Grand Depart 2017 in Germany?

[Bye Bye Bicycle]

Stage 1 is a 13 km ITT.

 

[Bye Bye Bicycle]

Stage 2. Seems like they don't have a finish town yet. Nice idea to include a passage through the Neandertal - this will bring us loads of bad puns.

 

[Ferminal]

A mighty fast ITT, nice.

 

[veji11]

13k is ok, but 20/25 ks of flat and fast TT would have been nice, it really sets the stage and gives you some time differences already. But suspense trumps all I suppose.

 

[sir fly]

Really conservative announcement of the German stages. I expected more.
To me it looks like the organizers aren't sure yet for how long will they keep the race in Germany.
Düsseldorf could stay the only German host town if the Benelux bidders offer more before the autumn.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Stage 2. Seems like they don't have a finish town yet. Nice idea to include a passage through the Neandertal - this will bring us loads of bad puns.

What's the distance of that? Maybe they just finish at the start and do loops.

 

[doperhopper]

And now the 2018 Grand Depart is rumored to be in Denmark ....


Let's wait for the 2021 Tour.
I will start in Singapore and have 19 stages outside of France - but hey, i's still TdF, stage 20 is Alpe d'Huez (3 times) and stage 21 on Champs Elysee ...

don't tell this to ASO, or ce can end up with a year-long Tour de World, starting in Australia in January, passing by Alpe/Paris in July and finishing in South Afric in December

 

[Max Rockatansky]

What's the distance of that? Maybe they just finish at the start and do loops.

About 40k.

First one made for the Panzerwagen, second for Kittel/Greipel.

 

[sensations]

Bad Homburg nearby Frankfurt (libertine will know) is still quite keen on hosting a stage - and with the Taunus hills nearby could make for a fun final 50 kms or so.

Problem is it's 220km Autobahn from Düsseldorf and with the loop at the beginning, it certainly won't be the 2nd stage.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

That would be good especially if they did Großer Feldberg from Schmitten or something in the run-in, or Mammolshainer Berg - descend into Oberursel - 5-10km into Bad Homburg. It would probably need to be stage 3 though for the reasons you describe. I'm thinking they may need somewhere in between. A real possibility would be the Nürburgring, it has cycling history of course. Then you could finish in BHvdH in stage 3 and then head into France on stage 4; from Ffm it's probably a bit far as it would take most of the stage to get there, but from one of the other Ashkenaz I cities to the south of there it would probably work.

Something like this would satisfy:
Düsseldorf - Düsseldorf (ITT)
Düsseldorf - Nürburgring (flat with hilly final circuit)
Neuwied? Koblenz? Gerolstein? Bonn? - Bad Homburg vor der Höhe (hilly to intermediate)
Darmstadt? Mannheim? Speyer? Worms? Heidelberg? - Hagenau? Strasbourg? Sarreguemines? (flat)
Alsace - Alsace (have an intermediate, first actual mountain type stage here, maybe to La Mauselaine again? PdBF may pay up again after 2012 and 2014? Le Markstein?)

 

[barmaher]

Some rumours that I have seen recently about this route:

Esch in Luxembourg looking for a stage finish. This would be in week 1. It could be early if they don't hang around in Germany or as late as the Wednesday I guess.
http://www.lequotidien.lu/sports/une-arrivee-a-esch-sur-alzette-sur-le-tour-de-france-2017/

Metz is looking for a stage, too. This would be hot on the heels of Esch I guess on the way south.
http://www.republicain-lorrain.fr/edition-de-metz-ville/2016/07/24/tour-de-france-a-metz-bientot-un-42e-passage-kpgb

Rumoured stage finish on La Planche des Belles Filles. I would guess this would be on the Saturday or Sunday at the end of Week 1.
https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/culture-loisirs/info-fb-besancon-tour-de-france-une-arrivee-la-planche-des-belles-filles-en-2017-1468918674

Bastille day finish (Friday of week 2) on the top of the Izoard.
http://www.dici.fr/actu/2016/07/24/hautes-alpes-info-d-une-arrivee-tour-de-france-sommet-col-d-izoard-2360-m-2017-872384

Romans sur Isere looking for some Tour action.
https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/societe/romans-ville-etape-du-tour-de-france-en-2017-ou-2018-1468691531

I read somewhere that Alpe d'Huez will get a stage finish. Sorry, no link.

Orcieres Merlette (near Gap) is looking for a stage.
http://alpesdusud.alpes1.com/news/hautes-alpes/51950/hautes-alpes-l-equipe-trek-segafredo-en-stage-a-orcieres-merlette

I don't know much about the Pyrenees. Let's hope for something more imaginative than usual.

 

[Valv.Piti]

La Planche has been a good climb in TdF. I hope for a stage similar to that one of 2014! Froome and Nibali winners here, some names.

The rest? I don't know. I really like Alpe d' Huez since its a climb which is designed to explode in the bottom. I can't remember it hasn't been the case which is why I love it. I don't feel all the flak it receives is deserved. Izoard I guess is decent, hopefully with Agnello beforehand instead of Lautaret.

 

[Netserk]

Orcieres Merlette sounds great (Especially as leaving the Alps). You can have more than a handful of cat2 climbs before it (Pontis/Puy-Sanières+Saint-Apollinaire+Moissière+Bayard+Chaillol+Serre-Eyraud, if you want to use as many as possible).

Izoard as a MTF sounds horrible. No pass should be used as a MTF, especially not with Briancon at the foot.

 

[Red Rick]

I'm not holding my breath with these rumours

 

[Libertine Seguros]

If it's placed on around stage 5, La Planche is fine. If they're going to mess around and put it on a weekend, it will be pretty disappointing as would mean super-backloading yet again, and you know, we've seen the climb quite a bit now.

Orcières-Merlette would be potentially great as the stage exiting the Alps. Briançon - Orcières with the kind of route to it Netserk proposes above would be just about the ideal last-stage-of-the-range format. It's also a long-forgotten summit to the Tour so it could still spring some surprises even if the climb itself isn't that hard. However if the Izoard stage is the Friday, that would mean Orcières on the Saturday, and so probably a flat transitional stage on the Sunday in traditional ASO fashion, to allow them to get to the Pyrenees for the late stages. It would also mean potentially some seven stages or so beween La Planche and Izoard, you could get from each to the other in two or three so hopefully they'll spread it out a bit, I just fear that makes it more likely they'll just loop around the east of the country to get to La Planche on about stage 8.

 

[barmaher]

Also talk of Vittel. There seems to be a lot of stages in the east. Indeed if rumours are to be believed, all stages will be east of Verdun - Dijon - Aix until the last six days. Pretty incredible.

Of course, things can and will change.

 

[TheYouyou7]

The 2014 stage at PDBF was well designed but as said hope it will come quite soon .
We should get to AdH but no rumours yet and dificult to put for the moment if we follow the rumours.
For Pyrenees i hope they wont mess it up as they usually do...

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

The 2014 stage at PDBF was well designed but as said hope it will come quite soon .

I doubt this stage will be as hard as that one as the article mentions the lakes area in the western foothills of the Vosges. Could be a fairly easy run-in.

 

[Kwibus]

Re:

La Planche has been a good climb in TdF. I hope for a stage similar to that one of 2014! Froome and Nibali winners here, some names.

The rest? I don't know. I really like Alpe d' Huez since its a climb which is designed to explode in the bottom. I can't remember it hasn't been the case which is why I love it. I don't feel all the flak it receives is deserved. Izoard I guess is decent, hopefully with Agnello beforehand instead of Lautaret.

L'Alpe is the most hyped climb ever and if you look at the profile you wonder why. But! I agree with you that it's always raced great, it always explodes at the bottom which is great for many reasons.

Just make sure they use bariers from the bottom till the top and limit the amount of spectators.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

La Planche has been a good climb in TdF. I hope for a stage similar to that one of 2014! Froome and Nibali winners here, some names.

The rest? I don't know. I really like Alpe d' Huez since its a climb which is designed to explode in the bottom. I can't remember it hasn't been the case which is why I love it. I don't feel all the flak it receives is deserved. Izoard I guess is decent, hopefully with Agnello beforehand instead of Lautaret.

L'Alpe is the most hyped climb ever and if you look at the profile you wonder why. But! I agree with you that it's always raced great, it always explodes at the bottom which is great for many reasons.

Just make sure they use bariers from the bottom till the top and limit the amount of spectators.

It receives way too much backlash from incarnated cycling fans to the point where it isn't justified at all IMO. Its a great, great climb. The perfect MTF:

 

[Netserk]

Aprica is the perfect MTF.

Alpe doesn't link well. That said, as a standalone climb, it is quite good (if it wasn't for the crowd).

 

[Poursuivant]

Re:

Some rumours that I have seen recently about this route:

Esch in Luxembourg looking for a stage finish. This would be in week 1. It could be early if they don't hang around in Germany or as late as the Wednesday I guess.
http://www.lequotidien.lu/sports/une-arrivee-a-esch-sur-alzette-sur-le-tour-de-france-2017/

Metz is looking for a stage, too. This would be hot on the heels of Esch I guess on the way south.
http://www.republicain-lorrain.fr/edition-de-metz-ville/2016/07/24/tour-de-france-a-metz-bientot-un-42e-passage-kpgb

Rumoured stage finish on La Planche des Belles Filles. I would guess this would be on the Saturday or Sunday at the end of Week 1.
https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/culture-loisirs/info-fb-besancon-tour-de-france-une-arrivee-la-planche-des-belles-filles-en-2017-1468918674

Bastille day finish (Friday of week 2) on the top of the Izoard.
http://www.dici.fr/actu/2016/07/24/hautes-alpes-info-d-une-arrivee-tour-de-france-sommet-col-d-izoard-2360-m-2017-872384

Romans sur Isere looking for some Tour action.
https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/societe/romans-ville-etape-du-tour-de-france-en-2017-ou-2018-1468691531

I read somewhere that Alpe d'Huez will get a stage finish. Sorry, no link.

Orcieres Merlette (near Gap) is looking for a stage.
http://alpesdusud.alpes1.com/news/hautes-alpes/51950/hautes-alpes-l-equipe-trek-segafredo-en-stage-a-orcieres-merlette

I don't know much about the Pyrenees. Let's hope for something more imaginative than usual.

Thanks for this, good work.

How would a Bardet friendly parcours look, descents a-plenty? No TT after Dussledorf? I can see ASO looking out for the great French hope.

 

[Cannibal72]

Lots of pretty explosive climbs, I'd say (directly contradicting what Pinot would want).

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

http://www.vosgesmatin.fr/sport/2016/07/28/cyclisme-le-tour-de-france-a-vittel-le-4-juillet-2017

Vittel more or less confirmed for July 4th. Looks like they'll skip Metz (too close to Luxembourg anyway - and they have it already in the bag) From the article:

.Le possible départ du tour 2017

1er juillet : Düsseldorf-Düsseldorf (13 km, CLM)

2 juillet : Düsseldorf - Verviers (BEL), 140 km

3 juillet : Verviers (BEL) - Esch-sur-Alzette (LUX), 180 km

4 juillet : Esch-sur-Alzette (LUX) - Vittel, 195 km

5 juillet : Vittel - Planche-des-Belles-Filles, 150 km


as per the latest newspaper "rumors":

1. Düsseldorf ITT
2. Düsseldorf - Verviers (Belgium)
3. Marche-en-Famenne (Belgium) - Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg)
4. Mondorf-les-Bains (Luxembourg) - Vittel
5 (?) - La Planche des Belles Filles MTF





http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2016/07/27/2391763-2017-les-pyrenees-en-juge-de-paix.html

^ ladepeche.fr mentions Port de Balès, Superbagnères and Luz-Ardiden as possibilities

 

[dacooley]

the structure of mountain stage blocks gives the reason to assume that might me a TT friendly route this time. might be mistaken though