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2023 Tour de France route rumors
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Iraty / Parquetout - steep climbs both ~ 6-7km with plenty over 10-12%, iraty is compatible as a stage finish although I'm not sure if they can do it logistically while Parquetout could easily be introduced before a finish in La Mure.
Few days ago there was an interview with Thierry Gouvenou in a french newspaper about Iraty and other basque climbs.
"Iraty, it is far from everything. Globally, this zone of the Basque Country is far from the sites of arrival that we found for the moment. You have to be able to access the hotels. If we have to take a two-hour or two-and-a-half hour bus ride, it's not possible." "We'll get there one day, but it'll be much easier if it's just a pass" "There are often great climbs in the area, but also extremely fast and narrow, hyperdangerous descents."
Few days ago there was an interview with Thierry Gouvenou in a french newspaper about Iraty and other basque climbs.
"Iraty, it is far from everything. Globally, this zone of the Basque Country is far from the sites of arrival that we found for the moment. You have to be able to access the hotels. If we have to take a two-hour or two-and-a-half hour bus ride, it's not possible." "We'll get there one day, but it'll be much easier if it's just a pass" "There are often great climbs in the area, but also extremely fast and narrow, hyperdangerous descents."
Or you could just reduce the distance of the transfers between stages, if the next stage starts where those hotels are (or really nearby) then it's not a problem.
But trying to get the French to be a bit more flexible and to make compromises is usually almost impossible. If you try to do buisness with a French company it's usually "my way or the highway", just look at them pulling out from the Eurofighter project. If everything isn't done how they want and products from fellow French companies are used they pick up their ball and go home. A friend of mine who is a project manager at a company that supplies component for cars (now a lot for electric ones) always goes on a rant when it comes to having to work with them...
Whats even the verdict on this one? Too lazy to look, but I liked last year's route a lot more I must admit. Not like its bad or anything and it have some very nice elements to it (the start, early Pyrenees, the Vosges) that we havent really seen. By the looks of it though, a few too many flat stages for me and i think 22 km ITT is quite laughable tbh.
Whats even the verdict on this one? Too lazy to look, but I liked last year's route a lot more I must admit. Not like its bad or anything and it have some very nice elements to it (the start, early Pyrenees, the Vosges) that we havent really seen. By the looks of it though, a few too many flat stages for me and i think 22 km ITT is quite laughable tbh.
I compared it with the Giro route a few days ago and I still really prefer this one. I think the first two weeks are genuinely great and the only problems are in the third. But then I don't mind the short TT too much (the favorites are similarly good in TT's anyway) I don't think everyone will wait for two weeks until the Col de la Loze with this many mountain stages before it and 3 flat stages in the last 4 days are bad, but those kind of stages often go to the break so late in a gt. And then I also love stage 20.
I think a lot will depend on whether Pogacar will try to light up the medium mountains in the 1st week. If he does I think we are in for a pretty good Tour.
I really like the route of Flèche Wallonne. It will be a fun race if there's action on the first time up Mur de Huy.
Seriously, the odds of significant GC action on an ascent of Tourmalet that ends with 50k to go on stage 6 are longer than the odds of neither Pogacar nor Vingegaard winning this Tour. It will be maybe 10-15 minutes of action provided either of them wants to do anything and that's about it, which is decent enough for a first MTF but nothing more than that.
I really like the route of Flèche Wallonne. It will be a fun race if there's action on the first time up Mur de Huy.
Seriously, the odds of significant GC action on an ascent of Tourmalet that ends with 50k to go on stage 6 are longer than the odds of neither Pogacar nor Vingegaard winning this Tour. It will be maybe 10-15 minutes of action provided either of them wants to do anything and that's about it, which is decent enough for a first MTF but nothing more than that.
With pogacar and vingegaard is very likely that it will be action on tourmalet. They are offensive riders.
What if jumbo try something on tourmalet? Like put van aert in the breakaway, and then van aert on top of tourmalet waits for Vingegaard if he is able to drop pogacar?
It's one of the scenarios that can happen.
With pogacar and vingegaard is very likely that it will be action on tourmalet. They are offensive riders.
What if jumbo try something on tourmalet? Like put van aert in the breakaway, and then van aert on top of tourmalet waits for Vingegaard if he is able to drop pogacar?
It's one of the scenarios that can happen.
I expect that would be their top plan for that stage, only problem is Tourmalet starts 80k into the stage and there’s already a significant climb only 56k into the stage. They might not have enough time to pull it off, but could gain minutes otherwise.
I compared it with the Giro route a few days ago and I still really prefer this one. I think the first two weeks are genuinely great and the only problems are in the third. But then I don't mind the short TT too much (the favorites are similarly good in TT's anyway) I don't think everyone will wait for two weeks until the Col de la Loze with this many mountain stages before it and 3 flat stages in the last 4 days are bad, but those kind of stages often go to the break so late in a gt. And then I also love stage 20.
I think a lot will depend on whether Pogacar will try to light up the medium mountains in the 1st week. If he does I think we are in for a pretty good Tour.
With pogacar and vingegaard is very likely that it will be action on tourmalet. They are offensive riders.
What if jumbo try something on tourmalet? Like put van aert in the breakaway, and then van aert on top of tourmalet waits for Vingegaard if he is able to drop pogacar?
It's one of the scenarios that can happen.
I really like the route of Flèche Wallonne. It will be a fun race if there's action on the first time up Mur de Huy.
Seriously, the odds of significant GC action on an ascent of Tourmalet that ends with 50k to go on stage 6 are longer than the odds of neither Pogacar nor Vingegaard winning this Tour. It will be maybe 10-15 minutes of action provided either of them wants to do anything and that's about it, which is decent enough for a first MTF but nothing more than that.
I compared it with the Giro route a few days ago and I still really prefer this one. I think the first two weeks are genuinely great and the only problems are in the third. But then I don't mind the short TT too much (the favorites are similarly good in TT's anyway) I don't think everyone will wait for two weeks until the Col de la Loze with this many mountain stages before it and 3 flat stages in the last 4 days are bad, but those kind of stages often go to the break so late in a gt. And then I also love stage 20.
I think a lot will depend on whether Pogacar will try to light up the medium mountains in the 1st week. If he does I think we are in for a pretty good Tour.
What is better than the Giro? I admit stage 1 is the best stage 1 in a GT I remember. And I guess clear descent finish in Morzine is nice, and Puy de Dome is nice for Unipuerto too. But the multi mountain stages? The Alps are just bad.
Tourmalet will be when MVDP gets jealous of Wout’s Ventoux and goes for a big mountain stage win. The stars will align and Vingegaard will catch him and latch on the second he crests the top and begins a ferocious descent. End of Tour.
What is better than the Giro? I admit stage 1 is the best stage 1 in a GT I remember. And I guess clear descent finish in Morzine is nice, and Puy de Dome is nice for Unipuerto too. But the multi mountain stages? The Alps are just bad.
I like the Tour because there are 10-11 stages when a GC action can happen. Two stages in the Basque country, two stages in the Pyrenees, stage on Puy de Dome, four Alpine stages, Vosges stage, the TT. Given offensive mindset of riders like Pogacar and Vingegaard, it won't be boring. I agree that multi-mountain stages aren't that good but in Vosges one can count on 35 kilometers of action, spectacular finale.
What is better than the Giro? I admit stage 1 is the best stage 1 in a GT I remember. And I guess clear descent finish in Morzine is nice, and Puy de Dome is nice for Unipuerto too. But the multi mountain stages? The Alps are just bad.
Oh yeah the stage designs in the Alps are rubbish. But I was comparing the race to the Giro which might have better stage designs in a vacuum but in a badly paced route so I don't expect more long range action there than in the Tour.
The Crans Montana stage is nice but it's the first serious mountain stage, don't see anyone making a big attack with a 20 km long flat section between climbs. Monte Bondone is obviously all about the last climb, as most likely is Tre Cime. The only mountain stage really incentivizing a move from far out is the Val di Zoldo one, which comes right before the queen stage and an insane MTT. Also, if someone attacks on the penultimate climb that's as much a long range attack as an attack on the Col de la Loze would be.
I mean, if someone really wants to make long range attacks in the Giro he can still do it, but I don't think the route forces the issue. It's like in the Tour, where if riders really want to, they could easily attack from far out on the Tourmalet, the Ramaz, the Croix Fry and at any point on stage 17. And different to the Giro the Tour doesn't constantly get into its own way by putting the best designed stages right before the hardest ones.
Also, I'm just a really big fan of a GT being decided over 3 weeks. The Giro is once again extremely backloaded and the Tour really isn't. I think it really mostly comes down to this.
I agree about the Tourmalet stage but I was mostly talking about the Basque country stages and the Marie Blanque one. And say about Marie Blanque what you will, if that stage was in the giro, it would be a category 2 climb and we would all call it a medium mountain stage.
Oh yeah the stage designs in the Alps are rubbish. But I was comparing the race to the Giro which might have better stage designs in a vacuum but in a badly paced route so I don't expect more long range action there than in the Tour.
The Crans Montana stage is nice but it's the first serious mountain stage, don't see anyone making a big attack with a 20 km long flat section between climbs. Monte Bondone is obviously all about the last climb, as most likely is Tre Cime. The only mountain stage really incentivizing a move from far out is the Val di Zoldo one, which comes right before the queen stage and an insane MTT. Also, if someone attacks on the penultimate climb that's as much a long range attack as an attack on the Col de la Loze would be.
I mean, if someone really wants to make long range attacks in the Giro he can still do it, but I don't think the route forces the issue. It's like in the Tour, where if riders really want to, they could easily attack from far out on the Tourmalet, the Ramaz, the Croix Fry and at any point on stage 17. And different to the Giro the Tour doesn't constantly get into its own way by putting the best designed stages right before the hardest ones.
Also, I'm just a really big fan of a GT being decided over 3 weeks. The Giro is once again extremely backloaded and the Tour really isn't. I think it really mostly comes down to this.
I agree about the Tourmalet stage but I was mostly talking about the Basque country stages and the Marie Blanque one. And say about Marie Blanque what you will, if that stage was in the giro, it would be a category 2 climb and we would all call it a medium mountain stage.
1. We've ignored the TTs so far, where I guess everyone agrees the Tour is just completely insufficient cause it's only 25km or something and it's pretty much an MTT.
2. You're underselling the first week of the Giro. The Tour has like 3 GC stages in the first 9 days, the Giro has 5. A 20km ITT, which is likely more relevant than the hilly stage 1 of the Tour, a pseudo MTF on stage 4 which is quite steep and something the Tour never does. Stage 7 goes to Campo Imperatore, which I'm not even particularly a fan of but the final 5km are pretty hard and it goes over 2000 km. I don't see how that stage is much very much worse than Cambasque if Tourmalet doesn't get raced super hard, which is quite unlikely. Then stage 8 is a hard, Tirreno style stage you most certainly never see in the Tour that nobody is talking about. Then stage 9 is the main ITT. The Tour has stage 1, a hilly stage that's easier than stage 8 of the Giro, it has Jaizkibel where I'm very sceptical anything will happen apart from a sprint for bonus seconds on top of the climb, it has the Marie Blanque stage that might get neutralized by the 7km of false flat to Laruns and by being the very first mountain stage, and it has Tourmalet with an ungodly amount of distance to the finish. You know I'm generally one to despise short mountain stages, but if stage 6 finished after 115km straight after the Tourmalet descent I would think it to be a lot better
3. I don't think total quantity of GC stages is different at all. The TdF has 8 pretty clear mountain stages, a TT and stage 1. I'm inclined to discount Jaizkibel, so it has 10 GC stages. The Giro has 11 IMO. The 3 ITTs, 2 mountain stages in week 1, 4 mountain stages in week 2/3, and 2 medium mountain stages to Fossombrone and Bergamo. You could argue that I'm overly optimistic about Bergamo counting, but even then it's even. If we talk about pacing, the Tour is just as concentrated as the Giro, with the exception it has 3 sprint stages in its final 4 stages, so the geometric mean of the route just happens to be earlier. The Tour actually has 5 GC stages in a row starting with Grand Colombier and ending with Courchevel. Both the Tour and Giro have the exact same lull from stage 10-12 with 2 breakaway stages and a sprint stage. So the only real reason the Giro is more backloaded is that the Tour has simply backloaded its sprint stages more and the big Giro mountain stages are much harder.
4. A bit of mountain stage philosophy. What makes for a good big mountain stage? Does early action need to mandatory to have any gaps, and does it need to be predictable and obvious in the Mortirolo/Aprica way, does it need to be possible but not mandatory like the Vuelta Andorra stages, or dose it need to be possible but somewhat illogical like the Pyrenees in the Tour last year? And this is where I think the Tour kinda shits the bed. The only stage where launching long in a desperate situation is on stage 6, so either you don't get what you want from it, or you risk deciding GC super early. Only 1 of the other 6 mountain stages has real reason to launch before the final climb and it's a pretty vanilla 3 cat 1 stage where the very best scenario is 2 consecutive Cat 1s, which is pretty meh for a supposed 'anything should be able to happen' stage. Queen stage is never gonna get going before the final 7km of climbing, like the Aprica 2022. Attacks on Croix-Fry is about the biggest grasp I've seen about a race design since I thought COntador was totally gonna attack Passo di Ganda in Lombardia 2014. At worst that stage is completely interchangable with Zoldo Alto. Which makes the queen stage in the Tour basically about as good as the 'disappointing' Monte Bondone stage in the Giro. Then Crans Montana and Tre Cime have plenty of potential for craziness. And I refuse to believe Giau isn't hard enough to go solo, and I don't really believe Grand San Bernardo and Croix de Coeur can be softpaced that much either. Maybe it's attacking and regrouping, but IMO something's gotta give. Finally, 20km of false flat betwee CdC and Crans Montana is less than the false flat between the Tourmalet and Cambasque. Not to mention that that Tour stage is a gigantic heap easier. One of the specific TdF stages you cite as great for long range action was a complete dud less than a decade ago. Meanwhile the dolomites with Giau west have been carnage every time even on easier stages, and there's basically no comparisons for the Crans Montana stage unless you wanna use Galibier 2011 or something which was a bloodbath. With monster climbs like Croix de Coeur, it doesn't really look like some extra flat hurts the action all that much, and the only indictment of that stage design is perhaps it's too hard for a break to survive that climb.
5. Narratives. I'm fairly convinced that a lot of the hype for the race overall is transferred onto the route. There's this idea that "Pog is gonna go crazy" so any half baked mountain stage looks great with Pog vs Vingegaard. Yet at the same time there seems to be the idea that "Evenepoel and Roglic will just battle it out in the ITT and they're gonna hold hands in the high mountains" or something like that.
Some pacing arguments do hold I think. Arguably Tre Cime and Puy de Dome are similarly hard finishes, but you rather use that as an Unipuerto. And having a clear descent finish is nice rather than having every mountain stage be a MTF. But still I think the only 'way' the Tour route looks better is by having a systematically rosier outlook of how the Tour stages will unfold than the Giro stages.
I agree about the Tourmalet stage but I was mostly talking about the Basque country stages and the Marie Blanque one. And say about Marie Blanque what you will, if that stage was in the giro, it would be a category 2 climb and we would all call it a medium mountain stage.
In the defence of Marie-Blanque, it's basically three-quarters of Fedaia minus the scenery. Definitely one of the more underrated frequently-used climbs in cycling.
In all honesty, the first 9 stages of the Tour are, on the whole, good provided the Limoges stage is reasonably hilly, and still decent otherwise. It's after that that it just goes mostly wrong. The Alps are kind of a mess, the balancing is awful (no echelon opportunities or cobbles to make up for the lack of TT either), there are three flat stages in the final four days and stage 20 being good for once doesn't save it. It's a onedimensional test of climbing and a mediocre one at that given that the climbing isn't that hard for a GT.
The Giro is not truly great, but still quite good overall rather than just in the first part, except for it shooting itself in the foot with the order of stages 18-20 (or even just with the existence of that MTT). The climbing is significantly harder than what the Tour has and it's a less onedimensional route to boot. Also, Giau is a better opportunity for a long-range attack than anything at the Tour. Yes, Pogacar could bail ASO out again, but that has little to do with the quality of the route itself. To each their own, but for me the Giro has the better route this year and it isn't particularly close.
As for being a three week race, I don't see much of a difference.
First week of the Giro in order of GC relevance:
35 km flat ITT
19.6 km opening ITT
Lago Laceno (4.15 km, 8.92 %)
Fossombrone (1.7 km, 11.1 %)
Campo Imperatore (4 km, 8.4 %)
First week of the Tour in order of GC relevance:
Puy de Dôme (13.5 km, 7.6 % - Last 4.72 km at 11.53 % )
Cambasque (~5 km, ~7.7 %)
Laruns (9.1 km, 7.7 % - Last 4 km at 11 %)
Bilbao (2 km, 9.8 %)
San Sebastian (8.3 km, 5.3 % - Last 3.7 km at 7.1 %)
Yeah, ~55 km of ITT alone will have a greater impact on the GC.
EDIT: In fact, the middle 2 weeks in the Tour concentrates more GC relevant route than the last 2 weeks of the Giro does.
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