A summit finish stage and after the Pyrenees, the first long ascent to the finish line. The Grand Colombier awaits and it’s 14 July, Bastille day, so expect big crowds on the roads.
C’est beau, le Beaujolais: this Tour seems to have thrown up more highlights of the year than the rest of the year so far and the stage didn’t disappoint, a day where it’d be hard to fit the highlights onto a DVD but if they did, you’d want to buy the DVD… and the accompanying DVD player.
The battle raged to get into the breakaway and it was part bike race, part forest fire. Mads Pedersen was on the attack from the start but his move was like many to follow, a huge expenditure of energy that didn’t deliver. It’s no criticism of him or the others, indeed we should celebrate the incendiary activities where many were making huge efforts just to open up a few seconds on the peloton in the hope they could then hitch a ride on the right wagon. It took the best part of two hours before the breakaway went clear.
Ag2r Citroën took up the chase, seemingly because Thibaut Pinot was up the road and if he took time then Ben O’Connor and Felix Gall might find it harder to crack the top-10, a move that looked like a punishment chase for missing the move. The other question was Tiesj Benoot up front, a lot of energy for someone crucial to the yellow jersey in the coming long weekend but the team seems happy to give riders a shot but it’s notable that UAE looked more cohesive.
Mathieu van der Poel attacked the break, he needed to build up a cushion for the final climbs but it wasn’t sufficient. After being dropped, Ion Izagirre got back on and seemed to take a long pull at the start of the Col de la Croix Rosier to help his team mate Guillaume Martin close in on Matteo Jorgenson and Thibaut Pinot who themselves had MvdP in their sights, only he kept piling on the pressure and then attacked in person and nobody could follow. He took 30 seconds at the pass and the chase behind struggled to get going.
Izagirre was away and all of a sudden Cofidis looked in control as Guillaume Martin marked the moves. Their kit looked sharp, the bike elegant and Izagirre was away solo for their second stage win.
The Route: 137.8km and 2,410m of vertical gain. It’s flat all the way to Tenay but the profile doesn’t tell the whole story, first it’s across plains and wetland and then after Ambérieu it’s into the Albarine valley, a river valley, a canyon where the cliffs loom above but the road is very even and flat as it passes many old mills and factories on the way to Tenay, a section of road that will be ridden in the opposite direction on Stage 18. In a Tour that’s already celebrated Luis Ocaña, André Darrigade and Raymond Poulidor, this is the place where Roger Pingeon used to work as an apprentice plumber before turning pro and winning the Tour de France.
There’s the climb to Hauteville out of the valley and up the Plateau d’Hauteville, it’s not steep with 10km at 4.5% but has all the visual cues of a climb as it hugs the cliff edge to rise up making for an unusual approach to the intermediate sprint.
There’s a small climb over the Col de la Lèbe and then a long descent on a big road with nothing too technical and it’s back down to the valley floor and 10km to eat and drink before the mighty Grand Colombier.
The Finish: the Grand Colombier’s a relatively new climb in the Tour de France, first used in 2012 and several times since, climbing different routes to the top. It was a summit finish in 2020 and again climbs this “classic” side, from Culoz via the lacets. On paper this is a beast of a climb comparable in raw stats to the Galibier from Valloire and although without altitude, it’s got attitude and views galore. But it’s yet to be very selective, riders get dropped but nobody strikes out alone for a solo stage win.
Ignore the 7% average, this is a climb in five parts, first the steep section straight out of town and to the lacets hairpins and beyond, there’s lots of 10% sections here to force an early selection and the rocks radiate back heat. Next there’s brief respite with a flatter part and a chance to put it in the big ring as the road heads into the woodland. Then the road rears up again, there’s one hairpin but otherwise it’s a long straight section with more 10-12% slopes. Then another respite where there’s even a brief descent and then it’s over the cattle grid and out of the trees and here the road rises up again all the way to the line. Overall it’s a tough climb but with an irregular gradient, often over 10% and a 50 minute effort.
The Contenders: breakaway or GC day? With luck we can have two races for the price of one if a good group can get away and teams keen to win from the breakaway will have to send two riders up the road, one being their climber for the win and then another as a helper who sacrifice themselves to help tow the group clear. Breakaway picks include Michael Woods (Israel-PremierTech) and the rider second to him on the Puy de Dôme Pierre Latour (Total Energies) who has big problems descending but should be able to handle today’s ride down the Col de la Lèbe. Ag2r Citroën are almost on home roads here and both Felix Gall and Ben O’Connor are suited to the long climb. Lidl-Trek tandem Mathias Skjelmose and Giulio Ciccone are worth watching but both have injury, crash and form question marks.
Among the GC contenders both Tadej Pogačar (UAE) and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) have been talking about this summit finish and both confident in their form and for all the battling so far the Dutch team has yet to win a stage. The way the slope tightens up just at the end is a slight advantage to Pogačar and his punch – he won here in 2020 – but Vingegaard will like this first real long climb of the Tour. We have to pick between them because we saw on the Puy de Dôme they could put almost a minute into the nearest rider in the space of 1,500 metres.
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Pogačar, Vingegaard, Woods |
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Latour, Peters, Skjelmose, Gall, O’Connor, Pinot, Ciccone |
Weather: warm and sunny, 29°C. This counts as the first part of the Grand Colombier is south-facing and can be a furnace.
TV: KM0 is at 1.55pm and the finish is forecast for 5.20pm CEST. The climb out of Tenay is at 3.30pm and the approach the final climb is for 4.20pm.
Pinailleur: or French for a pedant. It’s “Bastille Day” in English but while the liberation of this Parisian prison is a moment in history, in France today it’s the quatorze juillet, the 14 July, the term given to to the anniversary of the French revolution.
On the subject of the language police, note today’s stage goes to the Jura mountains. There are views of the nearby Alps but today’s summit finish is Jurassic.
