I appreciate the playful, subversive nature of Laibach, but if I'm honest for the most part the industrial styles leave me cold, I most enjoy that genre at its birth, something like
Halber Mensch by Einstürzende Neubauten would be what I would point to.
Stage 6: Frankenberg an der Eder - Königstein im Taunus, 158km
GPM:
Donnerskopf (cat.3) 3,1km @ 5,1%
Saalburger Höhe (cat.4) 1,9km @ 5,0%
Großer Feldberg (cat.1) 13,5km @ 4,7%
Mammolshainer Berg (cat.3) 2,3km @ 8,0%
After a scenic stage through the Sauerland, we head southward through the state of Hesse for our shortest road stage thus far, and the first chance for the climbers to show themselves. The start is not far from yesterday's finish, in the scenic and historic town of Frankenberg an der Eder, currently part of an experiment by the Hessian
Land to test the impact municipal improvement measures have on the town's demographics (I assume what this corporate jargon means is that they want to test if they can change the profile of who lives in the town and/or their quality of life through means of town planning/administrative changes). It's a scenic town, but the riders will be heading south towards Hesse's largest conurbation, the Frankfurt am Main urban sprawl. For the most part, the route there is rolling; ramps are short and/or insignificant for the first half of the stage until we reach the foothills of the Taunus mountains, that low-to-mid range that sits between the Eifel and the Rhön mountains, and characterises the northern Rhein-Main area.
The first two climbs of the stage aren't really much to write home about from a climbing perspective, though the reconstructed Roman fortress at
Römerkastell Saalburg is worth a visit. From here we descend into the first of the scenic low-Taunus towns and cities that form the affluent suburbs of the Frankfurt financial hub.
Bad Homburg vor der Höhe is famous for its eponymous hats, but is a scenic spa town in its own right, which we pass through before the intermediate sprint at the chocolate box town of
Oberursel. Weirdly, you can visit both of these on Frankfurt's U-Bahn network as lines U2 (Bad Homburg) and U3 (Oberursel) turn into suburban overgrounds on the city's outskirts. Oberursel-Hohemark, the end of the latter, is right at the foot of our first category 1 climb of the race, the long but gradual ascent of the highest peak in the Taunus mountains, the mighty Großer Feldberg.
Towering over Frankfurt and its surrounding area, the Großer Feldberg
from this side is 13km of grind, with the wick slowly being turned up to a maximum gradient of 11%. There are no truly steep sections, so my anticipation here is that the pace will be turned up by the climbing leaders' teams to try to drop the puncheurs without the endurance for a longer climb and also the Classics style riders who may have time in hand from the ITT and the cobbled stages; the summit is only 19km from the finish, so riders may well push hard here, and second-tier challengers may even consider a flyer if they can descend well, with a fast descent into the finishing town of Königstein before turning left past Opel-Zoo and into
Kronberg. From here things take a turn for the familiar; the Großer Feldberg, it may not have escaped you, is the first major climb of the day (Riedberg is barely a climb) in the Rund um Frankfurt, which I coo about owing to its' balanced parcours that has led to races where with 1km to go both Domenico Pozzovivo and André Greipel are still in the mix for victory, and its role in establishing my cycling fandom. It's now time for the race's trademark climb, the shorter, steeper puncheur's favourite that is the Mammolshainer Berg.
The actual profile of Mammolshain is quite hard to come by; what is known is the climb is between 2 and 3km long and averaging between 6,5 and 8,5% depending on where you draw the start and finish points. From where I've taken it for the purposes of this race, it's 2km @ 8%. Its most notorious section is the painfully steep
Mammolshainer Stich, purported to get up to 26%, though other estimates have 19%, 21% and 23% as the maximum. To complicate matters, Quäl dich don't include it as a separate entry, only as part of the many southwestern faces of the Großer Feldberg, however
their profile including it suggests 21% as the maximum, along with a tough 500m averaging over 14% in the middle.
My TV screen was sadly without the Mammolshainer Berg in 2015 thanks to the Rund um Frankfurt having to be cancelled following a terrorist scare. Therefore I'm bringing it back for this - and with the stage finishing back in Königstein, the crest of the climb comes a mere 1km from the finish, so while the climb is longer and steeper than the Cauberg, the finish will be a little like the current version of Amstel Gold. I would be mighty impressed if we saw the likes of Michael Matthews up there in this one (or local boy John Degenkolb, who lives in Mainhattan and has won the Maitagrennen twice), however the 1km run-in may lead to some interesting cat and mouse following the steep puncheur's special that is the climb. After a short stage and with the climbers hoping to put the pressure on early this could also be interesting to see the composition of the group fighting out the final climb as week 1 rolls towards an end.
Frankenberg an der Eder:
Königstein im Taunus: