2024 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift ** spoilers **
Tomorrow sees the start of this year's Tour de France Femmes, with the first grand depart outside of France, in Rotterdam.
Over the following 7 days, the riders will race 8 stages, including a split stage on day two, before finishing at the top of that most Dutch of mountains, Alpe d'Huez.
The pre-race favourite is defending champion Demi Vollering, and it's hard to see who will offer her much of a challenge given how dominant she has been in stage racing so far this season.
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The opening stage is 123 kms from Rotterdam to La Haye, on the coast just west of Den Haag, and is expected to end in a sprint. There is one KoM point on the race route, which comes as the race climbs out of a tunnel under the Nieuwe Maas river, with the 'hill' rising from 25 metres below sea level to a nose-bleed inducing 2 metres above sea level.
Aside from this, the route is as flat as you'd expect in the Netherlands.
Pre-race favourite to win the stage is SD-Worx's Lorena Wiebes, winner of 18 races so far this season and the dominant sprinter in the women's peloton.
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ELB a late drop out for Lidl-Trek due to a training crash. Lizzie D replaces her
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I’m guessing that’s the lowest altitude KOM in history. Possibly the only one to start below sea level too?
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I fear an extremely tedious opening stage, unless the weather can play a part.
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I think they've done something similar in the Arctic Tour of Norway before.
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Tomorrow’s stage 2a is 68kms long and total climbs amount to a massive 77 metres!
"Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
Kim Kadzow out of the EF team with Covid. No replacement
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One for the pure climbers
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Who is the person playing the role of Orla on The Breakaway? She's making me realise how good Orla is at the job.
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4/7 of the Tashkent team are DNF on Stage 1. What a shambles the UCI are for giving them entry into all the big races
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They followed the rules as they set them out. If they not done so, they would have got criticised, justifiably. But they definitely need to revisit the rules on this, as the Tashkent team are so out of their depth.
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Obviously, that tough climb was just too much for them.
One of their riders did manage to finish at 0".
"Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
The Nordkapp tunnel was a KOM in 2014 (stage 1, northbound). They weren't handing out categories at the time.
Bottom is -212 m, up to maybe +10 m at the exit, including about 1.5 km at 10% (plus the lead in from the bottom).
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Just caught up ... The women's peloton looks more pro in behaviour these days
"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 pm0 -
Is there a team in either pro peloton who are worse losers than SD Worx?
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People missed my subtle joke I feel
"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 pm0 -
Half wheeling the stage away . Split stage is so 20th century
"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 pm0 -
Interesting, to me at least, that French tv coverage has a public information advert aimed at spectators telling them to respect the riders, not to take photos, don’t use flares, leave your dog at home, that is shown at most advert breaks. Hopefully it’ll work.
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A reminder that today sees two stages; a 67 km road stage from Dordrecht to Rotterdam, and a ITT stage this afternoon, on a 6.3 km course in Rotterdam.
There's 16 kms left in the road stage this morning, with the lone breakaway rider, Audrey de Keersmaeker of Lotto, about to be caught.
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Another impressive win from Charlotte Kool, outsprinting Lorena Wiebes and Marianne Vos.
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She looked pretty deserving in that head to head sprint
"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 pm0 -
Who were they blaming last night?
Wiebes was doing a lot of walking back on her statements this morning.
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Wiebes went way too early. Wonder who's fault that'll be? 😉
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The initial SD Worx statement on socials was "Luck was not on our side in the first stage of @LeTourFemmes, with @lorenawiebes not being able to sprint for her chances as somebody rode into her derailleur."
It's quite clear from the overhead that Wiebes swung across into the front wheel of Ahtosalo and it was entirely her own fault. Lucky she didn't cause a crash TBH
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Cheers 👍️
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I am finding the current stage preamble to be very watchable. Some insights, some sensible opinions.
So far, so good.
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The TT is really tight with 4 riders within less than 2 seconds and Dygert currently leading by less than 0.2 seconds.
Grace Brown lost around 20 seconds with a puncture, most of the time loss was probably her faffing about bouncing the bike and signalling to the car rather than the actual bike change that was really slick.
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Vollering shows why she's the red hot favourite to win the GC.
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Watching the race for the first time.
Do they not have a male pundit at all?
There’s a whole lot of chat about how the race will unfold, while it’s actually unfolding.
"Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.1
