Paris - Nice 10 March - 17 March 2019 77th edition

[Velolover2]

Laporte and Ewan down. Looking good for Demare now.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Caleb went down
and lost his chance today

 

[RedheadDane]

Ewan went right down on his radio?

Hope the road is okay where Laporte hit it.

 

[DNP-Old]

FDJ is terrible in leading out sprints.

 

[KZD]

What a speed by Bennett. A shame he won't go to the Giro or Tour

 

[Red Rick]

Yates wins the sprint of his group, he can truly do it all now

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Very nice performance by Bennett. Congrats.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Good durability to be there, good positional skills and great acceleration to win. Maybe more teams should try irritating their sprinters, because Bennett has been superb so far this year.

 

[Koronin]

Rafael Valls was taken to the hospital with a shoulder injury. That's all that Movistar has stated so far about his injury.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Is Col de Turini the hardest climb in Paris-Nice ever? Im aware of Chaley Reynard (Mont Ventoux), but thinking this actually might be harder.

 

[roundabout]

Mont-Serein is roughly the same meters climbed in roughly the same distance

 

[Koronin]

Injury updates: Lawson Craddock has a sprained shoulder and Rafael Valls has a fractured collarbone.

 

[Robert5091]

Good win for Sam Bennett & Bora - Demare went a little bit too early into the headwind. Nervous in the peloton with the wind & crashes - hope all are back soon.

 

[Robert5091]

Paris-Nice 2019 Saturday 16 March stage 7: Nice - Turini Pass 181.5 km

https://www.cyclingstage.com/paris-nice-2019/stage-7-route-pn-2019/

The final weekend of Paris-Nice is sure to detonate the fireworks. Never lacking in spectacle, the 2019 Race to the Sun serves its Queen Stage on the penultimate day. Following five intermediate climbs the final haul-up on the Col de Turin is 14.9 kilometres at 7.3%. The route amounts to 181.5 kilometres.

The race begins in Nice and shortly the Côte de Gattières appears. Only 4.5 kilometres at 4.5%, so a gentle opener to stretch the legs. The riders continue to the Côte de Gourdon, a 7.7 kilometres climb at 4.2% with its crest after almost 50 kilometres. Up next is the Côte de Coursegoules. This mountain peaks out at 995 metres, while the ride to the top is 7.8 kilometres at 5%.

Still more than 100 kilometres to go and the race enters a calm phase. On rolling roads the route continues to the Côte de Gillette, which is a hill of 2 kilometres with a 5.6% slope. Following the descent a false flat runs to the foot of the Côte de Pelasque. Almost 27 kilometres remaining and tension is rising.

At 5.7 kilometres and with an average gradient of 6.2%, the Pelasque is the penultimate climb. Straight after the descent the riders tackle the final climb. The Turini Pass has never previously featured in Paris-Nice, possibly because of the elevation (1,607 metres). The high mountains easily turn into a grim and unwelcoming place this early in the season. The ascent is 14.9 kilometres long while its average slope sits at 7.3%. The mountain road is narrow and curvy with a dizzying series of hairpins.

The first three riders on the line win time bonuses of 10, 6 and 4 seconds, while two intermediate sprints (at kilometre 172.5 and kilometre 169.5) come with 3, 2 and 1 seconds. Note: the last bonus sprint is on the early slopes of the Turini pass.

The 7th stage of Paris-Nice starts at 11:25 and the expected finish is around 16:55 – both are local times.

Stage profile

map of stage

Col de Turini profile -

Weather forecast is for a sunny day without strong wind.

 

[Broccolidwarf]

First serious test for the Giro contenders today

 

[gregrowlerson]

Re:

Why was a) LLS battling so hard for bonus seconds, and b) why was Kwiatkowski trying so hard to stop him from taking them? I might be wrong, but I have never thought of LLS having much ability at all on a proper high mountain; I would have thought he had less of a pedigree than Kwiatkowski.

And most definitely much less than Bernal, who should win this race now.

Bearing in mind that Sky have a current 1-2, I think they will try to ride as conservatively as possible for as long as possible. The longer it takes for the race to blow apart, the better chance that Kwiatkowski has of holding onto second place. But not only is this a 14 km climb, but it's a mountain that should see an inconsistency of pace: check out those gradients from 4-7 kms...

If Quintana is feeling good then surely he will try something there. If Yates has good legs then I could see him being a potential allie. Although even if an attack comes this early, I think that Sky will try to keep their team together. Bernal might not leave Kwiatkowski until Quintana is at least half a minute up the road.

Anyway, even if attacks only start in the last 5 kms, I don't see Bernal not overtaking his teammate. I expected bigger gaps after the ITT.

 

[dick the quick]

Today's stage scenario:

1) nothing GC-relevant happens until the bottom of Turini (only de Gendt secures his polka dot jersey by taking all the available KoM points out of an early breakaway);
2) from the very bottom of Turini, Sky is setting a moderate pace and is waiting for what will happen next;
3) right after the climb begins, some of the GC non relevant climbers move ahead, trying their chances for a stage win - no reaction from Sky;
4) then, on some more steep early slopes, one or several expected GC guys attack (Quintana, Bardet, Kelderman etc.) - Bernal immediately follows;
5) Kwiat is desperately trying to hang on for as long as he can, but he finally drops like a stone in a mid-section of the climb (OR, ALTERNATIVELY: Kwiat is constantly loosing the distance, but still is keeping his rhytme, just to put some pression on the attacking Quintana, Bardet etc.);
6) Bernal, having saved most of the energy amongst the front guys, either attacks from a long range for a stage win and yellow jersey, or he outsprints the others at the finish line.

 

[Lequack]

Everyone knows Yates will win this stage.

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

Why was a) LLS battling so hard for bonus seconds, and b) why was Kwiatkowski trying so hard to stop him from taking them? I might be wrong, but I have never thought of LLS having much ability at all on a proper high mountain; I would have thought he had less of a pedigree than Kwiatkowski.

And most definitely much less than Bernal, who should win this race now.

Bearing in mind that Sky have a current 1-2, I think they will try to ride as conservatively as possible for as long as possible. The longer it takes for the race to blow apart, the better chance that Kwiatkowski has of holding onto second place. But not only is this a 14 km climb, but it's a mountain that should see an inconsistency of pace: check out those gradients from 4-7 kms...

If Quintana is feeling good then surely he will try something there. If Yates has good legs then I could see him being a potential allie. Although even if an attack comes this early, I think that Sky will try to keep their team together. Bernal might not leave Kwiatkowski until Quintana is at least half a minute up the road.

Anyway, even if attacks only start in the last 5 kms, I don't see Bernal not overtaking his teammate. I expected bigger gaps after the ITT.

Bernal will follow Quintana on that climb immediately, he's by far the biggest danger for Sky.

 

[Sestriere]

It will be important for the potential attackers to let their teams set a strong pace early on the climb to hurt Kwiatkowski. If they could distance him by a few minutes today it would be easier to attack Bernal tomorrow as Sky would have limited tactical options.
AG2R has a good team for the job with Gallopin, Cherel and Frank, Mitchelton has Nieve and if Soler and Anacona planned to do something useful this week it would be here.

 

[Valv.Piti]

I think Anacona and Soler are in decent shape, so Movistar will definitely try to set a hard tempo early on on the climb with those two.

 

[Red Rick]

Groenewegen DNS.

 

[Robert5091]

39 man break? What!? Only Sky & Sunweb don't have someone in the break.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

Groenewegen DNS.

Same with Ewan and EBH. Bennett is DNF. Seems like the sprinters aren’t all that keen on doing Turini in March.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Is this stage in Simon Yates pocket already? There’s nobody in that break who can climb with him and it doesn’t look like Sky are all that bothered about catching it.