Tour de France 2019

[Kyllingen86]

So If Pau is off the table... no ITT?

Or is it going to be in Nimes?

 

[Red Rick]

Gotta be an ITT. Dumoulin has to have some rope, no?

 

[ice&fire]

Re:

Gotta be an ITT. Dumoulin has to have some rope, no?

I'd say so, but last time I checked Dumoulin's gains on Froome in the Giro and TDF ITTs this year were less than marginal.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

Gotta be an ITT. Dumoulin has to have some rope, no?

I'd say so, but last time I checked Dumoulin's gains on Froome in the Giro and TDF ITTs this year were less than marginal.

This isn't just about Froome and Dumoulin

 

[ice&fire]

If they outclimb the so-called climbers as they've done this year, what else do they need to win?

EDIT: if they outclimb the climbers and they're very close to each other in the ITT, the ITT length has a very minor impact.

But yes, there has to be a long mid-race ITT somewhere.

 

[rghysens]

Re:

So we have mountain stages on:

Stage 6: Planche des Beilles Filles
Stage 12: Tourmalet
Stage 14: Pratis Albis
Stage 18: Valloire
Stage 19: Tignes
Stage 20: Val Thorens

Stage 9 and 10 could be solid medium mountain stages.

Where are we with ITT's. Only in Pau? Of course aside from the TTT on stage 2.

Honestly for a Tour it looks surprisingly good. I suppose its best to wait for the official route before celebrating.

The rumoured stage 5 to La Bresse could (should) be a nice medium mountain stage too.

 

[OlavEH]

Re:

So we have mountain stages on:

Stage 6: Planche des Beilles Filles
Stage 12: Tourmalet
Stage 14: Pratis Albis
Stage 18: Valloire
Stage 19: Tignes
Stage 20: Val Thorens

Stage 9 and 10 could be solid medium mountain stages.

Where are we with ITT's. Only in Pau? Of course aside from the TTT on stage 2.

Honestly for a Tour it looks surprisingly good. I suppose its best to wait for the official route before celebrating.

Well, good last climbs, but unsure of the total route design. For example stage 19 to Tignes. How will the profile look like? St.Jean de Maurinne via Madeleine and 30+ flat kms up the the valley before the last climb to Tignes? And the last stage to Val Thorens? Perhaps via Roselend, but what else?

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Re: Re:

So we have mountain stages on:

Stage 6: Planche des Beilles Filles
Stage 12: Tourmalet
Stage 14: Pratis Albis
Stage 18: Valloire
Stage 19: Tignes
Stage 20: Val Thorens

Stage 9 and 10 could be solid medium mountain stages.

Where are we with ITT's. Only in Pau? Of course aside from the TTT on stage 2.

Honestly for a Tour it looks surprisingly good. I suppose its best to wait for the official route before celebrating.

The rumoured stage 5 to La Bresse could (should) be a nice medium mountain stage too.

It's no longer rumored. Looks like it'll be Mulhouse instead. So, a breakaway stage with Grand Ballon, at best...



UPDATE 7 October 2018 at 7.58PM: according to Vosges Matin it is sure that the finish will not be in La Bresse because the newspaper indicates that the Tour de France 2019 will simply not visit the Vosges department ... after having checked the different possibilities (the newspaper seems to have checked Epinal, La Bresse, Gérardmer and even Vittel).

UPDATE 14 October 2018 at 7.03PM : according to the latest article from l'Est Républicain this stage would thus finish in Mulhouse.

https://www.velowire.com/blogcat/101/en/tour-de-france-2019.html

 

[rghysens]

Oh, great.....

 

[Valv.Piti]

So, when will the route be announced?

 

[OlavEH]

Re:

So, when will the route be announced?

Next thursday I believe. 25th.

 

[OlavEH]

Velowire's sketch of the rumours so far includes these to mountain stages in the Alps:

Stage 18: Embrun - Valloire
Stage 19: Vallee de la Maurienne - Tignes

For the first one, it's very easy to assume a short mountain stage with Izoard and Galibier, something like this:

For the Tignes stage, I see two main options. Either do Madeleine and and entire Tarentaise valley up to Bourg Saint Maurice. Or do Iseran, descend via Montvalezan before the last climb to Tignes:

Is this problable routes? IMO this would be dreadful stage design. A short stage to Valloire with the easy ascent of Galibier before descending to Valloire. I don't see much action on this stage. A Tignes stage via Iseran would be somewhat better but a very long descent towards Bourt Saint Maurice and a not the worst of climbs to Tignes, also makes this a at best average designed stage.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Ofc, horrible, horrible, horrible

 

[roundabout]

Why descend all the way to Bourg-Saint-Maurice and why not also climb Vars on the Valloire stage?

 

[Kyllingen86]

I agree both stages lacks endurance but we have to remember two things here. First with recent Tour standards we can not be gready. Second If the stage to Gap also features climbs to be classified a medium mountain stage then it will most likely be four days in a row with potential action.

Galibier-descent can be used as an attack as well (Roglic). If Col du Vars is added before Izoard in my opinion it could become a decent stage.


Are there any news on that Gap-stage?

 

[Gigs_98]

I don't know, I think this looks incredibly dull. About as uncreative as it gets.

 

[OlavEH]

Re:

Why descend all the way to Bourg-Saint-Maurice and why not also climb Vars on the Valloire stage?

Almost down to Bourg-Saint-Maurice. The road from Montvalezan decends to Seez, just a couple of km above Bourg-Saint-Maurice. And what would the alternative be? Descend just the first part past Val d'Isere and then a 5-6 km climb to Tignes? That would make a very short stage.

You're right that Vars could be an alternative. But looping around and climbing Vars first would make that stage just above 200 km. And based on what ASO usually does, I find it more likely with a 120 km than a 200 km mountain stage.

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

Why descend all the way to Bourg-Saint-Maurice and why not also climb Vars on the Valloire stage?

Almost down to Bourg-Saint-Maurice. The road from Montvalezan decends to Seez, just a couple of km above Bourg-Saint-Maurice. And what would the alternative be? Descend just the first part past Val d'Isere and then a 5-6 km climb to Tignes? That would make a very short stage.

You're right that Vars could be an alternative. But looping around and climbing Vars first would make that stage just above 200 km. And based on what ASO usually does, I find it more likely with a 120 km than a 200 km mountain stage.

Or you go full Zomegnan and have Galibier from North at the start of the stage and then Montgenevre and Mont-Cenis before that sequence.
it's the Tour, so they could probably even get away with using the Tunnel du Fréjus to Bardonecchia in the stage as a "super special spectacle" and then have Mont-Cenis and Isearn before a finish in Tignes.
Cenis-Iseran with a finish in Val d'Isere or Tignes is one of those combinations that I'm dying to see in a real race, it would be awesome.

 

[ice&fire]

Iseran South can only be linked with Mount Cenis, but I can't see ASO going either full Zomegnan ot through the Tunnel du Fréjus as mayomaniac suggests. So if they go to Tignes through Iseran, the shorter the path from the summit to the finish the better. An alternative with more climbs would be going through Madeleine, but adding Croix de Fer before and Col du Tra afterwards.

 

[OlavEH]

Re: Re:

Or you go full Zomegnan and have Galibier from North at the start of the stage and then Montgenevre and Mont-Cenis before that sequence.
it's the Tour, so they could probably even get away with using the Tunnel du Fréjus to Bardonecchia in the stage as a "super special spectacle" and then have Mont-Cenis and Isearn before a finish in Tignes.
Cenis-Iseran with a finish in Val d'Isere or Tignes is one of those combinations that I'm dying to see in a real race, it would be awesome.

That would of course be epic, but I find it just as likely as me competing in next year's Tour!

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

Or you go full Zomegnan and have Galibier from North at the start of the stage and then Montgenevre and Mont-Cenis before that sequence.
it's the Tour, so they could probably even get away with using the Tunnel du Fréjus to Bardonecchia in the stage as a "super special spectacle" and then have Mont-Cenis and Isearn before a finish in Tignes.
Cenis-Iseran with a finish in Val d'Isere or Tignes is one of those combinations that I'm dying to see in a real race, it would be awesome.

That would, of course, be epic, but I find it just as likely as me competing in next year's Tour!

Yeah, probably.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Re: Re:

Cenis-Iseran with a finish in Val d'Isere or Tignes is one of those combinations that I'm dying to see in a real race, it would be awesome.

Absolutely. Mont-Cenis from the south is such a long beast. Giro 2013 did it on the stage to the Galibier. And it was in the Tour of 1999 on the way to AdH.

However my dream TdF stage tackles Mont-Cenis from the north. It's Albertville - Iseran - Cenis - Finestre - Sestriere. After that, I would be done with GT cycling. Couldn't get any better.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

Cenis-Iseran with a finish in Val d'Isere or Tignes is one of those combinations that I'm dying to see in a real race, it would be awesome.

Absolutely. Mont-Cenis from the south is such a long beast. Giro 2013 did it on the stage to the Galibier. And it was in the Tour of 1999 on the way to AdH.

However my dream TdF stage tackles Mont-Cenis from the north. It's Albertville - Iseran - Cenis - Finestre - Sestriere. After that, I would be done with GT cycling. Couldn't get any better.

I don't even like that stage design. Doesn't do anything more than "what if we do Finestre again but with more tired riders this time"

The recent problem with the Tour is that one team is so insanely strong it will neutralize everything except if you'd specifically design routes to break the train. A somewhat simple solution would be to use very long, high altitude MTFs. Wouldn't be anything crazy, but at least the last 5km would be relatively spectacular.

 

[OlavEH]

Re: Re:

Cenis-Iseran with a finish in Val d'Isere or Tignes is one of those combinations that I'm dying to see in a real race, it would be awesome.

Absolutely. Mont-Cenis from the south is such a long beast. Giro 2013 did it on the stage to the Galibier. And it was in the Tour of 1999 on the way to AdH.

However my dream TdF stage tackles Mont-Cenis from the north. It's Albertville - Iseran - Cenis - Finestre - Sestriere. After that, I would be done with GT cycling. Couldn't get any better.

Finestre should be "reserved" for the Giro. Mayomaniac's suggestion of using Galibier north, Montgenevre, Mont Cenis and Iseran before finishing in Tignes is more interesting.

But I don't expect that, and you dont't even have to go "full Zomegnan". The rumoured stage start in Maurinne suggest either Iseran followed by parts or the whole climb to Tignes, or Madeleine first and perhaps one climb up the valley befor Tignes.

A better option than only Iseran and part of or full climb to Tignes, would be to start in Briancon and to Montgenevre, Mont Cenis and Iseran before descending and doing the last few kms to Tignes. It wouldn't be more than 150 km, but doing first Mont Cenis, and than Iseran at almost 2800m is a still a really tough stage. The last 13 kms or so to Iseran averages about 7,5 % or something like that. After doing Mont Cenis first and passing 2500m that is a great place to attack before the descent and the last 5-6 km of climbing to Tignes.

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

Cenis-Iseran with a finish in Val d'Isere or Tignes is one of those combinations that I'm dying to see in a real race, it would be awesome.

Absolutely. Mont-Cenis from the south is such a long beast. Giro 2013 did it on the stage to the Galibier. And it was in the Tour of 1999 on the way to AdH.

However my dream TdF stage tackles Mont-Cenis from the north. It's Albertville - Iseran - Cenis - Finestre - Sestriere. After that, I would be done with GT cycling. Couldn't get any better.

Finestre should be "reserved" for the Giro. Mayomaniac's suggestion of using Galibier north, Montgenevre, Mont Cenis and Iseran before finishing in Tignes is more interesting.

But I don't expect that, and you dont't even have to go "full Zomegnan". The rumoured stage start in Maurinne suggest either Iseran followed by parts or the whole climb to Tignes, or Madeleine first and perhaps one climb up the valley befor Tignes.

A better option than only Iseran and part of or full climb to Tignes, would be to start in Briancon and to Montgenevre, Mont Cenis and Iseran before descending and doing the last few kms to Tignes. It wouldn't be more than 150 km, but doing first Mont Cenis, and than Iseran at almost 2800m is a still a really tough stage. The last 13 kms or so to Iseran averages about 7,5 % or something like that. After doing Mont Cenis first and passing 2500m that is a great place to attack before the descent and the last 5-6 km of climbing to Tignes.

Yes, a start in Briancon would make sense and it would be a great stage, I just assumend that the start in Maurinne was set in stone, so I tried to find ways to make that one more interesting.
But yeah, Cenis-Iseran with a descent finish in Val d'Isere or a finish in Tignes is just a great concept.