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Tour de France 2020 | Stage 17 (Grenoble - Méribel Col de la Loze, 170 km)

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Also a good option, although it does have the disadvantage of keeping the long flat opening part of the stage.
Nah. Could have gone worse. Like start in bourg-saint-maurice, and then do col de la loze, Madeleine, croix de fer and finish on alpe d'huez. Watch them all suffer.
I mean, you can also theoretically put a Fauniera-Sampeyre-Agnel-Izoard-Granon stage, but in practice you actually want riders to finish the race.
 
Also a good option, although it does have the disadvantage of keeping the long flat opening part of the stage.

I mean, you can also theoretically put a Fauniera-Sampeyre-Agnel-Izoard-Granon stage, but in practice you actually want riders to finish the race.
IMO just Agnello, Izoard is a mighty stage already, with the option of lighting it up on the Agnel already if you want or wait until the Izoard.

I'm not so sure anymore I just want queen stages to be simply as much climbing as possible.
 
Wait, is Col de La Loze a pass?... Always just assumed it was the end of the road as those ski stations and/or goat tracks often are.
Yes, this is the profile of the other side, it's easier. It's essentially the road to the altiport at Courchevel, then you turn right about 1k before it for 5.5k of the cycling track
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That would be criminal. But adding Agnello before Madeleine and then Loze and making it close to 200 km, then you will have riders crawling to the finish. And all sprinters will have to be pushed otherwise they will not be able to finish. I think they were already pushed today.
Are we talking about the same Agnello or are we just gonna take the Agnello-Izoard-Galibier-Rosael shortcuts.
 
In the simplest way possible, it's to do with minutes of action. climbing finishes can be queen stages, but not when they have just about 20-30 minutes of entertainment, and the rest a prelude. A Queen stage must find that balance between difficulty and attrition and trying to force action from afar - so usually two big climbs and a smaller one, or three big climbs, and about 170-200km of length.
It doesn't matter one bit where and how big or small the mountains are. It's down to the riders and if the can or want to attack
 
both sides are paved - I think the Courchevel side was actually opened first

 
Mikel Landa is a simple one to work out. He rides great when there aren't expectations of him to carry the GC torch. He's been great when he's been in shared roles or behind somebody, or the other guys are willing to give him rope to be his mercurial self like when he went out to win the Giro GPM and mountain stages after the whole team abandoned him to ride with Thomas, who then withdrew giving the team nothing to really fight for.

As soon as he has something to lose, he folds.

So, he's great when nobody important cares what he's doing, not so great when the other greats are battling out. He's a very good climber, as a gregario he had a huge influence in Aru's, Froome's and Carapaz's wins and that's about it. Never was, never will be grand tour winner material.
 
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