Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle > Espelette 28/07/2018 - 31 km - Individual time-trial *Spoilers*

blazing_saddles

Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle > Espelette 28/07/2018 - Stage 20 - 31 km - Individual time-trial

Stage 20 of the Tour de France 2018 is the only individual time trial on the 2018 edition. This race against the clock in the Basque country, from Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle to Espelette, isn't at all flat, so if the podium places are still to be decided, any time trialists and climbers within range could stake their claims.
As was the case in 2017, the penultimate day of the Tour brings the decision on the overall win with an individual time trial. But the course is much tougher than the 2017 stage in Marseille. It is not only longer, with four intermediate climbs but it is also a lot hillier.





The stage starts at Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle. It sets off from the 'fronton', which I believe is a big wall in the centre of the village, for ball games played by hitting the ball against the wall. Pelote, or Basque pelota, is a term for various different wall games which are played on 'frontons' in the local area, and there's a museum devoted to pelote in Saint-Pée.



Stage 20 leaves Saint-Pée heading ENE on the D3. The climbing starts straight away. Saint-Pée's website says the D3 is a winding road which traverses the forest of Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle towards the villages of Arbonne and Arcangues.



A gentle plunge of 2 kilometres runs to an irregular 2.7 kilometres climb with some flat sections and its steepest ramps at 8%. Following another rolling descent (5 kilometres) the riders tackle the toughest climb at kilometre 26.5. The first metres of the Côte de Pinodieta go up at a mild 4% before the true action begins. In the next 800 metres the climb is averaging 10.5% with its steepest ramp at 21%. The top is 3 kilometres from the finish in Espelette, which is almost all on descent, although the last 500 metres of the race rise at 3%.



Video of the final 5ms.
https://youtu.be/bmwCzS0e-n4





The 31 kilometres length of the test means that the Tour de France features even less individual time trialling than last year, again beating the record for the lowest number of individual time trial kilometres in the race’s history.

The first rider leaves the ramp at 12:00 and the arrival of the last one is expected around 17:13cet.

Favourites 20th stage 2018 Tour de France

*** Tom Dumoulin, Chris Froome, Primoz Roglic
** Geraint Thomas, Tejay van Garderen, Maciej Bodnar
* Pierre Latour, Ion Izagirre, Stefan Küng, Bob Jungels, Michal Kwiatkowski

Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle

No previous stage

Commune of Pyrénées-Atlantiques (64)

6,750 inhabitants (Senpertar)

In 1857, St Pée-sur-Nivelle saw the birth of an innovation that was to change the game of pelota forever in the Basque country and far beyond. Derived from jeu de paume (real tennis), pelota was then played empty-handed or with heavy leather gloves when a local player named Jean Dithurbide, also know as Gantxiki, decided to use a wicker basket previously used to collect grapes. The Xistera or Chistera (basket) was born and was to change the game radically as it allows to throw the ball against the fronton at more than 300 kph and is much lighter than the previous gloves. Legend has it that locals used their chisteras during WWII to throw grenades at German soldiers. Two main chisteras are now being used in pelota, the big chistera, used for variety of the game known as cesta punta, and a smaller chistera used in joko garbi.
St Pée-sur-Nivelle opened a museum of pelota and chistera in 2011 and a local artist installed a giant chistera on a roundabout at the town’s entrance in 2013.



SAINT-PÉE-SUR-NIVELLE AND CYCLING

In 2018, the commune on which was invented the chistera will be overcrowded for its first date with the Tour de France. It will be all the more anticipated as the last visit by the race in the Basque Country was in 2006 for a stage starting in nearby Combo-les-Bains and heading for Pau, where Cyril Dessel took the yellow jersey.

Specialities: lamb, beef axoa, trout, taloa (corn pancakes), Basque cake.



Espelette

No previous stage

Commune of Pyrénées-Atlantiques (64)

2,080 inhabitants (Ezpeletar)

Espelette pepper
The ancestors of Espelette pepper grew in Mexico. Its cradle of origin extends from Mexico to the South of Bolivia and Brazil. Amerindians used it from a very early period as was evidenced by archaeological excavations dated from 7000 to 6000 BC. Heading West in search for a new Spice Road, the sailors of Christopher Columbus certainly discovered America, but they also discovered a new spice, the chilli. Thrilled by its taste as well as it preserving and colouring virtues, they brought this new plant back to the rest of the world. Did Gonzalo de Percarteguy, a sailor from Gipuzkoa who introduced corn in 1523 in the Valley of La Nive, have some peppers in is bag?
In 1650, especially well adapted to the local climate, pepper began to be planted in Espelette. On October 27 and 28, 2018, the village will hold the 50th annual Chilli Festival, which attracts some 20,000 visitors every year.



ESPELETTE AND CYCLING

A few French villages gained worldwide fame thanks to a local specialty. This is the case of Espelette and its chili pepper that spices all the Basque dishes like axoa, roasted doe, piperade or even chocolate. Espelette lies five kilometres from Cambo-les-Bains, start of a stage of the 2006 Tour de France won in Pau by Juan-Miguel Mercado, while Cyril Dessel seized the yellow jersey. Mercado had won a previous stage in Lons-le-Saulnier on the 2004 Tour.

Specialities: Espelette peper or Ezpeletako Biperra, the only spice in France labelled with an AOC-AOP. Veal axoa (pronounce ashoa). Antton Chocolates.

Pross

I’d have G as more of a favourite for this stage than Froome. He’s been showing good TT form of late as well as climbing better than ever. I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see him take the stage if today doesn’t go too badly.

No_Ta_Doctor

Pross wrote:

I’d have G as more of a favourite for this stage than Froome. He’s been showing good TT form of late as well as climbing better than ever. I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see him take the stage if today doesn’t go too badly.

I'm really worried about this stage, there are plenty of opportunities to fall off on a corner on a descent. If Thomas comes through today without losing time to Dumoulin then I expect him to ride it pretty conservatively.

Top picks will be those with less to lose - Dumoulin and Froome.

bobmcstuff

No tA Doctor wrote:

Pross wrote:

I’d have G as more of a favourite for this stage than Froome. He’s been showing good TT form of late as well as climbing better than ever. I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see him take the stage if today doesn’t go too badly.

I'm really worried about this stage, there are plenty of opportunities to fall off on a corner on a descent. If Thomas comes through today without losing time to Dumoulin then I expect him to ride it pretty conservatively.

Top picks will be those with less to lose - Dumoulin and Froome.

Presumably you would expect Dumoulin to take some time out of G - how much would we expect?

Agreed, G will be able to ride conservatively. Assuming he is still in yellow he will be last off, so he will be able to do as much or as little as needed (within reason obviously)

adr82

I think Dumoulin has said he doesn't expect to take any more than a minute out of Thomas at best. I'd be surprised if it was much more than 30-40 seconds given how well Thomas seems to be going and that this TT is coming at the end of Dumoulin's 2nd GT of the year.

above_the_cows

This is going to be a nailbiter for the podium places.

hypster

I'd be surprised if Froome has much motivation to get on the podium. He probably just wants to stay out of it now and let G have his day in Paris. I would say the only real race in prospect is between Dumoulin and Roglic.

I would imagine that G will go quite hard just to make sure of the win and obviously do it with some style without over-exerting himself and risking anything.

adr82

hypster wrote:

I would imagine that G will go quite hard just to make sure of the win and obviously do it with some style without over-exerting himself and risking anything.

Hopefully it goes better than his last TT:

BelgianBeerGeek

Reckon Geraint will go balls out to do the stage, team and jersey justice. Tom D is talking like a broken man, G has more in the tank.

kingstonian

Will everyone be on a full TT rig or make some compensations because of the relatively hilly terrain?

bobmcstuff

Kingstonian wrote:

Will everyone be on a full TT rig or make some compensations because of the relatively hilly terrain?

Led to believe it will be a full TT rig (from the original Inrng stage previews, no special knowledge)

RonB

Departure times

simon_e

RonB wrote:

Departure times

Images not showing here.

Lawson Craddock is first man off at 12:00 local time, Geraint Thomas at 16:29.

Tissot PDF - http://azure.tissottiming.com/File/0003 ... FFFFFFFF02 via @ammattipyoraily who gives Roglic & Dumoulin 3 stars and Thomas 2 stars in this tweet.

If you don't like PDFs there's a tweet with jpegs of the list here.

No_Ta_Doctor

Thirty two seconds between 2nd and 4th places. All three exceptionally good TTers. This is going to be a mental TT.

World champs in Bergen, they finished 1, 2 and 3 - in the order they're in the GC now!

It was a 31km course, Roglic was at 57", Froome 1'21" - though Dumoulin put some serious prep into it. There was also a pretty monster climb involved - 3.4 km of 9% average, which while it doesn't particularly favour any of the three that much makes for bigger time gaps than the short length would suggest.

No_Ta_Doctor

bobmcstuff wrote:

Kingstonian wrote:

Will everyone be on a full TT rig or make some compensations because of the relatively hilly terrain?

Led to believe it will be a full TT rig (from the original Inrng stage previews, no special knowledge)

Did anyone who did well swap bikes in Bergen? I saw that some swapped and others didn't, but can't remember what the successful strategy was. Fading memory suggests that not swapping won the day. That had 3.4 km of 9%, which is a lot worse than the climb here.

bm5

R

No tA Doctor wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

Kingstonian wrote:

Will everyone be on a full TT rig or make some compensations because of the relatively hilly terrain?

Led to believe it will be a full TT rig (from the original Inrng stage previews, no special knowledge)

Did anyone who did well swap bikes in Bergen? I saw that some swapped and others didn't, but can't remember what the successful strategy was. Fading memory suggests that not swapping won the day. That had 3.4 km of 9%, which is a lot worse than the climb here.

I can only remember those poor goats in a shed at the top of the climb.

onyourright

I can’t recall details but have the feeling Thomas often goes out hot and fades in TTs while the specialists do negative splits. Will be curious to see if he still does that. He has the luxury of starting last, but he still needs to go near flat-out until the radio tells him times at the first check.

Has to be Roglic’s to lose based on today’s showing.

Hard to predict how Froome will go. It’s a perfect course for him, but everything else is against him now.

bm5

Well when I watched G win the nationals I thought it would be great to see him wear the jersey on this stage. Life is full of disappointment!

DeVlaeminck

If Gee goes flat out he's an idiot, I'm not doubting he has the legs to win but if he crashes out he'll feel the regret every day for the rest of his life. For that reason it has to be a Dumoulin or Roglic win - Froome seems just off his best and I'd guess has less motivation. My money is on Roglic.

No_Ta_Doctor

The all important weather....

Possible thunderstorms.

Wind 11km/h NW veering N to 15km/h

onyourright

The course may be wet. However, all the favourites start around the same time, so no-one will be advantaged or disadvantaged by that. Well, Thomas is less likely to crash than the others if it’s wet, since he won’t push around the corners.

milton50

Geraint easily has enough time in the bank for him to take it a bit steady in the corners and any 'descents'. So that's what I expect him to do.

I think Froome will go all out to at least try and win a stage but don't think he has it in him to beat Roglic or Dumoulin.

larkim

At this point, is it fair to suggest that GT will probably win this tour because of a badly timed puncture by Dumoulin in Brittany? 53 seconds plus the penalty for drafting the car, and the gap is then down to around 30-40s. Would be nice to see GT match TD in the TT to put that thought out of my head.

(GT has ridden exceptionally defending the lead that he has, and may have had more to ride more aggressively if he had needed to, so I’m not dismissing his performance, just reflecting on how the time gap that he has has been generated).

lucan

larkim wrote:

At this point, is it fair to suggest that GT will probably win this tour because of a badly timed puncture by Dumoulin in Brittany? 53 seconds plus the penalty for drafting the car, and the gap is then down to around 30-40s. Would be nice to see GT match TD in the TT to put that thought out of my head.

(GT has ridden exceptionally defending the lead that he has, and may have had more to ride more aggressively if he had needed to, so I’m not dismissing his performance, just reflecting on how the time gap that he has has been generated).

Ifs, buts and maybes. We'll never how G would have ridden if the first few stages had been different. He clearly has had more in the tank most days, but I don't think we can read any more into it than that.

milton50

larkim wrote:

At this point, is it fair to suggest that GT will probably win this tour because of a badly timed puncture by Dumoulin in Brittany? 53 seconds plus the penalty for drafting the car, and the gap is then down to around 30-40s.

The whole race would have been ridden differently though. Thomas has been the strongest rider in the race, no doubt.

adr82

larkim wrote:

At this point, is it fair to suggest that GT will probably win this tour because of a badly timed puncture by Dumoulin in Brittany? 53 seconds plus the penalty for drafting the car, and the gap is then down to around 30-40s. Would be nice to see GT match TD in the TT to put that thought out of my head.

(GT has ridden exceptionally defending the lead that he has, and may have had more to ride more aggressively if he had needed to, so I’m not dismissing his performance, just reflecting on how the time gap that he has has been generated).

Not really, because it wasn't a badly timed puncture. He said himself he ran into the back of Bardet and broke his wheel: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/raci ... six-386307
Sure there may be times when you can't avoid hitting someone like that, but it wasn't some totally random act-of-god type event either.

Further down the GC top 10, Roglic & Kruijswijk lost over a minute on Sky as a result of the TTT, Froome had his 50"+ loss from the crash on stage 1, Landa crashed on the Roubaix stage, Bardet had his bike changing fiasco at the same time and has struggled on the climbs, Dan Martin has crashed, Quintana has crashed at least once, and Zakarin also crashed on the cobbles IIRC. I guess you can argue Porte and Nibali would have been right up there, but you can only beat the people who are still in the race.

If you want to win the Tour it obviously helps to stay out of trouble, and for whatever reason Thomas is about the only GC contender who (so far...) has yet to crash or crack or have a costly mechanical, and who didn't lose time in the TTT. Sometimes all the stars align for someone like that. Dumoulin has yet to take any time out out of him despite several opportunities, so I don't think he has anything much to prove in the TT. With a 2 minute gap he can afford to play it safe, especially if it rains.

RonB

If he does win then it will be well deserved. Not least because of those back to back MTF victories and then being able to respond to all the relevant attacks since then, and given the parcours there have been plenty of opportunities.

No_Ta_Doctor

larkim wrote:

At this point, is it fair to suggest that GT will probably win this tour because of a badly timed puncture by Dumoulin in Brittany? 53 seconds plus the penalty for drafting the car, and the gap is then down to around 30-40s. Would be nice to see GT match TD in the TT to put that thought out of my head.

(GT has ridden exceptionally defending the lead that he has, and may have had more to ride more aggressively if he had needed to, so I’m not dismissing his performance, just reflecting on how the time gap that he has has been generated).

Has there ever been a tour where a contender hasn't lost time in a crash or mechanical?

Possibly more interesting is what would have happened if Froome hadn't lost 50" in his first stage crash. In the tradition of "if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle", if Thomas hadn't had so much time on Froome, would Sky have raced differently? Would they have sacrificed Thomas to Froome's ambition, only to find he didn't have the legs after all? It could well be Froome's crash that keeps Dumoulin off the top step of the podium.

No_Ta_Doctor

Craddock rolls out. Roads are wet. He's missed a marginal loss here as his race number is very neat and not flapping at all.
But his skill is undoubtable, he looks like he's on a warm down ride.

No_Ta_Doctor

Horses!

tailwindhome

Covering every minute of the TT is a stretch.

*makes another pot of coffee*