2023 Tour de France route rumors

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pman

Oct 14, 2021
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BigCoward said:
If there is a TTT pog should go to the Giro out of spite. Pog V Rog V Remco steals a lot of the tours thunder.
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Yeah, Pog won't be happy about the TTT. But if he can outclimb Ving or even out ITT him, he'll win the race regardless and if he can't- then he won't. I suppose the two could be super close and it comes down to a TTT. But in reality, if Pog is that concerned about losing 90 seconds to Ving then maybe he should go to the Giro instead.

With all that said, I hate the team time trial. It totally defeats the purpose of the race of truth and just rewards the strongest teams while minimizing the opportunity to expose weaker GC guys on strong teams. I'd love for them to be banned from grand tours. However, we all know that won't happen and UAE really should have done a better job of preparing for this.
 
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pman

Oct 14, 2021
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How many pure sprint stages do we get after the final rest day. One? Two? None. I'd love a final week with no pure sprints. If you're going to have a TTT, you might as well throw a few medium mountain, hilly final week stages in there to see if a team like UAE wants to try and destroy the race.
 
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pman

Oct 14, 2021
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Eddy Evenepoel said:
To me a team with Pogacar, McNulty, Bjerg, Almeida, Soler, Majka, AYates and a roleur (Trentin?) should be very competitive in a TTT If they put in the required effort in practising.
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Right, that's a key part of the equation- practice. You better believe they'll be practicing for this. The issue really isn't with them, they should easily pull a top 5 for the stage. The issue is more Jumbo will be out of this world in the TTT. They have World Champion Time Trialists just chilling waiting for a chance to ride the Tour. It'll really be a test of how much time can you put into other teams by being as good as possible in a discipline because Jumbo is about as good as possible in the TTT.

As for the length, I'd be shocked if it's more than 40 K given their reluctance to do long ITTs. If it's more than 40 k, I'd be tempted to go to the Giro if I was Pog, just to prove a point.
 
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ChiefMasterPro

Jul 27, 2022
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pman said:
How many pure sprint stages do we get after the final rest day. One? Two? None. I'd love a final week with no pure sprints. If you're going to have a TTT, you might as well throw a few medium mountain, hilly final week stages in there to see if a team like UAE wants to try and destroy the race.
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In my opinion a more or less flat stage in the middle of week 3 is ok as a kind of active rest day for GC. So ideally stage 18. The rest high or medium mountain.
 
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pman

Oct 14, 2021
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ChiefMasterPro said:
In my opinion a more or less flat stage in the middle of week 3 is ok as a kind of active rest day for GC. So ideally stage 18. The rest high or medium mountain.
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Stage 18 is the only likely final week candidate for a sprint. Bourg-en-Bresse usually ends in a sprint given how flat it is. With that said, if it starts in Moûtiers as has been speculated you could do a pretty hilly/mountainous of about 195 K. Of course you could also do 190 k mostly flat stage between those two spots. I feel like we don't usually approach Bourg-en-Bresse from the south in the Tour, so who knows. When was the last time we had a final week without any flat stages in it?
 
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ChiefMasterPro

Jul 27, 2022
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pman said:
Stage 18 is the only likely final week candidate for a sprint. Bourg-en-Bresse usually ends in a sprint given how flat it is. With that said, if it starts in Moûtiers as has been speculated you could do a pretty hilly/mountainous of about 195 K. Of course you could also do 190 k mostly flat stage between those two spots. I feel like we don't usually approach Bourg-en-Bresse from the south in the Tour, so who knows. When was the last time we had a final week without any flat stages in it?
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Stage 19 was very often (too often) a flat stage going from the last mountain test to the final TT.
 
Devil's Elbow

Devil's Elbow

Sep 20, 2017
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pman said:
Stage 18 is the only likely final week candidate for a sprint. Bourg-en-Bresse usually ends in a sprint given how flat it is. With that said, if it starts in Moûtiers as has been speculated you could do a pretty hilly/mountainous of about 195 K. Of course you could also do 190 k mostly flat stage between those two spots. I feel like we don't usually approach Bourg-en-Bresse from the south in the Tour, so who knows. When was the last time we had a final week without any flat stages in it?
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Excluding the Champs-Elysees parade, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016 all had no flat stages after the final rest day.
 
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pman

Oct 14, 2021
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ChiefMasterPro said:
But am I right, that we almost know the start and finish cities, yet the route between those is quite unknown?
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You are completely right. We do know most start/finish cities. Yet we only really know of a team time trial and that's because a rider tweeted about it. Beyond that we have no idea about the other ITTs, we really know surprisingly little about the third week besides the general direction of it. If their goal was the stop any leaks before the week of the big reveal than they succeeded at their mission. My guess is that we're really not hitting many big cities/towns after the first 2 weeks. But who knows.
 
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gavia88

Oct 7, 2019
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latest news is a stage Tarbes - Cauteret (Pont d'Espange) with finish at the parking (where the view on the first waterfalls start). Seems in line with recent ASO stages. More for the views than sportive aspect. Most likely a short stage (if the don't do a loop somewhere at the start of the stage) Tarbes - Aspin - Tourmalet - Cauteret/Pont d'Espagne.

cauterets.png

Something like this in 2016, but with a shorter stage (Tarbes is closer to Aspin then Pau) and the finish a bit higher (the steep parts on the proile above).

1200px-Profile_stage_11_Tour_de_France_2015.png
 
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gavia88

Oct 7, 2019
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Red Rick said:
I think it's a bit better than Cauterets, but still it does look even more like an MTF fest.
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Yes, especially in the first week I can't see someone take risks on the Tourmalet already. That means 20 km of descent, about 15km of valley and than still 12 a 13 km at 3-4-5%. It will be just about those last 4 / 5 km. Depending on teams like UAE or Jumbo if that happens with fresh or tired legs (high tempo on tourmalet and first half of the cauteret climb)

I think it's more for the 'show' to add those extra kilometers to ASO. It will give nice images of the waterfalls of the Pont d'Espagne. And they can say that they add a new climb to the tour. To see it positive. With a finish just in town there was a risk of nothing happening at all. Now at least we have 4 k of action.
 
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Devil's Elbow

Devil's Elbow

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Not sure why people are complaining, if Cauterets is paying for the finish this is probably the toughest option (although Cambasque is quite similar, but they also could have finished in town like in 2015 again which is awful) and it's significantly better as an early MTF than Orcières in 2020. Similar difficulty to PBF, but a new climb rather than an overused one.

Also disagree on the route being a pure MTF fest when there are descent finishes in Laruns and Morzine rumoured.
 
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gavia88

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Devil's Elbow said:
Not sure why people are complaining, if Cauterets is paying for the finish this is probably the toughest option (although Cambasque is quite similar, but they also could have finished in town like in 2015 again which is awful) and it's significantly better as an early MTF than Orcières in 2020. Similar difficulty to PBF, but a new climb rather than an overused one.

Also disagree on the route being a pure MTF fest when there are descent finishes in Laruns and Morzine rumoured.
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judgements about single stages, before nowing the whole route is always tricky. For example, Puy de Dome at the end of week 1 is not bad at all. Of course it's al about the last kilometers, but it will be a real test early in the race. It's like blockhause at stage 9 of the giro.

Thoughest option would have been paving the route up to the ski station of Cambasque. That would make it a hard HC climb, with multiple kilometers above 10%. There are rumours however of paving the col de Riou. That would make it possible in the future to link Tourmalet really well with for example Pont d'Espagne.

(https://www.ladepeche.fr/2022/10/06/ouvrir-une-route-par-le-col-de-riou-10715726.php)
 
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Devil's Elbow

Devil's Elbow

Sep 20, 2017
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gavia88 said:
judgements about single stages, before nowing the whole route is always tricky. For example, Puy de Dome at the end of week 1 is not bad at all. Of course it's al about the last kilometers, but it will be a real test early in the race. It's like blockhause at stage 9 of the giro.

Thoughest option would have been paving the route up to the ski station of Cambasque. That would make it a hard HC climb, with multiple kilometers above 10%. There are rumours however of paving the col de Riou. That would make it possible in the future to link Tourmalet really well with for example Pont d'Espagne.

(https://www.ladepeche.fr/2022/10/06/ouvrir-une-route-par-le-col-de-riou-10715726.php)
Click to expand...
A hard HC MTF on stage 5 is just not going to happen in the Tour.

Tourmalet - Riou - Pont d'Espagne/Cambasque would instantly be the best possible finale in the Pyrenees.
 
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gavia88

Oct 7, 2019
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Devil's Elbow said:
A hard HC MTF on stage 5 is just not going to happen in the Tour.

Tourmalet - Riou - Pont d'Espagne/Cambasque would instantly be the best possible finale in the Pyrenees.
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* fantasy mode on:

  • pyrenees day 1: xx - Port de Bales - Superbagneres
  • pyrenees day 2: Luchon - Peyresourde - Val Louron Azet - Hourquette d'Ancizan - Tourmalet - Col de Riou - Pont d'Espagne/Cambasque

* fantasy mode off
 
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