2022 Tour de Suisse, June 12th-19th. ***Spoilers***

blazing_saddles

I'll be catching up with this one when I get back from my travels. Seems on paper to be the tougher of the two big Tour warm up races.

















Top competitors

EVENEPOEL Remco
KÜNG Stefan
VLASOV Aleksandr
COSNEFROY Benoît
ULISSI Diego
YATES Adam
KRISTOFF Alexander
VAN BAARLE Dylan
HIGUITA Sergio
MATTHEWS Michael
MARTINEZ Daniel Felipe
IZAGIRRE Ion
LUTSENKO Alexey
HIRSCHI Marc

red.rider

I can provide a little insight to some of these stages as we go along, as they are on my adopted home roads.

Tomorrow’s Stage 1 is four laps of a circuit which crosses the Pfannenstiel (panhandle) hill twice, a hill well known to all Zurich-based cyclists. The first climb leads to the classic summit (currently occupied by Belgian campervans and Remco flags), followed by a long descent down to Zurichsee. The second climb comes quickly, and while only 2.5km it packs a punch. After Limberg the road keeps rolling before flattening for a couple of km to the finish.

Riding the circuit last night, I’d say it’s not very difficult or too technical. Only the second climb will lead to splits, and whoever gets a gap there on the last time up should hold on to the finish.

Looking forward to spending the day roadside tomorrow!

takethehighroad

Any ideas on coverage for this race?

Doesn't seem that it's on eurosport

andyp

It's on GCN, so Discovery must have some rights. From memory, the Swiss races tend to have complex TV deals that means it isn't always available on the usual channels.

orraloon

Eurosport player app showing TdS stage 1 1410-1610 UK time.

red.rider

7 riders have 3:30 advantage on the peloton:
VILLELLA Davide
PEDERSEN Casper
TEUNISSEN Mike
JACOBS Johan
SIMMONS Quinn
HAGA Chad
VITZTHUM Simon

Status from roadside: hot hot hot. All fans hiding under trees. Roadside fountains turned into beer coolers. All very Swiss and organised.

kingstongraham

Breakaway going to get caught towards the last climb. Could be a fun finish.

RichN95.

A win for Wales

andyp

So pleased for him, he's had such a tough start to his pro career.

mididoctors

Odd stage

Pross

Looking at Williams's statistics just now and he is 59kg at 1.83m. I'm very slightly taller and in my late teens / early 20s was around 10kg heavier despite being ridiculously skinny with single figure body fat and very little upper body muscle so I haven't got a clue how he can be so light!

A rarity amongst UK pros racing at the top level in that he never made the podium on the Junior Tour of Wales.

kingstongraham

mididoctors said:

Odd stage

With a suitably odd finish.

thejimmymethod

Pross said:

Looking at Williams's statistics just now and he is 59kg at 1.83m. I'm very slightly taller and in my late teens / early 20s was around 10kg heavier despite being ridiculously skinny with single figure body fat and very little upper body muscle so I haven't got a clue how he can be so light!

A rarity amongst UK pros racing at the top level in that he never made the podium on the Junior Tour of Wales.

Some of us are just freaks! If only I had the engine to go with it

red.rider

GC casualties today: Pinot, Martinez, Uran, & Mäder drop 41s to the lead group, while Rohan Dennis drops over 12 minutes.
I had to do a double take when I saw Dennis pass by alone in the convoy on the final climb, given he had the team leader’s number and his usual TdS performances.

Dorset_Boy

Any chance of the top 10 on the stage?

red.rider

Dorset_Boy said:

Any chance of the top 10 on the stage?

Front group of 15:
WILLIAMS
SCHACHMANN
KRON
HIRSCHI
LUTSENKO
VAN WILDER
KÜNG
HIGUITA
YATES
VLASOV
FUGLSANG
THOMAS
EVENEPOEL

red.rider

Stage 2: Küsnacht-Aesch 198km
Stage 2 starts where from yesterday's finish line and rolls in a westerly direction towards Baselland and the Jura with a couple of short, sharp hills along the way.

The riders will tackle the classic Basel climb of Gempen (5.6km @ 5.9%), before getting a first look at the finish line in Aesch with 50 km to go. Once they hit the Eichenberg (3km @ 7.6%) there's not much flat road left as they roll through the Jura foothills. The final challenge is the Challpass (6.3km @ 6.2%, with a double-digit finish), which tops out with 15km to go for a downhill run to the finish.

Should be one for the climby sprinters, but the big boys might struggle to get over the final two hills.

kingstongraham

I like the look of that finish - that last climb looks just hard enough to knock the sprinters back, and then a 15km descent for any lead group to stay away.



I don't think there are any pure sprinters in the race - except Cees Bol, and he doesn't really count.

red.rider

Coverage starting in 10mins. The 9 man break have just reached the top of the first categorised climb with a gap of 6 minutes to the peloton. 70km to go, which might give some hope to the breakaway.

BOTD:
SCHÄR Michael
BASSO Leonardo
RUTSCH Jonas
BADILATTI Matteo
HOLMES Matthew
PELLAUD Simon
SUTER Joel
BURGAUDEAU Mathieu
LEKNESSUND Andreas

kingstongraham

Five left in the break, just under 4 minutes with 40km to go.

Peloton not trying very hard yet.

red.rider

20km and 2 minutes. But not much flat in those 20km…

kingstongraham

2 minutes at 20km starting the climb.

kingstongraham

And nobody in the peloton decided to bother. Leknessund out on his own.

RichN95.

Bettiol LOL

mididoctors

No wonder no other teams came forward they didn't think there was any break

mididoctors

Race radio failure

Pross

Either top trolling by Trentin or Bettiol still didn't realise a few minutes later.

Very strong ride that (Rich will be happy to see a ginger from the north pole winning in the heat).

andyp

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Bettiol gets relegated, he went left then right then and definitely impeded those behind him.

kingstongraham

Weird - did they all think they were racing for the win?

Pross

Williams should have just about retained the jersey.

mididoctors

The standard of rider is getting so high you can't leave a break of 4+ out there with 2 mins with 20 k to go