I love how Bonette makes the others look barely considerable, it's like my Aosta stage where GSB made all the other climbs look tiny.
Stage 15: Yssingeaux - Sévérac-le-Château, 198km
Climbs:
Côte de Saint-Christophe (cat.3) 8,8km @ 3,5%
Côte de la Croix-Neuve (cat.2) 3,6km @ 8,6%
Côte de Choizal (cat.3) 4,6km @ 6,2%
Col de Saint-Rôme (cat.2) 7,8km @ 6,2%
Intermediate Sprint:
Mende, 114km
After the rest day, which will be spent in Saint-Étienne, the riders have a short drive to the start of the final week's racing, in Yssingeaux, a small town in the Auvergne region, as we head through the Massif Central for a stage which will be very good for the aerial vistas as well as serving as possibly the best opportunity for a real breakaway stage in the race. The early parts of the stage are fairly mild, mostly rolling terrain, although there are some notable altitude gains, particularly after the town of
Le Puy-en-Velay, when a gradual ascent is categorization-worthy due to length. For the most part, however, the first half of this stage is there to allow the break to get into its rhythm and look to gain time on the bunch. In many ways the stage harks back to medium mountain stages for the breakaway like the well-designed
2009 Vosges stage, although this is a bit easier than that.
Business doesn't pick up until we enter Lozère, specifically when we pass through the popular cycling town of
Mende with its scenic cathedral and valley setting; the intermediate sprint will take place here, and then the climbing will start in earnest. The steep and now notorious Côte de la Croix-Neuve (aka Montée Laurent Jalabert) is
visible from the town, its
savage profile showing a steepest kilometre at 13% - small wonder, then, that it has become a popular intermediate stop-off for the Tour, and at the moment, when offering stages through the Massif Central the ASO seems to be happy just to alternate Mende and Super-Besse rather than serve up some real mountain stages in the Cévennes.
We aren't finishing at the Côte for once, however, so the riders have to descend the similarly steep southern face of the ascent, before being backed into a second, slightly smaller climb, to
Ferme Fortifiée de Choizal, a fortified castle overlooking the Lot. Though slightly longer than Croix-Neuve, the lack of steeper sections means this is a lower category. And with still around 60km to go, this will basically be to trim the break down to the stronger numbers and get rid of passengers; maillot vert contenders may consider the break on this stage, take points in Mende and then let themselves drop back on these climbs. The descent from Choizal takes us down to the banks of the Tarn, and from here on in, the race gets very scenic.
The riders spend the next 25km racing through the famous
Gorges du Tarn in the Parc National des Cévennes, with
glorious views and
dramatic helicam footage. With almost
impossibly picturesque villages and towns to pass through, the footage can easily speak for itself if the racing is in a holding pattern. But then, with just under 25km remaining, the riders reach
Les Vignes and turn right, leaving the river behind and heading uphill once more on the road up to the hilltop lookout village of
Saint-Rôme-de-Dolan. It's still an
attractive climb, and
snakes beautifully across the hillside for almost 8 kilometres. The first 6km average 7,5%, however it eases up slightly in the last couple before the summit; however, at least form the breakaway this is certainly enough to create the opportunity to make some differences. With the summit 17km from the line, it may even be enough for some GC men, although I would doubt they would be keen to make the effort given that most of that 17km is false flat downhill rather than full-on descending, so the kind of gaps they can create on it are not that sizable, especially with a non-technical run-in to the finish in the small castle-settlement of Sévérac-le-Château (the last 500m are slightly uphill, but we aren't climbing up to the castle) shortly after entering the Aveyron département; as I previously said, this one is likely to be disputed by the break, although the stage is enough of a potential banana skin for main contenders that they can't treat it as an unofficial rest day and will need to be on guard.
Yssingeaux:
Sévérac-le-Château: