a monument displayed in a park in Bois Louis, near the Philippe Tissie stadium. The site, organised in the shape of a spiral, will receive a new statue every year. On each statue of aluminium and glass also features the number of kilometres ridden that year, the average speed of the winner as well as pictures or drawings. By scanning a code with a smartphone, it is possible to listen to the text translated into several languages. At night, the monument will be lit and visible from Boulevard des Pyrenees.
Boulevard des Pyrenees
Completed in 1900, Pau’s most famous street opens up on an exceptional panoramic view over more than150 km of the Pyrenees. Its 850-metres-long balustrade details the various summits. Jean-Charles Alphand, who also designed the Champs-Elysees in Paris, initiated the project when he said: “What Pau is missing is a Promenade des Anglais like in Nice.” The boulevard was conceived as a replica of the Nice promenade up in the mountains. It is the ideal spot to see and be seen. Perched at the top of an entirely artificial cliff, it was a technical and aesthetic prowess that has since organised Pau’s urban development.

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Park and Palais Beaumont
Built in 1900 for the rich tourists of the time, the Winter Palace known as Palais Beaumont is now home to a casino and a congress hall. The site is located inside a park composed with remarkable trees and an outdoor theatre.

National museum and castle of Pau
Built on a rocky ridge overlooking a ford on the Gave, the castle’s foundations date from the early Middle-Ages. But the present aspect of the castle owes much to Gaston Febus, viscount of Bearn in the 14th century. In the next, it became the residence of the viscounts of Bearn, who inherited the kingdom of Navarre. Henri IV was born here in 1553. Restored by King Louis-Philippe, the castle became a museum in 1926. Alongside the royal apartments, it is home to several collections devoted to King Henri and a great number of tapestries, making it the biggest tapestry museum in France outside Paris.

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PAU AND CYCLING

Pau is hosting the Tour de France for the 70th time in a common history that started in 1930. Placed before or after the Pyrenees, it crowned all types or riders, from climbers like Rene Vietto and Fausto Coppi, to attacking riders like Pierrick Fedrigo. Sprinters like Sean Kelly , Erik Zabel or Robbie McEwen showed the way to Marcel Kittel, who clinched his 14th stage win on the Tour in Pau last year.
With so many visits, the race could not help but inspire young talent to emerge. One of the first famous riders from Pau was Victor Fontan, winner of two stages in 1928 and yellow jersey holder in 1929, followed by 1956 team time trial Olympic champion Arnaud Gevre and closer to now eight-times Tour rider Stéphane Augé, Mathieu LAdagnous, with six participations, or Team Sky sports director Nicolas Portal, who also rode the Tour six times.

Specialities: garbure (soup), poule au pot (hen in the pot), foie gras, magret and dishes derived from duck and goose, honey, Vert Galant coucougnettes (grilled almonds wrapped in black chocolate and almond paste with raspberry). Verdier chocolates, Francis Miot jams, Russe (cake with almonds and praline), ossau-iraty (cheese), wines (Jurançon, Madiran, Pacherenc).

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"Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
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Comments

  • DeVlaeminck
    DeVlaeminck Posts: 8,746
    Been looking forwards to this one, I have stuff to do that isn't watching cycling.
    [Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]
  • inseine
    inseine Posts: 5,786
    Nice Blazing, I would suggest your intro might be better than the stage.
  • Lanterne_Rogue
    Lanterne_Rogue Posts: 4,091
    With barely any real sprinters left, of whom Demare is clearly struggling and Sagan took a whack yesterday, the fight to get into the break might be the most interesting part of today's stage as people gamble on nobody working to bring them back later.
  • With barely any real sprinters left, of whom Demare is clearly struggling and Sagan took a whack yesterday, the fight to get into the break might be the most interesting part of today's stage as people gamble on nobody working to bring them back later.

    A Laporte win would be the praline on the almond for me
  • above_the_cows
    above_the_cows Posts: 11,406
    a-sleeping-cow.jpg

    many-hours-day-cows-sleep_c76b68ab2a2e88c.jpg

    iStock-537624540-1024x683.jpg

    sleeping-horse-770x405.png
    Correlation is not causation.
  • above_the_cows
    above_the_cows Posts: 11,406
    It will be a totally epic stage now won't it?

    What's the wind doing?
    Correlation is not causation.
  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,393
    A katabatic wind from the SW would be a larf eh?
    We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
    - @ddraver
  • FocusZing
    FocusZing Posts: 4,373
    Just have to wait for the gendarme to liven things up, pepper spray, randomly pull riders off bikes, stingers...
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 21,832
    It will be a totally epic stage now won't it?

    What's the wind doing?

    sleeping-animals-pose-42.jpg
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • bobmcstuff
    bobmcstuff Posts: 11,196
    Well my habit of comparing odds to Inrng and posting it here seemed to pay off for a few people yesterday (including myself), so I feel justified and will keep spamming the spoiler threads :lol:

    Although today looks pretty dull, there's not arbitrage to be had (I know it's not really arbitrage)

    The bookies chainrings rating:

    threerings.jpg
    tworings.jpg Kristoff, Sagan, Demare
    onering.jpg Magnus Cort, Degenkolb, Colbrelli, EBH

    This compares to the Inrng ratings:

    threerings.jpg -
    tworings.jpg Alexander Kristoff, Peter Sagan
    onering.jpg Démare, Degenkolb, Arndt, Laporte, Colbrelli

    Kristoff is marginal favourite at the bookies on average, but you can get the same odds for all 3 at different places (between 3 and 4 to 1). There's a clear gap in the odds between Demare and the next group, so it's interesting that Inrng has given Demare a 1 star rating (although I do follow his reasoning, Demare does seem to have been suffering).

    But to be honest, Laporte is at 30 or 40/1 and Arndt even longer, so I am not sure if I agree with Inrng's one star ratings there. Based on odds, if Laporte and Arndt deserve a rating then so do GVA, de Gendt, Richeze, Lampaert, Impey and Valgren as they are all available at similar odds. To be fair to Inrng, he does mention most of those as potential breakaway contenders though.
  • hantstooflat
    hantstooflat Posts: 122
    Wondering how far into today's stage that stage 19's intro will appear?
    “Jij bent niet van suiker gemaakt”
  • FocusZing
    FocusZing Posts: 4,373
    bobmcstuff wrote:
    Well my habit of comparing odds to Inrng and posting it here seemed to pay off for a few people yesterday (including myself), so I feel justified and will keep spamming the spoiler threads :lol:

    Although today looks pretty dull, there's not arbitrage to be had (I know it's not really arbitrage)

    The bookies chainrings rating:

    threerings.jpg
    tworings.jpg Kristoff, Sagan, Demare
    onering.jpg Magnus Cort, Degenkolb, Colbrelli, EBH

    This compares to the Inrng ratings:

    threerings.jpg -
    tworings.jpg Alexander Kristoff, Peter Sagan
    onering.jpg Démare, Degenkolb, Arndt, Laporte, Colbrelli

    Kristoff is marginal favourite at the bookies on average, but you can get the same odds for all 3 at different places (between 3 and 4 to 1). There's a clear gap in the odds between Demare and the next group, so it's interesting that Inrng has given Demare a 1 star rating (although I do follow his reasoning, Demare does seem to have been suffering).

    But to be honest, Laporte is at 30 or 40/1 and Arndt even longer, so I am not sure if I agree with Inrng's one star ratings there. Based on odds, if Laporte and Arndt deserve a rating then so do GVA, de Gendt, Richeze, Lampaert, Impey and Valgren as they are all available at similar odds. To be fair to Inrng, he does mention most of those as potential breakaway contenders though.

    This must be a bit old, Sagan? That crash looked pretty heavy.
  • DeVlaeminck
    DeVlaeminck Posts: 8,746
    Anyone got a link to the sagan crash I haven't seen it, was it on the tv coverage?
    [Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]
  • bobmcstuff
    bobmcstuff Posts: 11,196
    FocusZing wrote:

    This must be a bit old, Sagan? That crash looked pretty heavy.

    No, is current.

    Inrng on Sagan
    Inrng wrote:

    Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) crashed yesterday and is sore but (hopefully) rides on, this could cost him.

    But still gave him a 2-star rating, and my ratings are from currently-available odds.
  • ridgerider
    ridgerider Posts: 2,851
    Route map...a wolf howling at the moon.
    Half man, Half bike
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 13,339
    Sagan looked pretty banged up, but you know, he's Sagan.
    Kristoff has done little of any note so far and has some issues with his team.
    Demare has either struggled badly or timed his efforts perfectly or... #notthefirsttime

    The Deg for me, though I can't possibly be right twice in a GT.
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 13,339
    Ridgerider wrote:
    Route map...a wolf howling at the moon.

    Nonsense.

    It's clearly a cat lounging on a tree stump or a camel's head flobbing on a Sky rider.
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format
  • onyourright
    onyourright Posts: 509
    Sagan has sewn up the green jersey, has already won three stages, and has now crashed heavily. Even if he physically could be in contention today, I see no reason for him to try too hard. Risks crashing again and not making it to Paris.
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 13,339
    Sagan. He also lost a fair amount of green jersey on his back.

    DjBlsXuXoAABJXp.jpg:large
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format
  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,101
    Sagan. He also lost a fair amount of green jersey on his back.

    DjBlsXuXoAABJXp.jpg:large
    Which is presumably why he had to sew it up?
    Team My Man 2022:

    Antwan Tolhoek, Sam Oomen, Tom Dumoulin, Thymen Arensman, Remco Evenepoel, Benoît Cosnefroy, Tom Pidcock, Mark Cavendish, Romain Bardet
  • dish_dash
    dish_dash Posts: 5,564
    Sagan looked pretty banged up, but you know, he's Sagan.
    Kristoff has done little of any note so far and has some issues with his team.
    Demare has either struggled badly or timed his efforts perfectly or... #notthefirsttime

    The Deg for me, though I can't possibly be right twice in a GT.

    Kristoff's been top 5 in all but one (top 7 there) of the sprint stages thus far. Shows decent form IMHO and bodes well given the number of sprinters no longer around... team issues notwithstanding...
  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,393
    So how are we pronoucing Baïse then?

    Cos Baise should definitly be bloked by Le Filter de swear...
    We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
    - @ddraver
  • FocusZing
    FocusZing Posts: 4,373
    With Tomorrow's stage it's just going to be getting through today and concentrating on that Green in Paris.
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 21,832
    Wondering how far into today's stage that stage 19's intro will appear?

    The neutral zone. :wink:
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 21,832
    Peace has broken out in the peloton and the breakaway is finally free.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • hanshotfirst
    hanshotfirst Posts: 373
    Durbridge in the break?

    ... is Kirby on air?
  • onyourright
    onyourright Posts: 509
    Hayman and Durbridge, Terpstra, Boudat, and Van Keirsbulck are the five in the break. Impressive rouleur power there. It’s a good day not to be a domestique on one of the remaining teams with a sprinter.
  • sagefly
    sagefly Posts: 295
    Durbridge could be there to enahnce his LR credentials
    Turned out nice again!
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 21,832
    Poor tactics from Group FDJ and UAE, keeping the break far too close.
    Now it's all kicked off again.

    Chute!
    Quintana down.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • mididoctors
    mididoctors Posts: 16,914
    strange day. tactically difficult for a lot of teams
    "If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm