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Yesterday’s Stage 13 battle was an absolute cracker and we can expect more thrilling riding in today’s Tour de France stage. Join The Roar from 8.30pm AEST for all the action.
Australian eyes were drenched with tears of disappointment for Tasmania’s Ritchie Porte, who slipped down to 16th after yesterday’s thrilling stage through the Alps.
Melbourne’s famed Lygon St, however, must be gearing up for celebrations in just over a week, with Italy’s Vicenzo Nibali having all put sealed his fate as the newest winner of the world’s most famous bike race. He really just needs to stay upright, something he has been incredibly successful at over the first thirteen stages.
Nibali is in amazing form and clearly looks to be head and shoulders above anyone else in the peloton.
But what of today’s stage, from Grenoble to Risoul? Will it offer the kinds of attacks that may unsettle the race leader?
I certainly hope so and this stage is by no means going to be a walk in the park.
Riders will travel 177km today, traversing two category one climbs and one HC monster. In fact, riders will reach the highest point on the Tour de France circuit today, when they tackle the Col d’Izoard after 132km of racing.
This is a 19km climb with gradients of 6% reaching a total height of 2360m.
The climb begins fairly steeply with the gradient in the first 2km 6.4% and 7.1% respectively. It then levels out a little and dips down after around 6km before going back to 8.4%, then dipping down again to 2.5%.
10km into the climb it goes back to 8% and from 13km to the summit it ranges from 7.5% to 8.9%. From 14 to 17km it is around 8.7%.
This second climb of the day could present an opportunity for attacks as easily as it could destroy the hopes and dreams of any number of GC hopefuls.
Before reaching the Col d’Izoard, the peloton will have traversed the category one Col du Lautaret, a 34km climb with an average gradient of 3.9%. The Col du Lautaret is 2058m above sea level.
The stage winner will be decided on atop the ski station of Risoul, another category one climb, although height wise, it’s the smallest of today at a mere 1855m.
This final climb of the day is a fairly consistent climb, with no significant dips, meaning no moments of respite.
It’s up and up with it’s biggest gradients of 8.5% from the 10 to 12km marks. The rest of the climb has gradients between 6 to 7 %.
It’s a shame Andy Schleck isn’t still in the Tour as he has no chance of repeating his 2011 feats through the Alps and we the viewers are surely the sorrier for that.
There will however be plenty of action to keep us glued to the screen.
Will Nibali follow up yesterday’s stage win with another victory today?
I’m not sure about that but what will be fascinating to watch is the collection of riders sitting between second on GC and fifth.
Valverde is going to have to eat into some of Nibali’s time and is perhaps buoyed by the fact that Nibali lost teammates on yesterday’s stage.
The French force of Romain Bardet in third, Thibaut Pinot in fourth and Jean-Christophe Peraud in sixth must be making French fans very happy indeed and tucked in fifth on GC is American Teejay van Garderen.
Third to fifth on GC are separated by about a minute with the makeup of the podium far from complete.
Join me from 8.30pm AEST for tonight’s live blog of Stage 14 of the Tour de France.
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