Race Design Thread

[lemon cheese cake]

DR Stage 8 Saarbrucken - Karlsruhe

KOMs:
Climb 1 Cat 2
Climb 2 Cat 1
Climb 3 Cat 1
Ramberg Cat 3

KOCs/Primes:
Rodalben
Edenkoben

Today we start in Saarbrucken, close to the french border. The route today, heads out towards the border town of Bliesmengen Bolchen. From there we head out into the mountains. But before the mountains, we come across Rodelben for the first Prime of the day. From here we shall head into the mountains for the Climb 1 (sorry for the very imaginate names for the first three climbs. They are in the middle of nowwhere). This is a catorgory 2 climb. After that we descend down to the foot of the, again imaginately named, Climb 2. This is the first catorgory 1 climb of the race. Following that, we head for the last Prime of the day at Edenkoben. After that we head back into the hills for the Cat 1 Climb 3 and the final climb of the day at Ramberg. In to the flat lands we come as we head for the finish in Karlsruhe. After a tough stage that was over 200kms, the riders will be looking forward to getting on that team bus for the trip to the hotel

Start:

Finish:

 

[May0maniac]

Giro d'Italia

Stage 1 Salerno ITT 18.43 km

The Giro starts in Salerno with an ITT that is just a pure power test, totally flat and no technical cornes. It's a bit long for a stage 1 ITT, but i like to have some gaps between the various favourites and i think that will be an incentive for the climbers to attack already on the first real mountain stage, stage 6.

 

[May0maniac]

Stage 2 Salerno-Venosa 176 km

Stage 2 will be a nice short stage that could go to one of the riders in the breakaway, a sprinter like Kristoff or Degenkolb or an late attacker.
The first part of the stage features a few small climbs.
At km 111 the climb from Conza della Campania to Cairano starts, 3.9km at 7%.
Only a few km after we have a short climb up to Calitri, 1,7km at 8%.
From km 134-139 we have the climb up to Ruvo del Monte, 4,8km at 5,4%.
The last climbs are the climb for Atella to Rionero in Vulture (3,6km at 3,8%) and then the climb to Ginestro (2,85km at 6,2%).
From Ginestro we still have 10km of false flat descent the riders arrive at Venosa, only the first 2 km of the descent are a bit more technical, the rest is just a straight false flat.

 

[May0maniac]

Stage 3 Spinazzola-Manfredonia 161km

A boring stage for the sprinters. The last 100km are alongside the coast and we're in a pretty windy region so with a little bit of luck we could get some exciting racing.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I did warn people about a Grand Tour impending, but before we get to that, I have something a bit different... a mountainous (sort of) one-day race.

There are a number of races on the calendar named in honour of a star cyclist - there's the GP Jef Scherens, the GP Raymond Impanis, the GP Pino Cerami, the GP Miguel Indurain and so on. There are an increasing number of races that are named in the memory of a cyclist who has died, in addition to this - Binche-Tournai-Binche has had the appellation "Memorial Frank Vandenbroucke" added to it; the Clasica Amarante has been renamed the "Memorial Bruno Neves"; the "Memorial Marco Pantani" is a brand new event since the death of the legendary climber. With the current state of Spanish cycling it is perhaps unsurprising but a little disappointing that there isn't a one-day race to honour their iconic 90s hero-died-young star, Chava Jiménez. However, while we are still in Spain, it is somebody who died altogether more recently that I wanted to honour with a race. Hence, I present a 212km one-day race with 6 noted climbs:

Circuit d'Olot-Memorial Xavier Tondó

As a rider, Xavi had one of the more circuitous routes to the top that you could ever find. He was one of those everyman types, the kind that people related to. Breaking into the sport almost by chance after passing and riding through a local elite amateur team in the mountains, he started racing, and broke through with impressive performances as an amateur in 2002, earning himself a pro contract with Paternina. A strong 2005 season with Catalunya, including wins in the Volta ao Alentejo and an eye-catching solo win at the Santuário del Acebo in the Vuelta a Asturias led to him getting a Pro-Continental contract with Relax-GAM in 2006; however a combination of poorly-timed illnesses & the number of newly on-the-market riders courtesy of Puerto meant he was not kept on & went into exile in Portugal. An extremely strong 2007 season, where he won the Volta a Portugal on the final weekend thanks to finishing 2nd on both the Alto da Torre & the final ITT, meant his star seemed to be rising, only for 2008 to bring him back down, as he was unable to defend his title after his team was uninvited due to a string of suspect performances, a police raid and the death of one of his teammates on the bike. A contract with Andalucía came from this, however, though he seldom got to race outside Spain (and when he did, seldom in races that suited him. I mean, Ronde van Drenthe?) he did show that he was too good a rider to have never had the chance to show at this level before, finishing on the podium of the Vuelta a Burgos & the Subida a Urkiola, & winning a mountain stage at the Tour de San Luís. Unfortunately, he was a victim of the major pile-up in Liège in the Vuelta, and was unable to compete for the GC.

Cervélo were willing to take a flyer on him (after Garmin passed without testing him due to Vaughters' admitted suspicion of him due to the history of LA-MSS), and he repaid them handsomely, winning a stage of Paris-Nice in dramatic fashion, breaking away with fellow Catalan Joaquím Rodríguez over 50km from home in the queen stage of the Volta a Catalunya, to take the stage win and 2nd on the GC. An impressive showing at the Giro, partly thanks to the L'Aquila breakaway, was curtailed after bonking spectacularly on Monte Zoncolan, and his tilt at the GPM, having picked up a number of points to L'Aquila & Monte Terminillo, was derailed after crashing and having to retire on the penultimate day. Back on the bike for the Vuelta, Tondó showed what he was really capable of in a Grand Tour, following the template of Carlos Sastre to the letter and in fact on a number of occasions (and in the overall GC at the end) being superior to the former Tour winner, taking 6th place in the overall GC. It seemed that he had finally found his niche, but then Cervélo pulled out & the subsequent merger with Garmin put him out of a home again.

That's how, at 32 years of age, Xavier Tondó finally made it to the top level. With Valverde suspended, Unzué's Movistar team had no certain leader, though Tondó was seemingly in the best position to assume the role. Finishing 5th in his home race & managing the same in País Vasco (including setting the current record time on Arrate), he then won the Vuelta a Castilla y León, in what turned out to be his final race. His 2011, however was notable for two things. First, when he shopped a doping ring to the autonomous Catalan police, garnering a lot of support from the cycling community both inside & among fans, & causing Jonathan Vaughters to publicly eat crow & apologize to him. Second, for the far worse reason that, on his way to a training ride in the Sierra Nevada on May 23rd, a freak accident with his car and an automated garage door resulted in Xavi's sudden death. Having only just lost another high-profile rider a couple of weeks earlier in Wouter Weylandt, there was a lot of sadness and grief among the cycling community at the time already, and the sudden death of such a personable and likable rider so soon afterward was quite a body blow for many fans, let alone his friends, family and colleagues.

I probably don't need to tell you that I was a big fan of Xavier Tondó. I've posted marking the anniversary of his death on the thread about it each year. I changed my avatar to a picture of Xavi & kept it there for some time afterward; the video of his epic Paris-Nice stage win has remained in my signature ever since. And obviously I'm not alone. Annually, around Sant Joan des Fonts & Olot, the town where he lived, there is the Marxa 100% Tondó, a ride in his honour which loops around Olot and Banyoles, in its longer version finishing with a climb of the Vallter2000 ski station, which was seen in the Volta a Catalunya this year in 2013 in tribute (the finish was repeated in 2014). At the first edition of the Marxa, in 2011, participants included a number of fellow pros, including Joaquím Rodríguez, Joan Horrach, Íñigo Cuesta & Josep Jufre:

In 2013, Beñat Intxausti won a Giro stage on May 21st and dedicated it to Xavier, the teammate who had died in his arms almost two years to the day previous. His memory continues to be honoured within the péloton, and among the fans (you will see many T-shirts and banners among the Catalan crowds at the Volta a Catalunya) & as a fan I thought it would be nice if there could be, like the Memorial races for the stars that died young, a Memorial race for Xavi. He was the kind of rider you could get behind: a difficult route to the top where he'd suffered countless pieces of bad luck, but he just seemed to love bike racing, and was always personable and smiling.

As a route, I decided that I wanted to combine elements of the real Marxa (after all, they are the people paying real tributes to the man, not hypothetical tributes like mine) with elements of parcours design to ape the famous Paris-Nice stage win, with descent leading into the uphill false-flat finish. As a result, the race route consists of 3 circuits:
1) Sant Joan des Fonts - Sant Joan des Fonts, a 68km circuit which follows exactly the route for the short version of the Marxa.
2) Sant Joan des Fonts - Olot via Camprodon
3) Olot - Olot via Vall de Bac

I arrived at the route above, which has 7 genuine climbs:

1) Coll de Caselles (6km, 4,3%) [57km]
2) Coll de Camporiol (5km, 4,4%) [79km]
3) (4,1km, 9,0%) [89km]
4) [URL="http://www.ramacabici.com/altimetrias/boixedaxbeget.png]Coll de la Boixeda (12,5km, 4,9%) [110km]
5) Coll de Santigosa (6,6km, 4,2%) [138km]
6) Colldecarrera (9,5km, 3,4%) [177km]
7) Vall de Bac (2,5km, 8,5%) [188km]

As you can see, the majority of the climbing actually comes early & it's only the climbs in the Vall de Bac that will cause racing separation. The steep final 2km of Colldecarrera are on hormigón, although the rest of the climb is fully asphalted and should cause no problems at all. With this ascent with its brutal ramps of up to 20% coming with 35km remaining, then no respite before the short, steep, tarmacked final ascent, this will be where the moves are made in earnest. After this there is a bit of false flat to the Coll de Capsacosta, which is climbed in preparation for Vallter2000 in the real event, however we will now descend it into Olot for the finish.

In an ideal world, the event would be in one of two places on the calendar. Either immediately before the Volta a Catalunya (preferably on the Saturday, allowing a day off then the start of the 7-day race), or on the weekend closest to the anniversary of Tondó's death. With the travel between teams that he had and the diverse range of races he had been part of, I would hope that you could draw a good collection of teams even with the problems Spanish cycling has been facing.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

A second hilly Classic in Spain now. The Circuito Montañés used to run in Cantabria. It was the biggest amateur race in Spain, and one of the key races in gauging talented young riders before they turned pro. It ran through the 50s and 60s before a long layoff, restarting in 1986. Winners included José María Jiménez, Javier Otxoa, Dave Bruylandts, Robert Gesink, Bauke Mollema, Tejay van Garderen and Fabio Duarte. However, in 2011, the organizers announced they had fallen short of the funding for it and the race would have to be cancelled. Despite attempts to revive it, there has been no race since.

Earlier in this thread, I have attempted a short stage race version of a Vuelta a Cantabria. However, I think that given the smallish size of the region, and that terrain-wise it would always struggle to match its similar neighbour, the Vuelta al País Vasco, perhaps the region would be better suited to a really tough one-day race. After all, there are plenty of options for a classic "Subida a" type race. Peña Cabarga and Cueva el Soplao would be the logical choices. The former, forgotten since the 70s, was rediscovered by the Vuelta in 2010, and its proximity to Santander and the intriguing battle that broke out after Antón's crash led to an immediate return. In 2011, an intense duel broke out as comical transformer Chris Froome sought to overhaul the few seconds he needed out of local hero (and fellow shock GC competitor) Juanjo Cobo late in the race, while Cobo's loyal fans cheered on El Bisonte behind. And in 2013, Kiryienka won from the break while Horner fought back much of the time he needed from Nibali. However, a one-day race here would inevitably be left to the final climb. Not so for Cueva el Soplao, an ascent to the breathtaking caves is less steep - it falls somewhere between Monte Naranco and Arrate - and could come off the back of climbs like Ozalba and Hoz. It was last seen in a race in the 2009 National Championships, where the final ascent came down to a group of Rubén Plaza, Alejandro Valverde, Tino Zaballa, Igor Antón and Mikel Astarloza, with the former triumphing.

But while there are options for a mountain finish one-day race in the Spanish traditions, I felt that we would be better suited using the passes that the region has to offer, and looking for a more Lombardia-type route with tough climbs on the route but where it's not a certainty of a climber's victory as a mountaintop finish would be. Using my traceur's hat, a bit of consultation of APM, a bit of research on my own part, and with knowledge of recent Vueltas, I set to work. This is what I came up with.

Vuelta a Cantabria (Santander-Parque Nacional de Cabárceno) (220km)

Beginning in Santander, capital and main city of the province, the riders will loop to the north and back down via five main climbs, after passing through perennial cycling supportive towns like Suancés and other key places in the region such as Torrelavega. The climbs are a mixture of the traditional and the inventive, and some are hellaciously steep.

1) Puerto del Escudo (7,6km @ 8,4%)
123km from the line comes the longest climb of the day, the legendary Escudo. This is one of the Vuelta's most traditional climbs, having appeared in very early editions, usually with about 30km flat to Reinosa following it, in the style of the 2011 stage from Urkiola to Vitoria. It is wide and accessible but has some real steep sections.
2) Puerto de la Braguia (6,2km @ 5,8%)
With 86km to go he most conventional climb of the day, mid length and not too steep.
3) Alto de La Estranguada (5,2km @ 9,3%)
At 60km from the line, a brand new and monstrous climb, with 2km averaging 15% towards the finish (!) and some tough roads to deal with - riders may think they're still in the Basque Country, but they are in fact next door.
4) Collao Espina (5,2km @ 10,8%)
With 47km remaining comes the brutal Collao Espina, which has the steepest average of all climbs in the race, and a maximum of 20%. The first kilometre is on brutal hormigón, however the rest becomes scenic mountain roads.
5) Puerto de Alisas (6,5km @ 6,8%) (only from Bustablado)
After a difficult and technical descent comes the final real climb of the day, to Alisas via a new, more difficult route than usual. This includes some agonizing switchbacks and narrower sections with ramps of up to 22%, and crests with 33km remaining.

After these climbs there is a descent, then around 20km flat for riders to either consolidate what they have or work together to build an advantage - I can't see a full-sized group getting over climbs with ramps as stupendous as those on La Estranguada and Espina. After this, however, there is one last ramp to deal with, as we ape the finish from the recent Vuelta stage to Cabarceno, where the repecho finished just inside 2km to go, but the last 2km were very inconsistent and up and down and this enabled Dani Navarro to take the win. This therefore isn't a race that will come down to the last ramp sprint à la Flèche Wallonne, but there is definitely the scope for it to be decisive if there is still a group.

 

[May0maniac]

Stage 4 Apricena-Casalciprano 180km

A transitional stage.
The longest Climb of the day is 10km at 5% but 110km away from the finish line. Only the last few climbs should be relevant, the first is the climb to Spinete, the last 2km just a false flat but the fist 3,2km are at 5% avg. and the steepest parts have 9%. Right after Spinete the riders will climb 2km at 7,6%, the steepest part of the climb has 15%.
4 flat km at the top of the climb, then a short descent with a technical second part that ends right before the last 1,7km at 5,3% that will bring the riders to the finish line in Casalciprano.
Casalciprano:

 

[Kwibus]

I did warn people about a Grand Tour impending, but before we get to that, I have something a bit different... a mountainous (sort of) one-day race.

There are a number of races on the calendar named in honour of a star cyclist - there's the GP Jef Scherens, the GP Raymond Impanis, the GP Pino Cerami, the GP Miguel Indurain and so on. There are an increasing number of races that are named in the memory of a cyclist who has died, in addition to this - Binche-Tournai-Binche has had the appellation "Memorial Frank Vandenbroucke" added to it; the Clasica Amarante has been renamed the "Memorial Bruno Neves"; the "Memorial Marco Pantani" is a brand new event since the death of the legendary climber. With the current state of Spanish cycling it is perhaps unsurprising but a little disappointing that there isn't a one-day race to honour their iconic 90s hero-died-young star, Chava Jiménez. However, while we are still in Spain, it is somebody who died altogether more recently that I wanted to honour with a race. Hence, I present a 212km one-day race with 6 noted climbs:

Circuit d'Olot-Memorial Xavier Tondó

As a rider, Xavi had one of the more circuitous routes to the top that you could ever find. He was one of those everyman types, the kind that people related to. Breaking into the sport almost by chance after passing and riding through a local elite amateur team in the mountains, he started racing, and broke through with impressive performances as an amateur in 2002, earning himself a pro contract with Paternina. A strong 2005 season with Catalunya, including wins in the Volta ao Alentejo and an eye-catching solo win at the Santuário del Acebo in the Vuelta a Asturias led to him getting a Pro-Continental contract with Relax-GAM in 2006; however a combination of poorly-timed illnesses & the number of newly on-the-market riders courtesy of Puerto meant he was not kept on & went into exile in Portugal. An extremely strong 2007 season, where he won the Volta a Portugal on the final weekend thanks to finishing 2nd on both the Alto da Torre & the final ITT, meant his star seemed to be rising, only for 2008 to bring him back down, as he was unable to defend his title after his team was uninvited due to a string of suspect performances, a police raid and the death of one of his teammates on the bike. A contract with Andalucía came from this, however, though he seldom got to race outside Spain (and when he did, seldom in races that suited him. I mean, Ronde van Drenthe?) he did show that he was too good a rider to have never had the chance to show at this level before, finishing on the podium of the Vuelta a Burgos & the Subida a Urkiola, & winning a mountain stage at the Tour de San Luís. Unfortunately, he was a victim of the major pile-up in Liège in the Vuelta, and was unable to compete for the GC.

Cervélo were willing to take a flyer on him (after Garmin passed without testing him due to Vaughters' admitted suspicion of him due to the history of LA-MSS), and he repaid them handsomely, winning a stage of Paris-Nice in dramatic fashion, breaking away with fellow Catalan Joaquím Rodríguez over 50km from home in the queen stage of the Volta a Catalunya, to take the stage win and 2nd on the GC. An impressive showing at the Giro, partly thanks to the L'Aquila breakaway, was curtailed after bonking spectacularly on Monte Zoncolan, and his tilt at the GPM, having picked up a number of points to L'Aquila & Monte Terminillo, was derailed after crashing and having to retire on the penultimate day. Back on the bike for the Vuelta, Tondó showed what he was really capable of in a Grand Tour, following the template of Carlos Sastre to the letter and in fact on a number of occasions (and in the overall GC at the end) being superior to the former Tour winner, taking 6th place in the overall GC. It seemed that he had finally found his niche, but then Cervélo pulled out & the subsequent merger with Garmin put him out of a home again.

That's how, at 32 years of age, Xavier Tondó finally made it to the top level. With Valverde suspended, Unzué's Movistar team had no certain leader, though Tondó was seemingly in the best position to assume the role. Finishing 5th in his home race & managing the same in País Vasco (including setting the current record time on Arrate), he then won the Vuelta a Castilla y León, in what turned out to be his final race. His 2011, however was notable for two things. First, when he shopped a doping ring to the autonomous Catalan police, garnering a lot of support from the cycling community both inside & among fans, & causing Jonathan Vaughters to publicly eat crow & apologize to him. Second, for the far worse reason that, on his way to a training ride in the Sierra Nevada on May 23rd, a freak accident with his car and an automated garage door resulted in Xavi's sudden death. Having only just lost another high-profile rider a couple of weeks earlier in Wouter Weylandt, there was a lot of sadness and grief among the cycling community at the time already, and the sudden death of such a personable and likable rider so soon afterward was quite a body blow for many fans, let alone his friends, family and colleagues.

I probably don't need to tell you that I was a big fan of Xavier Tondó. I've posted marking the anniversary of his death on the thread about it each year. I changed my avatar to a picture of Xavi & kept it there for some time afterward; the video of his epic Paris-Nice stage win has remained in my signature ever since. And obviously I'm not alone. Annually, around Sant Joan des Fonts & Olot, the town where he lived, there is the Marxa 100% Tondó, a ride in his honour which loops around Olot and Banyoles, in its longer version finishing with a climb of the Vallter2000 ski station, which was seen in the Volta a Catalunya this year in 2013 in tribute (the finish was repeated in 2014). At the first edition of the Marxa, in 2011, participants included a number of fellow pros, including Joaquím Rodríguez, Joan Horrach, Íñigo Cuesta & Josep Jufre:

In 2013, Beñat Intxausti won a Giro stage on May 21st and dedicated it to Xavier, the teammate who had died in his arms almost two years to the day previous. His memory continues to be honoured within the péloton, and among the fans (you will see many T-shirts and banners among the Catalan crowds at the Volta a Catalunya) & as a fan I thought it would be nice if there could be, like the Memorial races for the stars that died young, a Memorial race for Xavi. He was the kind of rider you could get behind: a difficult route to the top where he'd suffered countless pieces of bad luck, but he just seemed to love bike racing, and was always personable and smiling.

Great post LS.
Goosebumps.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

OK, time to put myself back in Echoes' bad books. I did say I have more or less a full GT calendar ready to go. The Giro still needs some tweaking, and I did a Vuelta quite recently... but I've only had one go at the Grand Boucle to date. There are lots of possibilities with the Tour that aren't being taken. The ASO love their repetition and playing it safe, even though they have added a series of new ascents to the race's œuvre lately. I have tried to make my Tour route more realistic than the last one (no 250km+ mountain stages in the final week, no MTFs in protected zones like the Mantet finale last time around, no UCI-baiting ITTs, no Carrefour de l'Arbre, no Errozate), and throw in some sops to tradition and to the race's history while simultaneously including some innovations and unexpected curveballs. I have therefore tried to balance the parcours so that it isn't all about a small handful of stages, utilizing all that France has to offer. Depending on your definitions of mountaintop finishes, it could be argued there are as few as 2 or as many as 5. Only one of these is hors catégorie. There are four tests against the clock. I have honoured some historic climbs, but simultaneously there is no place for many of the most famous of them. Only two climbs from my previous Tour make it into this one; one is climbed from the opposite side to that and the other is cat.4, so I'm really looking to keep things different here.

Prologue: Futuroscope - Futuroscope, 6,9km (CLM Individuel)

The Parc du Futuroscope is a theme park just north of Poitiers, in the small town of Chasseneuil-de-Poitou in western France. Its speciality is 3D and 4D cinema and multi-level audio-visual experiences, having opened back in 1987. The 360º surround-vision films, light shows, 3-dimensional renderings and so on, cutting edge at the time, have in many ways grown a bit dated, with accessible technology gradually catching up to the very future Futuroscope was meant to be a showcase for. The Tour de France has featured quite a lot in the park's history; in fact it was on the route before it was even open - the 1986 Tour included a sprint stage at the site of the forthcoming attraction, while the following year saw a brutal 87,5km ITT won by eventual GC victor Stephen Roche. The race was back in 1989, Joël Pelier winning solo after a 5 hour solo breakaway in a 259km stage through torrential rain, while the following year the race, as with my route, had its Grand Départ - although I am not going to go as far as they did then, having a prologue, a road stage AND a team time trial around the area starting and finishing at the park each time! A further stage finish followed in 1994, before the park, which had peaked in terms of number of visitors in the early 1990s, was taken on by the Amaury organization - it was perhaps no surprise to find it immediately returned to the Tour route in 1999, and hosting another Grand Départ in 2000, this time with a single, longer ITT of 16,5km. Since then, however, developments in technology harmed the park's appeal, no longer seeming as futuristic as it had 15 years prior, and in 2003 the Conseil Général de la Vienne purchased the park from Amaury, stabilizing its fortunes.

While Futuroscope may have fallen from Tour de France popularity, however, the park's management still have a penchant for promoting the park via cycling; in 2007 the Tour du Poitou-Charentes rolled into town, and in 2014 the national championships took place around the park, while since 2006 the park and the regional authorities have sponsored France's biggest and most successful women's team, Vienne-Futuroscope (renamed Poitou Charentes-Futuroscope '86 earlier this year) with riders like Marina Jaunatre, Audrey Cordon, Christel Ferrier-Bruneau, Marion Rousse, Roxane Fournier and Karol-Ann Canuel coming through them. All it takes is a new attraction and there will be nothing stopping the race coming back. And don't tell me you wouldn't find it cool to have the team presentation going on with the teams on small boats coming across the lake while this kind of light and vision show goes on. That's the kind of over-the-top insanity becoming of the biggest event of the calendar, surely? My only qualm will be if the paying to host the start of the Tour de France interferes with the funding for the women's team. If the existence of the women's team is threatened, the prologue moves 10km down the road into Poitiers.

Anyway: to the race. It's a fairly simple 7km course, similar to the 1990 prologue, circumnavigating the park. The race actually starts in the Technopark research area just outside the park, near the science faculties of the Université de Poitiers. The actual start will be at the point where the Avenue de Futuroscope becomes the Avenue du Tour de France. The route then heads onto the main road past the park for a long, power drag of over 2km in a straight line, before a few technical tests around roundabouts in the middle of long drags, so riders' abilities to accelerate and their threshold power will both be tested here. The route eventually spirals inwards to finish outside the entrance to the theme park itself. There is a lot of parking, and a lot of space, so this should be absolutely fine to open the race - after all, it's done it twice before, so it's a bit of a nod to the past.

Futuroscope:

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Stage 1: Futuroscope - Nantes, 189km

Climbs:
Mont-des-Alouettes (cat.4) 3,0km @ 4,0%

Sprint:
Les Herbiers, 120km

The first road stage of the Tour sees us moving northwest out of Poitou-Charentes and towards the Bréton peninsula, finishing in Nantes, the biggest city in the Grand-Ouest, capital of the Pays de la Loire and cultural capital of Brittany. The terrain is similar to that seen in the early days of the 2011 Tour and also the Tour de Vendée, a mostly flat race that somehow manages to more often than not be far more exciting than it has any right to be, thanks perhaps to a rather interesting finale in La Roche-sur-Yon. There is little such luck to be had in the rather pancake flat Nantes, however, so this will probably follow the usual pattern for an early Tour sprint stage: a break will go, featuring some wildcard teams (especially if they have French riders) and non-GC-hopefuls from the French teams. Eventually the péloton will get a group of 3 or 4 they're happy with and that will be that. They will duke out the intermediate sprint in Les Herbiers, which of course featured at the finish of the first stage in 2011. At Mont-des-Alouettes, the hill overlooking the town. The profile of this ascent shows that it really isn't that much of a threat, an idyllic piece of rolling hillside with a couple of windmills, a church and a restaurant at the summit. Gradients never get into double figures, and it is over 60km from the finish, so the chances of fireworks like in that 2011 stage are slim to none. The climb basically exists on this route to give somebody - presumably from the break - a chance to wear the polka dots for a day. As I expect the break will be kept on a tight leash (it's the first road stage of the Tour de France, and besides, there aren't too many pure sprinting opportunities in this edition), the sprinters will have fought for the leftover intermediate sprint points in the pursuit of the maillot vert around about the same time as the break duke out the maillot à pois rouges.

The run-in is very fast and furious and mostly on wide enough roads that this should be able to avoid the intrinsic problem that plagues early Tour stages: crashing. However, it is worth noting that as we get into Nantes proper, there are four right-angled turns in the last 3km as we cross the Île de Nantes. The penultimate is at 1,1km remaining, the last actually consisting of a sweeping, broad left-hander which rounds out to a square corner with a right off of a roundabout at 500m to go outside the Château des Ducs de Bretagne, with the stage then finishing on the city-centre cobbles (Champs-Elysées style) of Place Maréchal Foch, by the Colonne Louis XVI. The Cours Saint Pierre et Saint André, which meet at Place Foch, are wide open and should hopefully minimise the chances of carnage breaking out in the sprint, although we do need to be realistic: it's the first road stage of the Tour. Lots of tension and nerves in the bunch, there will be crashes.

Nantes:

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Stage 2: Vannes - Plérin, 156km

Climbs:
Côte de Cadoudal (cat.4) 1,7km @ 6,2%
Mûr-de-Bretagne (cat.3) 2,2km @ 6,5%
Côte du Tremouson (cat.4) 1,4km @ 6,1%
Côte du Sépulcre (cat.4) 1,8km @ 4,9%
Côte de Berrien (cat.4) 1,0km @ 8,0%
Côte du Bon Repos (cat.4) 0,6km @ 14,5%

Sprint:
Quintin, 112km

Just over 100km of Autoroute separate Nantes from today's départ, crossing over into Brittany proper to start the race in Vannes, a city that actually predates Roman settlement in Gaul, so it has been Celtic for over 2000 years! The Tour de Brétagne is one of the most important races open to amateurs, and the region hosts a number of one-day races and short stage races, as well as having Le Tour in the region often; Brittany has a real attachment to cycling, and indeed a while ago Brétagne-Schuller (as they were at the time) even mooted a suggestion to become an equivalent to Euskaltel-Euskadi, only taking on Bréton riders, although obviously this plan, if it ever got past the suggestion stage, was shelved. Nevertheless, you know what you're getting in Brittany: tough stages that are flat-to-moderately-hilly, with a few options for puncheurs, and occasionally in the far west, some challenging ribin.

And so it is for my Tour, as the GC contenders will find a clear potential banana skin in this stage. No climbs in Bretagne can really justify being more than a cat.3, however cat.3 and .4 climbs in the region proliferate, and there are plenty of annoying little leg-breakers that are not categorization-worthy. Riders will perhaps therefore be thankful that this stage is comparatively short, at just over 150km. The opportunities to make it a really hard race are there, however, as there are six categorized climbs in the day, along with another five or six that are not categorized. The stage immediately begins with a couple of these, with low gradients but frustrating ramps characterising the first 20 kilometres, which will hopefully result in a break which is perhaps slightly stronger than we are often accustomed to seeing in the early stages of the Tour. At the 20km mark comes our first categorized climb of the day, the punchy Côte de Cadoudal. This is the scene of the finishing circuit every year in the GP Plumelec, as well as hosting the stage finish of the opening day of the 2008 Tour, when Valverde stamped his puncheur authority over everybody. For the most part, however, the stage more resembles the second stage of that event, with the early wall, then a long, rolling period through the middle of the stage broken up by the inconsistent slopes of Mûr-de-Bretagne, scene of some mild intrigue in the midst of the tedious first two weeks of the 2011 Tour. In 2008 the Côte de Saint-Mayeux, which immediately follows Mûr-de-Bretagne, was also categorized, but in all honesty I don't think it merits it, at least not located so far from the finish.

The next obstacle for the riders is the intermediate sprint in the medieval town of Quintin, coming with 44km remaining. However, this stage is very much all about the last 25 kilometres, which loop around Saint-Brieuc and our finishing town of Plérin, and have four categorized climbs crammed into them for the sake of trying to open up the race and take advantage of the rolling, but nevertheless endlessly up-and-down nature of riding in Brittany. Here's the profile detail of the closing phases of the stage. The first climb, with 21km remaining, is into the hillside suburb of Trémuson, and is just shy of 1500m at 6,1% with a maximum of 11%. The descent is a slightly more gradual version of the same thing, basically taking the new road into the town just north of the old road which we climbed. We then return to the D24 before taking on the second climb, which is the longest of the four at 1,8km, however this doesn't let on that at the start it is very steep and narrow, maxing at 16%. It widens out as it gets more gradual further up, and so the average of around 5% doesn't let on the difficulty. The top of this climb is at 16,2km from the finish, although the steep stuff is a bit before that. The descent of the Côte au Roux is wide and fast, and then we head back west, almost hitting any stragglers just starting the last climb head on, before and incredibly tight 180º left hander to take us up the next ascent, which is another short and sharp, Amstel-Gold-like climb through the woods that lead to the village of Berrien, on the outskirts of Saint-Brieuc. Averaging 8% for a kilometre, this climb crests 9,1km from the finish and is likely to see the first genuine attacks from real contenders (I can expect secondary challengers and stage hunters to go on the steep ramps of the second climb). The riders forgo the tour of the city, though and drop back down to the river before jumping up the other side of the valley into Plérin, with its beautiful coastline on the Côte d'Armor. The route chosen for this task is the toughest route possible, the savage Côte de Bon Repos, 600m of violent slog at a more or less consistent 14%, which tops out at 4,2km from the line - so this one could be pretty selective pretty quickly.

After this there is a further, uncategorised rise; the penultimate kilometre averages about 5%, however the final kilometre as they race into the centre of the small provincial Bréton town of Plérin, dwarfed by its larger neighbour Saint-Brieuc, is just false flat; there is a right and then a left with only about 200m to go, although these aren't especially tight corners. The actual final ascent could be survived by some sprinters, if performances by sprinters such as Arnaud Demare here or Nacer Bouhanni here are anything to go by - however the stage leading into that final ascent may be too much for them. This is more along the GP Plouay lines, quite fittingly (seeing as that is the biggest one-day race in Brittany); the finish would certainly seem to suit the Gilberts of this world, but with the flat final kilometre somebody who can get over the hills with a good finishing kick like Sagan or Gerrans could be feared here; the climbs are also more Amstel Gold than other Ardennes races, especially with the Cauberg finish now not being at the summit, so looking at results there could be a good indicator of who can go well here; I'd also expect that the likes of Pozzato, van Avermaet and Paolini could factor into it.

Quite a lot of different possibilities in the closing stages here, and with some narrow roads and steep ramps, the GC contenders will need to be alert and up near the front of the bunch. There could be some nervousness afoot.

Vannes:

Plérin:

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Stage 3: Saint-Brieuc - Saint-Lô, 198km

Climbs:
Côte d'Avranches (cat.4) 1,3km @ 5,0%
Côte de la Jolletière (cat.4) 2,7km @ 5,3%
Mont Robin (cat.4) 2,5km @ 3,8%

Intermediate sprint: Avranches, 125km

After the bumpy stage yesterday, there is practically no transfer whatsoever - Plérin is just across the river from Saint-Brieuc, and with the latter being a city of close to 50000 inhabitants, it is likely that the majority of the race caravan will be there overnight. This of course means they will be ready to go straight away on Tuesday morning for stage 3, another fairly lengthy flat stage as we move out of Brittany and into Normandy.

Although flatter than Brittany, this part of Normandy is not the pure sprinters' paradise you may envisage, and though there are very few categorization-worthy climbs in the stage, there are a few ramps, as well as the riders being side-on to the nearby coastline in some very exposed regions as well, so with the danger of crosswinds as well as sprinters needing to take advantage of the few opportunities available for them in this race, the pace is likely to be pretty high for much of the day here.

Among the sites taken in by the riders during the day's racing are the picture-postcard-perfect riverside town of Dinan - although my reputation as a cyclosadist will take a battering as I confess to not making the riders tackle the Côte d'Emeraude, possible France's hardest cobbled climb, on the way through - mainly because it's only 50km into the stage and would be a criminal waste of such a good climb. After this comes the flattest part of the stage, as the two provinces merge into one another, and the next town is the colourful Dol-de-Bretagne, then the scenic medieval setting of Pontorson, best known as the access point for the Route de la Baie that leads to the legendary Mont-Saint-Michel. Therefore, we now head along part of the 2013 Tour ITT route in reverse, leading to the first climb of the day - which was descended in the contre-le-montre that day. In fact, when the riders get to Avranches, yet another spectacular medieval fortified town in the region, they have the intermediate sprint, therefore the intermediate sprint comes just 2km after the summit of the first climb, so it may be possible for the bunch to drill it on the short climb if a less pure sprinter is challenging for the maillot vert, to put the pressure onto the weaker climbing sprinters.

After the descent out of Avranches, there is a long rolling uphill section, climbing around 200m in 10km, but not consistently, so it's up and down for much of it. Not really challenging, but enough to add up. Especially when it's followed immediately by the rest of the categorized climbing for the day, a punchy double-climb with the two summits 31 and 25 kilometres from the finish respectively. The last 25km see the riders saunter vaguely downwards to the finish in yet another fortified town and the capital of the Manche département, Saint-Lô. There is a brief ramp which gets up to 9% just over 4km from the line, however this is very short; it may prove an interesting platform for an attack, but this one should probably end up in a sprint - it's just that the wind and the pace of the bunch over the rolling terrain will dictate what the size of the bunch that contests the finish will be (I would have my money on around 75-80 unless the wind really hits the riders hard).

Saint-Brieuc:

Saint-Lô:

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Stage 4: Centre Juno Beach - Caën, 25,0km (CLM pour Équipes)

Over the course of history, the terrain of modern France has played host to a number of wars. This being 2014, naturally the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WWI has been a major theme, and the Tour taking in Ypres was perhaps the clearest evocation of that in Le Grand Boucle. Similarly, a few years ago the Tour de Pologne marked an anniversary of the end of WWII with a stage that stopped outside the Auschwitz extermination camp for a scheduled moment of respect. This year was also the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings that marked the turning point in the war in the west (let's not kid ourselves, Stalingrad can be generally considered to be the turning point of the war from a more general Allied Powers point of view). The Tour has historically liked to mark particularly significant places and anniversaries, and as significant places in the history of France go, the Normandy beaches that played host to the largest seaborne invasion in military history in June 1944 have some serious significance.

The coastline of La Manche to the north of Saint-Lô, Bayeux and Caën lay the stretch of coastline in question; the five beaches, codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, cover the coastline from the southeastern tip of the Cherbourg peninsula to the mouth of the Orne at Quistreham. For the purpose of the Tour, it is the fourth of these, Juno, that is to be used in the honouring of the D-Day Landings, for two reasons.
1) the distance from Courseulles-sur-Mer, the main town on the beach, to Caën, is just about perfect for the format imo;
2) in honour of the troops that fought there, a grassroots campaign in the 1990s led to the creation of the Centre Juno Beach, a museum and heritage centre dedicated to the mostly Canadian troops that conducted the landing. Here's their website, featuring a guide to their exhibitions and the Tours of the landing beach offered.

The Centre is on the edge of the coastal town of Courseulles-sur-Mer (you can see the centre in the bottom right of that photo), and backs directly onto the historic beach in question.

The decision to include a cycling format that I personally am not a fan of, the Team Time Trial, came about for two reasons as well.
1) I'm trying to make a balanced Tour with a tough rouleur's first week, and at 25km it shouldn't be so long that it skews results too much;
2) A race where everybody has to be organized, united and cooperate in order to succeed just seems like a more appropriate format for an event starting on the site of a far, FAR more significant event that required some of the most impressive organization and cooperation in the history of mankind to pull off successfully. As such, I think some kind of ceremony honouring the landings ahead of the stage will be in order.

The 25km from the Centre to Caën (it's actually closer to 20, but I elected to do a little loop of Courseulles to stay on the beach, and a little circuit around Caën at the finish) is very fast and flat, and unless the wind is really blowing it shouldn't really take the cyclists today much more than 25 minutes to handle; the wartime forces, fighting for their lives every inch of the way, had to battle for 45 solid days to capture the city, which eventually fell on July 21st, 1944.

Centre Juno Beach:

Caën:

 

[lemon cheese cake]

I know I've been away for a while, but I wont give you a Synopsis of the race so far, as after this stage is the rest day. So in that post I shall give you one.

DR Stage 9 Stuttgart - Kandel

Primes/KOCs:
Fruendenstadt
Alpirbach
Schiltach
Wolfach

KOMs:
Schiltach Cat 2
Wolfach Cat 3

Today we start in the centre of Stuttgart for the stage before the rest day. Then we head out towards the Schwartzwald (Black Forest?) by the border with France. Once we reach them, we get to the first Prime of the day at Freundenberg. The riders then head the short way to the Second at Alpirsbach. Then on to the first mountain of the day. The climb to Schiltach. That climb will be a killer, as it is partly on cobbles and has walls of above 15%. Then we head towards the second climb of the day. This is at Wolfach This is also steep and has cobbles but is easier than the previous climb. These two count to the KOC/Prime classification. Onwards we go to the final climb of the day (Kandel). This is going to be one of the big important parts of the day as it is the finishing climb. The Climb is pretty steep at times but we will peek out at the top with a winner of the stage and maybe a new overall leader.

Stuttgart:

Kandel:

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Ah, probably the hardest climb in the Schwarzwald. The Schiltach climb looks nasty too, do you have a profile?

Stage 5: Rouen - Cassel, 228km

Climbs:
Côte de Callengeville (cat.4) 2,3km @ 4,6%
Côte du Vert Bocage (cat.4) 1,9km @ 5,8%
Côte de Hesdin (cat.4) 1,6km @ 5,7%
Montagne de Watten (cat.4) 1,1km @ 6,1%
Mont Cassel (Zuytpeene)(cat.4) 1,8km @ 5,9%
Mont Cassel (Porte de Dunkerque)(cat.4) 3,3km @ 3,9%

After a sizable but fairly quick transfer (it's all autoroute) from Caën to Rouen (some teams may elect to stay in Le Havre, but there's plenty of room for the full race caravan in all three locations), the riders will have to face a long, grinding stage across the north of France that takes in three separate régions, starting in Haute-Normandie and heading through Picardie to finish in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, continuing my attempts to create a difficult week of racing for rouleurs. The sprinters will have triumphed in Nantes and probably also Saint-Lô, but the Plérin stage was a bit more rounded; this one's more for the classics men once more.

We start in the historic and beautiful city of Rouen, one of the largest cities in northern France and one of the most important centres of medieval France, immortalized in art and literature by some of France's culture's most renowned names. Rouen also hosted a stage start in my previous Tour attempt, slightly earlier in the race and a more flat affair than this relentlessly rolling stage. As you can see from the profile, there's precious little respite to be had in this stage, although it would overall be categorized as flat. In addition to the six categorized climbs there are another eight or so which are either not steep enough or not long enough to merit offering points for, but which are cumulatively not to be counted out when considering the outcome when we get to the business end of the race after 220km.

The most genuinely flat part of the stage is the first 20 kilometres; after that we have about 60km of undulation, which the scale on the profile makes look like a Zomegnan stage; realistically though, much of the climbing is only at 3-4%, and therefore it has more in common with this Giro stage, which I often use to quite specifically define a well-planned flat stage - there was a sprint at the end (won by Fran Ventoso) but though there was only one categorized climb near the start of the stage, the terrain was frustrating to build up a rhythm on and it meant the sprint trains were off their game and the sprinters had to work to earn their chance to duke out the win. I have categorized a couple of parts of this stretch, most notably the Côte du Vert Bocage, a short, Amstel Gold-like climb with a maximum of 14%. This also marks the point where we leave Seine-Maritime and enter the Somme département, another site of great military and emotional significance due to its key positioning and the infamous battle which raged through much of the region in 1916. Shortly before the halfway point in the stage the riders will head through what is after Amiens the biggest city in the area, Abbeville, and steering for the most part to the west of the battlefields.

The riders then head into Pas-de-Calais, and tackle another categorized climb on the way out of Hesdin. The road continues to roll with a number of uncategorized ascents through places like Audincthun; the riders are headed now into the Flandres Française, and the terrain matches that description; mostly flat but with the occasional small set of hills rising out of them. With 43km remaining, the intermediate sprint in Longuenesse takes place and marks the point at which the real action can start; Longuenesse is a town connected to Saint-Omer and known for its prison, but now we're heading onto the terrain of the Quatre Jours de Dunkerque, an often enjoyable race that, due to its placement in the calendar at the end of Classics season, often doesn't get the field that it deserves.

The first of the three climbs in the closing period of the stage, taking advantage of the petits côtes des Flandres Françaises, is the Montagne de Watten with its aged windmill and scenic chapel. 28km from the finish it is the warm-up to the double-climb at the end, but with gradients of up to 10% during its 1100m length it's a nice Classics-style berg. However from Watten to the next climb is mostly a very straight road; it is, on the other hand, completely exposed to the elements and so if the wind doth blow, echelons have every reason to form. And Mont Cassel watches from the horizon.

If you have watched the Quatre Jours de Dunkerque in recent years, you will be all too aware of the racing possibilities of Mont Cassel, perhaps the biggest of the côtes in this area. There are no fewer than 12 different ways to ascend to this small hilltop town (although many of these are too narrow for Le Tour, or to include more than one would entail the risk of head-on accidents between leaders and grupetto). I have picked two. The former is the Zuytpeene side, 1800m averaging 5,9% and preceded by 600m of false flat, which is used in place of the Bavinchove side that is usually used as the penultimate climb in Dunkerque stages here (900m longer, but only averaging 4,5% and with a lower maximum gradient). This tops out 8,2km from the finish; the riders then descend the Haeghedoorne side of the climb before a brief loop around to the north of the town; the Zuytpeene side only just reaches the edge of town to its northwest, and so we can add the classic Porte de Dunkerque side of the climb without there being any looping or overlapping of the course. The Porte de Dunkerque side is actually one of the easier in terms of gradients; as you can see from the profile, the max gradient is a mere 7%, however much of the climb is on pavé; much of the rest of it can't decide whether it's pavé or tarmac. The top part, in the town itself, is all cobbled. For the most part it's in pretty good condition but not all of it is. It creates some interesting racing days and it is great news to hear that it is back on the route for Dunkerque next year. Here's half an hour of coverage of the last race there, in 2012... a year earlier on the same course Thomas Voeckler put the marker down for his stunning year by putting 2 minutes into the field on that stage.

Admittedly in the Quatre Jours they would do circuits of Mont Cassel, which would enable them to add to the difficulty of the stage. However here we are going with more climbs before getting to Cassel, in a longer stage (significantly so, we're talking about an extra 50km here), in a race where the péloton is stronger and will probably be putting their foot down during the flat sections.

With the low average gradient and the rouleur cobbles this is probably a race for a powerful rider, although Demare has shown surprising strength in similar parcours in Dunkerque recently. However his wins have come with Parc d'Olhain as the main hilly stage, which is an easier circuit than this. I'm thinking more along the lines of John Degenkolb here, though there's every chance of seeing some Classics-type contenders trying to win this in small groups or solo - I'm thinking van Avermaet, Chavanel, Stybar, Vanmarcke, maybe even a Gilbert or a Cancellara; if it comes to a sprint I'm expecting Sagan there along with the likes of Degenkolb, Kristoff, Swift and other more durable guys.

Rouen:

Cassel:

 

[rghysens]

A while ago, at the start of my Tour sans Alpes et Pyrenées I mentioned I had two tours with geographical constraints ready. It has taken some time before I started the second one, but here it is:

Le Tour complet de France

My main goal for this race is to have a start or finishlocation in every French mainland administrative region. There are 21 of them, so some might expect that I'll distribute the 21 stages of the Tour evenly, but that would put too much emphasis on cyclingwise dull regions like Centre, Pays de la Loire, Poitou-Carentes and leave too few space for Alpine and Pyrenean stages.

A second aim will be to never have two or more sprint stages in a row, and finally a third goal will be to give every type of rider the chance to win stages and even take the yellow jersey. I'll do this by including any type of stage: from long flat stages, over punchy hillclimb finishes to long multi-climb mountainstages with a descent finish.

This won't be a realistic tour as a whole, mainly because of the first two aims. The last couple of years, every edition of the tour seems to be concentrated in a few region. The 2014 and 2012 edition had an approach via the northeast of France (and neighbouring countries), the 2013 edition barely visited the northern half of France, while none of them visited the Massif Central.
The 2015 tour, on the other hand, will omit the northeastern quarter of France. So a tour that visits the whole of France is something unheard of recently.
But, the individual stage will be quite realistic. There may be one or two features on the verge of "acceptebility", but I don't think there's anything outrageous.

So, let's start:

Tour complet de France, stage 1: Rouen - Rouen, 230km - flat (Haute Normandie).

The first stage is the one but longest of the whole Tour. Start and finish are in the capital of Haute Normandy (more about Rouen in the previous post ).
The first half of the stage is rather undulating, with some hills when the peloton leaves the banks of the Seine and climbs the surrounding plateau, typically about 100m higher than the river. The second half of the stage sees two similar rises, which lack the necessary gradient to be categorized as a climb. The last part of the stage is exactly the same as the 4th stage of the 2012 Tour, won by André Greipel. So despite the 2km @ 3.7% with 12km to go, a bunch sprint is imminent.

Climbs:
Côte de Clécy: km 45; 1.2km @ 6.25%; 4th cat
Côte de Vernon : km86.5 ; 1.8km @ 5.8%; 4th

This stage is as much a touristic visit of the lower Seine valley as a physical test. It visits some picturesque villages like Les Andelys, Giverny with its famous Gardens of Monet, Vernon with a large medieval heritage, the ruined abbey of Jumièges and the not ruined but now defunct abbey of Saint-Georges de Boscherville.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Stage 6: Lillers - Caudry, 167km

Climbs: none

Secteurs Pavé:
1. (94km) Warlaing - Brillon (2400m) ***
2. (90km) Tilloy-les-Marchiennes - Sars-et-Rosières (2400m) ***
3. (64km) Rue Crespin - Chemin des Bas Prés (3000m) ****
4. (49km) Chemin des Postes (2300m) ****
5. (46km) Rue de Bermerain (1200m) **
6. (34km) Saint-Martin-sur-Écaillon - Vertain (2000m) ***
7. (25km) Saint-Python (1500m) **
8. (22km) Saint-Python - Quiévy (3700m) ****
9. (18km) Quiévy - Viesly (1800m) ***
10. (11km) Inchy - Troisvilles (Rue Jean Stablinski)(2200m) ***

After a short transfer from Cassel to the light industrial town of Lillers, which hosts an moderately important amateur one-day race, often useful for indicating Classics talents to come (although rather inexplicably once won by Robert Millar!), the riders tackle the hardest stage of the first week. Yes, it's 60km shorter than yesterday's battle in the côtes of French Flanders. But this is something entirely different: a brutal monster of a rouleur's stage with no fewer than 22,5km of the challenging cobbles that dot the landscape of northern France and make April into a season beloved of the aficionados of this sport.

The early part of the stage, that is to say the irrelevant part, stays mostly straight and true, passing through Béthune and Lens. This is mining country, or at least former mining country, so the cityscapes are dotted with the occasional slag and spoil heaps, which could one day be turned into little climbs to use like the VAM-Berg in the Ronde van Drenthe. But - let's be honest here - we're not in the Heuvelland now, so this region to cycling enthusiasts is not about climbing. It's about pavé. Lots and lots of pavé. I have divided the pavé in my course into 10 sectors. I must add a couple of caveats here:
- firstly I will apologize to Echoes. They were pleased by my Paris-Bruxelles route with a number of previously unknown cobbled sectors, and I said I had been inspired a little by them. The reason I had come to it was because I was looking at ideas for a cobbled stage for the Tour (which I know Echoes hates) and their unfinished attempt at Paris-Bruxelles included some sectors away from the usual Paris-Roubaix routes.
- this stage was set before the 2015 Tour route was announced. Bits and pieces of this route have been tweaked, stages moved and re-designed, however this one was set. The 2015 Tour does a couple of similar things to this stage, namely using the early cobbled sectors from Roubaix, which usually serve as little more than a precursor to the Trouée d'Arenberg, as decisive sectors in order to stay clear of using the obvious areas.

After heading south of Lille, we turn northeast to head toward the Belgian border, and this means taking our first sectors of cobbles in the same direction as they are handled in Paris-Roubaix. The first two are quite separated from the subsequent sectors, and serve as a nice warm-up. The first sector, from Warlaing to Brillon, starts off comparatively benignly but eventually becomes dusty and rough. This is followed almost straight away by the Tilloy-les-Marchiennes sector, which is 2400m in length also, but in comparatively good condition owing to being on a relatively commonly-used road route; many of the pavé sectors in Roubaix are seldom used outside of by cyclotourists, but this one sees at least occasional traffic.

The intermediate sprint in the old industrial town of Saint-Amand-les-Eaux comes just after the halfway point, but can really be seen as just that, separating the comparatively benign first half from the brutal second. As we pass the 100km mark, we hit our first real tough sector of pavé, around Vicq. This 3km stretch of cobbles is the one I stole from Echoes; I am going in the opposite direction to them, however, so we start with the partially-asphalted Rue Voltaire, which eventually loses the asphalt entirely; this gives way to the Rue Crespin, which in turn gives way to the longest part of the sector (over half of it), the most brutal of the three, the Chemin des Bas Prés. This includes some potentially slippery turns and will be very dusty if dry, very muddy if wet. Although there will be around 60km remaining here, this will probably be where the first real selection is made.

After this sector finishes, however, there is over 10km of tarmac as the riders circumnavigate the city of Valenciennes. There then follows the second of my big cobbled sectors that fly under peoples' radars, the savage Chemin des Postes. The vast majority of this sector is absolutely ramrod straight and the cobbles worsen in condition, however the last part, after crossing a stream, features curves in the road and mild climbing, although the condition of the road is quite good for this part to mitigate that. No sooner have the riders got off of this sector than the next begins, the short but rough Rue de Bermerain. Nearly 11km of tarmac follows this, although it is mostly on slightly uphill false flat. I would have expected groups to have started to form by this point, and there to be a great many dropped riders who will want to make use of this stretch without any cobblestones to try to negate that.

With 34km remaining, the riders head out of Saint-Martin-sur-Écaillon and head towards Vertain on the first of 5 sectors that Paris-Roubaix tends to include early in the race, in the opposite direction. The first is this scenic stretch which has a high, grassy crown in the road and is 2km of dust and grit. It is followed by 7km of tarmac, and then we reach the point at which, if we have had conservative racing to this point, it will stop and the fireworks will commence. From Saint-Python to Viesly by the route the riders take it is 9km (commencing at 25km from the finish); during this period they handle 7km of cobbles (!!!) split over 3 sectors. Saint-Python is 1500m of slightly uphill grind, followed immediately by the longest sector of the day, 3700m between Saint-Python and Quiévy. In Roubaix it is very early on, and sees much larger groups together than I would expect here. Road conditions aren't the worst you'll ever see but they are enough to certainly be felt after nearly 4km straight off the back of another sector. There's just over a kilometre of tarmac through the village after this before the penultimate sector, a rough and nasty road of just under 2km from Quiévy to Viesly which finishes at 16km remaining. At this point, groups should be all over the place, but if they aren't there's one more chance remaining, which is on the grassed-up cobbles from Inchy to Troisvilles, also known as Rue Jean Stablinski after the great cyclist from the region, whose memory is always evoked during Paris-Roubaix due to his work on and with the race and the memorial at the Trouée d'Arenberg. In the Hell of the North this is the very first sector; today in the Tour de France it is the very last, being exited with 8,8km remaining in the stage, which takes the form of a fast and sweeping charge through some sometimes narrow roads into the famous lace town of Caudry. There are a couple of corners in the last 500m, but I wouldn't expect to see large groups here, and they aren't tight corners either. Caudry is home to around 10-15000 people… with its history and lace tradition it ought to be able to bring the Tour in, but if ASO are insistent on more money, we just move the finish to Cambrai and clone the 2015 stage run-in, I guess. The rouleurs should surely take this one, but there could be some significant impacts felt by the GC contenders here as rouleur week continues apace in Le Tour.

Lillers:

Caudry:

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Stage 7: Saint-Quentin - Charleville-Mézières, 179km

Climbs:
Côte de la Sapinière (cat.3) 2,2km @ 6,2%
Côte des Mazures (cat.4) 2,0km @ 6,7%
Mont Malgré-Tout (cat.2) 4,9km @ 6,5%
Côte de Roc-la-Tour (cat.3) 3,0km @ 7,4%
Col du Loup (cat.3) 3,5km @ 5,9%

Intermediate sprint:
Rocroi, 114km

As we head into the second weekend, the first stage with what could be called genuine climbing takes place. Hands up, who remembers the Critérium International back when it used to be held around Charleville-Mézières? It's not all that long ago at all; since the move to Corsica it has become a bit of a GC-rider's test of strength on the Col de l'Ospedale, but in the days before that (specifically from 2001 to 2009) it was a more balanced festival of cycling, with a long flattish rouleur stage and a short hilly, puncheur-themed stage before the closing short TT. Some years gaps would be comparatively small, others would see some serious gaps being opened, such as 2007's stage, when Jens Voigt soloed in ahead of an elite group of 12 including Valverde, Fränk Schleck, Cunego, Klöden, Cárdenas, Chavanel and Brochard (that's a strong group right there!). The 2005 edition was also pretty selective. However, even when gaps weren't so big, they were there; it was always a pretty interesting stage.

As such, today's stage is sort of a bringing-back of that racing, since the Champagne-Ardennes region has a few nice climbs to offer, and has been without Tour representation for a number of years now - and since the Critérium International went off to Corsica, there has been no racing in the hills above Charleville-Mézières at all, which is unfortunate. So I shall right that.

The riders begin after a short transfer in Saint-Quentin, south of where they finished yesterday, and immediately head due East before turning slightly to the north and heading for the Belgian border as they did yesterday. In many ways, today's stage apes yesterday's one over the cobbles; the first half is generally without obstacles, the riders head towards the Belgian border almost as the crow flies before looping south for a complex route taking us to the finish; the intermediate sprint comes after a period of respite after the initial challenges but before the main ones, although the stages do differ in two key ways: firstly, this stage actually does enter Belgium; secondly, the nature of the obstacles en route are different. Yesterday it was cobbles, today it is hills.

After passing through Fourmies, which hosts a tough one-day race of its own, the riders pass through into Belgium, and go through the town of Chimay, famous of course for the eponymous beer, and now a host of the Memorial Frank Vandenbroucke, which has switched from Binche-Tournai-Binche to Binche-Chimay-Binche. Not long after this the riders pass through Couvin, a pretty riverside town which signals the beginning of the stage's real intent. That is as it is the base of the first climb of the day, the Côte de la Sapinière, which starts off relatively steep before becoming somewhat easier. This ascent sees us turn to the south, returning to France over rolling terrain shortly afterwards, which culminates in the intermediate sprint in Rocroi, the first town that the péloton passes through after crossing the border, and the site of a very impressively maintained medieval fortified town with full defensive structures intact - when you consider the wars that have gone on through the area over the years, the preservation of the town is quite something.

Next, the riders take the short and fairly consistent Côte des Mazures, another cat.3 dig, before descending into the beautifully located town of Revin, which sits at the base of the race's first climb of cat.2 or above. Mont Malgré-Tout is quite scenic and includes some steep ramps and lacets on its comparatively short ascent. The profile details will show you that the climb is initially a lot more steep, finishing with over a kilometre of comparatively benign false flat; the first 3,5km average 8% with several ramps over 10%, and this is why I have granted it cat.2. However, topping out 43km from the line, I don't expect the serious moves here; this will be where the ante is upped in the hope of dropping domestiques and eliminating the occasional secondary contender from contention if they're on a bad day however. About 10km of flat leads us to the descent into Monthermé, another of the gorgeous riverside towns that dot this part of the Meuse.

This leads us into the final two climbs of the day, which back straight onto one another and will be where all the key moves are made. First, the comparatively narrow road to the Côte de Roc-la-Tour, which has its first kilometre at 8,5% and a maximum of 14%, which crests 23km from the line, and following it immediately, the slightly longer but shallower Col du Loup, which peaks 15km from the finishing line; the first half of this or so is descent on a very fast road with a few fast corners but few real technical tests. The last 8km include an uncategorized rise, before the riders head into Charleville-Mézières for the finish. There are a couple of twists and turns on the run-in that will enable escapees to keep the chasers at bay, and there are two 90º right-handers in the final kilometre to be wary of before the finish, just like the old Critérium International courses, at the imposing Place Ducale. This one should have seen some moves made, especially by those who needed to make up some time after losing out to the rouleurs and tough men yesterday.

Saint-Quentin:

Charleville-Mézières:

 

[lemon cheese cake]

DR Rest Day 1 Freiburg
Today we have the first rest day of the race. So, I shall recap on what the riders have covered so far:
Prologue: Hamburg - Hamburg
Stage 1: Hamburg - Burg auf Fehmarn
Stage 2: Kiel - Lubeck
Stage 3: Lubeck - Hamburg
Stage 4: Bremen - Hanover
Stage 5: Dusseldorf - Cologne
Stage 6: Koblenz - Nurburg (Nurburgring)
Stage 7: Nurburgring loop stage
Stage 8: Saarbrucken - Karlsruhe
Stage 9: Stuttgart - Kandel

DR Stage 10 Schonau im Schwarzwald - Basel

Primes/KOCs:
Zell im Wiesental
Basel

KOMs:
None (No climb rule applies (One KOM point for the stage winner))

Today after the first rest day we start in Schonau im Schwarzwald for stage 10. After what is mostly downhill we get to the first Prime of the day at Zell im wiesental. Then we carry on downhill to Basel for the stage finish. Then we will have 3 loops around the city that is in Switzerland but borders France and Germany. On the first tome we cross the finish line there will be the second Prime of the day.

Schonau im Schwarzwald:

Basel:

 

[rghysens]

...although my reputation as a cyclosadist will take a battering as I confess to not making the riders tackle the Côte d'Emeraude, possible France's hardest cobbled climb,...

"Côte d'Emeraude" means "Emerald Coast" and is the designation of the Breton coast between Cap Fréhel and Pointe du Grouin (or Sables d'Or-les-Pins and Cancale if you want town names). The climb you showed is the Rue du Jerzual, which goes on in the Rue du Petit Fort (or the other way around, since Rue du Petit Fort is the lower part of it).

Anyway, just nitpicking.
It seems the first week of your Tour has a similar build as mine.
You started with a prologue, i'll have a short TT as stage 2:

Tour complet de France, stage 2: Dieppe - Dieppe, 15.5km - TT (Haute Normandie)

The 2nd stage is held in the same region as the first, that means that some regions will share less attention than others. In fact, one region will be visited only just, while some other will only host the race for a few kilometres.

After a transfer of 60km on a major road the caravan arrives in Dieppe, an important port on the so-called Alabaster coast of France. It is dominated by the medieval castle built on a high cliff.

In and around this town a short TT on a rolling course will be the first test to sort the pretenders from the contenders. 15.5km won't be enough to create really important gaps, and the two included hills won't be difficult enough to give the climbers an advantage, but if someone has an off-day 1'30" to 2' can be lost.

The starting ramp is placed on the Boulevard Maréchal Foch and the course heads parallel to the coast towards Dieppe castle, which it circumnavigate clockwise to climb the uncategorized Côte de Pourville. Its descent is steeper than the ascent and includes two hairpin turns before the center of Pourville is reached. Next follows a 3km long flat stretch, on the left bank of the Scie river. When the course crosses the main coastal road, it turns left, climbing the Côte de Petit Appeville. This little climb crests after exactly 10km. The remaining 5.5km consists of a fast, not too technical downhill and a flat, more or less straight, run-in of a tad less than 4km.


Map and Profile:

Climbs:
Côte de Petit Appeville: km 10; 1.4km @ 5.1% ; 4th cat

 

[rghysens]

In the previous post I wrote that I had a similar build of my Tour as Libertine of his. Next stage shows it:

Tour complet de France, stage 3: Abbeville - Arenberg/Porte du Hainaut, 177km - cobbled (Picardie - Nord/Pas-de-Calais)

Instead of remaining two days in the same region, this stage visits two regions in the same day. After a transfer of 65km (about 1 hour), the race caravan reaches Abbeville, a small town of about 25000 inhabitants near the Somme estuary.

From Abbeville the peloton heads northeast for 75km, until the town of Bethune. In this first part of the stage, two categorised hills have to be climbed. This open flatland is often susceptible to western winds, so maybe there could be echelon forming. But this stage isn't about hills or echelons, this stage is all about cobbles, spread out over 9 secteurs pavés for a grand total of 22.1km. Past Bethune there's a slight change of direction as the course goes almost straight east. After almost 100km there's another change of direction, going south this time. At this point in the race tension will begin to rise, as the first cobblestone sector is nearing. The Rue Emile Zola in Sainghin-en-Weppes is just a 600m long appetizer, no-one will suffer on it. But teams and race favourites who are not used at riding on cobbles will surely be among the first to begin this sector, resulting in a fast set pace the kilometres before.

Following this warm-up comes a 8km long stretch of asphalted roads, not really narrow, but quite sinuous, so a good position after the first cobbles can easily be maintained towards the second secteur pavé of the day, one that will be a totally different issue than the first. The http://i61.tinypic.com/35c0u0x.jpg[/img]]cobbles between Gondecourt and Chémyconsists of two stretches of 2.5km and 1.1km respectively, intersparsed with 100m asphalt. It starts with relativly smooth cobbles, albeit on a typical narrow road, but towards the end of the second part quality deteriorates quickly.
After these cobbles the peloton will probably be split in different groups, but 15km of smooth roads give the opportunity to regain contact with the first on the road, if you're still feeling comfortable. No matter what, the race will be very hectic by now. Riders trying to gain position in the sliptream of their team cars, others changing bikes, changing wheels after flat tires, domestics waiting for their leader who might have fallen behind,...

Next on the road is one of the most difficult sectors of Paris-Roubaix, the absolutely horrible Secteur pavé de Mons-en-Pévèle: 3km of cobbles in some of the worst conditions one can imagine, zigzagging through northern French agricultural landscapes. At this point the course of Paris-Roubaix will be followed for 35km, albeit in the opposite direction. It is one of the most dense parts of paris-Roubaix, with five secteurs pavés in quick succession and never more than 6km in between two of them.

If the course of Paris-Roubaix would be followed, the 3.7km sector of Wandignies-Hamage to Hornaing would be followed by the cobbles of Wallers and then the mythical stones of the Arenberg forest, but I'd like to keep them for that one sacred sunday in april. Instead the peloton heads for the cobbles between Wallers and Haveluy, a 2500m long 4* sector that was partly used in the final of stage 3 in the 2010 tour de France.

The finish is in Arenberg/Porte du Hainaut, which was already a finish location of early cobbled stages in 2010 and 2014, stages which saw a fair deal of action on the road. And I think, with this course for todays stage, we can expect some big changes in GC.

Map and Profile:

difficulties:
Côte d’Oneux : km11 ; 1.6km @ 4% ; 4th cat
Côte d’Auxi-le-Château : km 25 ; 1.2km @ 6.6% ; 4th cat
Secteur Pavé de Sainghin-en-Weppes : km 101.5 ; 600m ; *
Secteur Pavé de Gondecourt à Chemy : km 113.5 ; 3500m ; ****
Secteur Pavé de Mons-en-Pévèle : km131 ; 3000m ; *****
Secteur Pavé de Bersée à Auchy-lez-Orchies: km138 ; 2600m ; ****
Secteur Pavé d’Orchies à Beuvry-la-forêt: km146 ; 1400m ; ***
Secteur Pavé de Sars-et-Rosières à Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes : km151 ; 2400m ; ***
Secteur Pavé de Brillon à Warlaing : km154.5 ; 2400m ; ***
Secteur Pavé de Wandignies-Hamage à Hornaing : km163 ; 3700m ; ****
Secteur Pavé d’Haveluy : km170 ; 2500m ; ****

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Fantasy Tours de France (users P-R)

Tour: Prologue-1 Stage 2 Stages 3-4 Stage 5 Stages 6-7 Stage 8 Stage 9 Stages 10-13 Stage 14 Stages 15-16 Stage 17 Stages 18-20 (rghysens)

Tour: Prologue Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5 Stage 6 Stage 7 Stage 8 Stage 9 Stage 10 Stage 11 Stage 12 Stage 13 Stage 14 Stage 15 Stage 16 Stage 17 Stage 18 Stage 19 (rghysens)

Tour: Prologue Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5 Stage 6 Stage 7 Stage 8 Stage 9 Stage 10 Stage 11 Stage 12 Stage 13 Stage 14 Stage 15 Stage 16 Stage 17 Stage 18 Stage 19 Stage 20 (rghysens)

Tour: Prologue-Stage 2 Stages 3-4 Stages 5-9 Stages 10-16 Stages 17-20 (rghysens)

Tour: Stages 1-3 Stage 4 Stage 5 Stage 6 Stage 7 Stage 8 Stage 9 Stage 10 Stage 11 Stage 12 Stage 13 Stage 14 Stage 15 Stage 16 Stage 17 Stage 18 Stage 19 Stages 20 & 21 (rghysens)

Tour: Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5 Stage 6 Stage 7 Stage 8 Stage 9 Stage 10 Stage 11 Stage 12 Stage 13 Stage 14 Stage 15 Stage 16 Stage 17 Stage 18 Stage 19 Stage 20 Stage 21 (rghysens)

Tour: Prologue-Stage 7 Stages 8-14 Stages 15-21 (roundabout)

Tour: Entire parcours (roundabout)

Tour: Entire parcours (roundabout)

Tour: Stages 1 & 2 Stage 3 Stages 4 & 5 Stages 7-9 (roundabout)

Tour: Entire parcours (roundabout)

More will be added here as they are posted. All library posts are linked from the original post in the thread.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

"Côte d'Emeraude" means "Emerald Coast" and is the designation of the Breton coast between Cap Fréhel and Pointe du Grouin (or Sables d'Or-les-Pins and Cancale if you want town names). The climb you showed is the Rue du Jerzual, which goes on in the Rue du Petit Fort (or the other way around, since Rue du Petit Fort is the lower part of it).

Ah. Being familiar with the double meaning of "Côte" and not being familiar with the name for that particular piece of coastline, I came across some photos of the roads labelled with Côte d'Emeraude and, with my cycling hat on, made the assumption it referred to "Côte" as in "hill" and therefore the climb had its own name (much as "Montée Laurent Jalabert" is actually the Côte de la Croix-Neuve, or how "Chemin des Chapelles/Plaine la Sarte" is not in popular cycling lexicon but "Mur de Huy" is). I never considered that the other meaning of "côte" was intended because of Dinan being on that particular stretch of coast. Mea culpa.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

I cant find a profile for the schiltach climb, but can reveal the next stage:

DR Stage 11 TT Lindau - Friedrichschafen (Eurobike)

Primes/KOCs:
None (TT)

KOMs:
None

Intermediate Splits:
Langenargen

Today we start on the shores of the Lake Konstanz in Lindau for the first big TT of the race. The route is a simple on starts on the island, then heads through some nice towns and villages. The first intermediate split is at Langenargen. Then on to the finish at Friedrichshafen. The race would be positioned on the calendar for the end of August begining of September. So it would clash with the Vuelta but would clash in a good way with Eurobike. So that the exebition goers can pop in and out looking at bikes before heading out to the race.

Start:

Finish:

 

[rghysens]

Tour complet de France, stage 4: Valenciennes - Reims, 156km - flat (Nord/Pas-de-Calais - Champagne/Ardennes)

A second consecutive stage that starts in one region and finishes in another. There will be a few more, if we want to spent some time in regions like Midi-Pyrenées, Rhône-Alpes or Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.
After two stages for the powerhouses there's a new chance for the sprinters, as the skinny climbers may lick their wounds (hopefully only in a proverbial manner). yesterdays cobbled carnage is followed by a more benign stage.

It all starts in front of the city hall of Valenciennes, a few kilometres east of yesterdays finish location. After leaving town by the Avenue Henri Barbusse, the real start is given when crossing the E19 highway. The race then heads south, passing the fortified town of Le Quesnoy.The stage goes south for much of its entire length, but makes a loop through some pretty village in the regional natural parc of the Avesnois. A landscape with http://i59.tinypic.com/24q8zud.jpg[/img]]rolling pastures, separated by hedgerows and trees. Neighbouring Thiérache has a similar look, but the countryside is dotted with its famous fortified churches, like the one in Origny-en-Thiéracheon todays course. In Vervins the peloton heads directly for Reims by the D966. At first the terrain is still rolling, with some short but sharp climbs on the road, but later it flattens out. So we can safely assume a bunch sprint in Reims.

Map & Profile:

No climbs