2023 Tour de France route rumors

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Why does people suddenly love ITTs??

Nobody wants to win the Tour like Wiggens , nobody wants to be Mick Rogers or Tony Martin.

People like Remco because of the way he won Liege, not because he win a Vuelta ITT in extremadura or Alicante or somewhere

The best tours of the last 10 year were 2015 and 2019 and they had little ITT km.

Put 80km of TT and Vingeggad or Pogacar or Evenpoel or whoever puts 4 mins without thinking and makes the other stages obsolete. Might as well just do a zwift race with who has the best numbers, then combine that in a formula with the team budget and we have the le Tour de france winner for all the forum members here. Le Tour de Zwift

Its good to have riders racing on the road , making decisions, climbing, descending, sprinting, crosswinds etc. ITT don't make a good race.

The only annoying part of this is Remco will do the Giro which means our Fausto will lose another opportunity to lead the team. On the other hand, Landa will be in contention for a podium at the Tour.
 
I think this tour suits more pogacar and vingegaard. In my opinion the giro suits better to roglic because of the TTs.

I didn't see the profiles of the Tour just yet, but despite more TT's in the Giro, that's a climbers route. You have a stages where you can genuinely put minutes if you and your team are up to the task.

From some of the posts in this topic, I get the impression that the Mountain stages are not that tough and the final climbs are quite isolated, which is never good.
 
Who decided that?

The winner should be the guy that comes first

Say what you want but for me saying that a GT winner should be very competent in TTs is almost like saying that a GT winner should be very competent in the mountains, its suppose to be a test of endurance and versatility.

The place of the pure climbers that can't time trial should be to hunt stages and the KOM jersey in GTs not to fight for the overall. Not that I think any of them will win the Tour anyway.
 
A flat 20-25 km TT the first week, replacing one of the sprint stages, wouldve made the course slightly better imo. But not a big deal.

The First 30 years of Le Tour there was no time trial, so I’m not that fuzzed about the lack of 50 km+++ total of ITT.
I look forward to the opening weekend, the two early Pyrenee stages, Puy de Dome, section from stage 13-17 and stage 20.

Looks to be a course where the best man will win. 6,5/10
 
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Squiggly line across the middle is a strange definition of 'tour'.

A bit like Vuelta of Half Spain in 2012. Sorry, don't know how to say that in Spanish.

MapaVuelta2012-450.jpg
 
Tre Cime Laveredo or Monte Bondone aren't hard?
And why does it matter if the MTFs in the Tour are harder if unlike the Giro there are no stages with more than 5000 meters of vertical gain? This also explains the number of TT km's.

Anyway back to the Tour route,I think it suits Roglič really well and Pogačar too although to a lesser degree. I obviously hope that the pure climbers fail to win.
Of course pure climbers will fail. Roglic, Evenepoel, Pogacar and Vingegaard are by far the better climbers even if they are better timetrialists. It's just a myth Bernal is in the same league of Roglic, Pogacar or Vingegaard in the mountains. He always got destroyed there.
 
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I really like the first week. Anything in the Basque Country and Pyrénées makes me happy.

Aesthetically I don't love the Haute Savoie route although as a part time resident I'll be able to watch 4 stages from the roadside. The Loze stage should have plenty of action, even if it doesn't start until the climb, any gaps could be significant.

Nice job including both the massif central as well as the Jura.

On paper this should be perfect for Vingegaard.
 
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Of course pure climbers will fail. Roglic, Evenepoel, Pogacar and Vingegaard are by far the better climbers even if they are better timetrialists. It's just a myth Bernal is in the same league of Roglic, Pogacar or Vingegaard in the mountains. He always got destroyed there.
Bernal has basically no H2H against Vingegaard or Evenepoel, and has rarely raced against either Roglic or Pogacar when both were anywhere near their best. No, I don't think he's on the same level either, but 'he always got destroyed' is factually incorrect. Excluding a Vuelta where he lost to Mäder and a couple of races where his back plagued him (Tirreno 2021, Tour and Dauphiné 2020), the last time he's raced a big climb against any of those is Tour de l'Ain 2020... where he finished second on the queen stage, 4 seconds down on Roglic.
 
I doubt that the tour suits Vingegaard. He is the guy for the long and high climbs, not those zig zag 30 minute climbs. Only the stage over the Col de la Loze really suits him. I mean he definitely can win it, but he needs Pogacar to have a bad day on his favourite terrain
 
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it's impressive, the go through the bask mountains, pyrenees, central massif, beaujolais, jura, alps, another time the jura and the vosgues. And really not 1 single mountain stage is great. Impressive performance. I acually was really hyped, thinking it could be one of the best routes ever, but wtf did they do? For the final judgement I need a bit more details about the 'flat' and hilly stages. But so far it doesn't look good.
 
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Why they don't do Mont Brioully?


They make a tour around it? That is ridiculous. With Mont Brioully just before the finish after 3 very decent climbs before could even have GC action.

I hope this is a mistake from Flamme Rouge.
 
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I doubt that the tour suits Vingegaard. He is the guy for the long and high climbs, not those zig zag 30 minute climbs. Only the stage over the Col de la Loze really suits him. I mean he definitely can win it, but he needs Pogacar to have a bad day on his favourite terrain
I definitely rate both of them on this parcours, but I think Vingegaard's likely stronger team will be decisive by the Alps.
 
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That is a weird route. Can't give a score untill I see the medium mountain stages. Minimizing the sprint stages has become important for me for some reason. My first thoughts:

  • Few ITT kms. I won't kill me, that's for sure.
  • A lot of short mountain stages. the trend continues and it is still a problem for me at the Tour. Put at least 2 long mountain stages. Need to test the human boundaries for endurance. Short stages can be hard but it is not the same IMHO.
  • Some of the key mountain stages do not have a lot of flat. That is excellent. Can be intense at any moment.
  • Good distribution of the mountain stages, I think.