Tour de France 2020 | Stage 16 (La Tour-du-Pin - Villard-de-Lans, 164 km)

[Devil's Elbow]

After the rest day, the Alpine triptych kicks off with what is theoretically its easiest stage. The breakaway riders will be looking forward to it, especially given the green jersey battle has limited their opportunities.

Map

Profile

Timetable
Start: 13:05
Côte de Virieu: 13:38/13:39/13:41
Intermediate sprint: 14:23/14:26/14:30
Col de Porte: 15:01/15:06/15:13
Côte de Revel: 15:41/15:49/15:58
Montée de Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte: 16:54/17:07/17:21
Finish at Côte 2000: 17:23/17:36/17:52

Climbs
After a rolling opening third with the Côte de Virieu preceding the intermediate sprint, the riders head up the easier side of Col de Porte. The ASO haven't bothered to categorise the first half of the climb, which explains why it's only a cat. 2.

The route heads along the eastern edge of Grenoble to the little-known Côte de Revel, another cat. 2 climb.

Another passage along the edge of Grenoble brings the riders to the uncategorised Col de Cossey (2.8k at 6.1%), almost immediately followed by the last big climb of the day, the Montée de Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte. I had a hard time finding a profile of the exact side they're using, it should be the profile below between kilometer 3.1 and kilometer 15.3.

There's 18 kilometers from here until the final climb starts, most of them on a downhill false flat. The short climb to Côte 2000 amounts to the profile below minus the final 1.6k, it's not hard enough for much in the way of gaps.

General classification after Stage 15

1. Primoz Roglic
2. Tadej Pogacar + 0.40
3. Rigoberto Uran + 1.34
4. Miguel Ángel López + 1.45
5. Adam Yates + 2.03
6. Richie Porte + 2.13
7. Mikel Landa + 2.16
8. Enric Mas + 3.15
9. Nairo Quintana + 5.08
10. Tom Dumoulin + 5.12

Points classification after Stage 15

1. Sam Bennett 269
2. Peter Sagan 224
3. Matteo Trentin 189
4. Bryan Coquard 166
5. Caleb Ewan 158

Mountains classification after Stage 15

1. Benoît Cosnefroy 36
2. Tadej Pogacar 34
3. Primoz Roglic 33
4. Marc Hirschi 31
5. Nans Peters 31

Young riders classification after Stage 15

1. Tadej Pogacar
2. Enric Mas + 2.35
3. Egan Bernal + 7.45
4. Valentin Madouas + 1.19.37
5. Daniel Felipe Martinez + 1.33.09

 

[Leinster]

Breakaway day. SOMEBODY to take the polka dots off Cosnefroy (Rolland looks best placed).

I insist that it is possible, if a GC rider has good legs, and if they time it right, that it will be possible to jump across on the Saint-Nizier and TTT the rest of the way. A really ambitious move would be to do that even earlier, after the Revel.

EF have had the climbers in the breaks to do something that, but Uran doesn't seem to have the surge to get away. Landa has good climbers in his team, but hasn't had the legs. Lutsenko et al could do the same thing for Lopez, but similarly, Can Lopez get separation from the Jumblebeebots?

 

[Gigs_98]

Feel like the first hour will be really fast due to Bora trying to drop Bennett, before the 2nd hour will be just as fast due to everyone and his mother trying to get into the break in the Col de Portet.

Then nothing

Then a Marc Hirschi stage win and all gc contenders finishing s.t. a few minutes later

 

[Koronin]

It looks like it should be a stage for the break. Movistar should try to send Verona and/or Soler into the break to hunt for a stage. I would expect EF to have someone in the break for the same reason as well.

 

[Anderis]

Porte to attack on Col de Porte and Pogacar to attack on Col de Poga... wait. Pogacar to attack on Col de Saint-Nidihjghisdgu... Pogacar to attack on that category 1 climb.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Can see a breakaway succeeding and Bora being relentless. In addition, likely we can expect an intense (to control) finish (over Montée de Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte).

 

[sir fly]

After the rest day, a power climbing day.
Appears interesting.

 

[Savant12]

Porte to attack on Col de Porte and Pogacar to attack on Col de Poga... wait. Pogacar to attack on Col de Saint-Nidihjghisdgu... Pogacar to attack on that category 1 climb.

The dream: Porte to ride way on the Col de Porte with two Trek riders up ahead in the breakaway (Kenny and any of their strong classics type rider). Porte makes contact with them on the descent. The classics rider drops after taking Porte and Kenny over the Revel and down the descent and flat before the Cat.1. Kenny gases it on that Cat.1 to make the gap to GC bigger and Richie solos away to victory taking over 2mins on the stage.

The reality: 6 Jumbos are there for the Cat.1 and RogPog fights it out for bonus seconds 500m from the line.

 

[Escarabajo]

LOL at all these dream scenarios. Especially when you have Madeleine and Col de la Loze the following day.

The only thing you can dream of is of somebody down below in the classification attacking. I know one of them is banged up and the other one works for Roglic. The rest are just happy to be there and their teams wouldn't allow it anyway.

I think it is a nice stage and it should be fun to watch Sagan fighting for the points.

 

[Amazinmets87]

Looks like the general consensus is the stage will be a snoozefest.

My prediction: Quintana Landa and another rider in the top 15 in G.C launch a mountain raid on the cote de porte and bridge to the break.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Breakaway and Sagan + Some more time losses in the GC with the top 5 unmoved

 

[JosephK]

After the rest day, a power climbing day.
Appears interesting.

It happens sometimes (as you may suggest) that a GC contender among the top few riders will have a bad day on a hard stage following the 2nd rest day.

 

[Tigerion]

Looks like the general consensus is the stage will be a snoozefest.

My prediction: Quintana Landa and another rider in the top 15 in G.C launch a mountain raid on the cote de porte and bridge to the break.

Will probably depend on the make up of the break. If the GC riders put some people into the break, there is a chance of action. Most likely just trying to hold the train and hope the people above you on GC drop

 

[search]

The reality: 6 Jumbos are there for the Cat.1 and RogPog fights it out for bonus seconds 500m from the line.

it'll be worse, I guess: another rest day for the peloton. Breakaway win by 20 minutes, Jumbo brings in the 80 men peloton. G. Martin wins 8 seconds with a late attack.

on the other hand, the Dauphiné stage finishing here (only the final 3k are the same) was pretty good...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfmRPwMTtpE&feature=emb_title

 

[Hugo Koblet]

It's hard to hope for any action when there's hardly anyone in the top 25 that has made any attacks yet. Roglic, Pogacar and Yates have been the most aggressive, and then I guess Quintana is next on the list with his attacks a few hundred metres from the top of Peyresourde was it?

 

[Bolder]

I would love to see a long-range attack here but given the rest of the week that would be a fool's errand.

 

[damian13ster]

My dream is Kwiatkowski winning

 

[movingtarget]

Sounded like Porte enjoyed his ride on the Jumbo train in the previous stage ! Probably had memories of the old Sky days when they even let him take a turn on the front as the engine.............eventually. Don't see much change on this stage re the top 10 unless someone just has a bad day. Breakaway will probably stay away. Sprint for Green might be the high point even if it's a low point metres wise...........

 

[Red Rick]

This is now or never mr Dumoulin.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

The profile looks interesting. A breakaway is likely to succeed today. Some GC action is also possible on Monte du Saint Nizier du Moucherotte (or more likely only on Villard de Lans) but just a small warm-up before wednesday.

 

[boneshaker]

All in by Bora. Sagan for the intermediate and c;limbers for the stage.

 

[boneshaker]

This is now or never mr Dumoulin.

Only if Roglic got Covid.

 

[SafeBet]

Random factoid entering week 3.
Mikel Nieve has finished all the 18 Grand Tours he's started thus far in his career. His best result is an 8th place (2015 Vuelta) and he's never finished worse than 25th (Giro 2016).

He currently sits in 47th place, more than half an hour down on the 25th place, so the streak is in real danger.
I'll keep an eye on him for all the people caring about silly streaks out there (just me probably).

 

[Hugo Koblet]

This is the best chance for Ineos to come home with anything this Tour, so I'm going with Kwiatkowski.

 

[Rollthedice]

it'll be worse, I guess: another rest day for the peloton. Breakaway win by 20 minutes, Jumbo brings in the 80 men peloton. G. Martin wins 8 seconds with a late attack.

on the other hand, the Dauphiné stage finishing here (only the final 3k are the same) was pretty good...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfmRPwMTtpE&feature=emb_title

Man, those were the days. Nibali attacks with some 100 Km to go, with Valverde, Costa and a few others, rain and all that shark environment. In the back Froomey gets into panic mode, Nibs drops everybody in the final just to be caught by Costa for the stage win but he gets the yellow jersey.