Tour de France 2020 | Stage 8 (Gazeres-sur-Geronne - Loudenvielle

[cellardoor]

Time to #freeroglic

 

[Pantani_lives]

The Peyresourde in itself isn't that tough, but the combination of CdlM, PdB and P should be good enough for a serious mountain stage. The question is whether anyone of importance has the guts to attack. Until now the climbers have showed nothing. The climbing ability of the riders over a stretch longer than 2 km hasn't been tested yet. I really hope that will change today and we don't just get the two trains setting a mediocre pace with thirty riders staying together.

Pogacar, Landa and Porte have already lost time, so they really need to start attacking if they don't just want to ride conservatively for a top 10 place. Quintana, Lopez and Pinot are still good, but they also need to attack to take time on the time trialists. Bernal needs to do something too if he wants to win a second Tour. Otherwise they might as well give it to Jumbo on a platter.

 

[Jan the Man]

Think we’ll see Landa attacking.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Attritional stage. The weak, tired, unlucky get dropped. Reduced sprint of GC. leaders. Maybe one or 2 opportunistic attacks by someone outside of GC

 

[Jagartrott]

How about that last descent? Is it technical or not? If it is not, a group should always have the benefit over a lone attacker. If it is, the winner will have to be someone with descending skills. Dumoulin is not a bad descender, and if he attacks before the summit, the others will have to work and Roglic can just sit in the wheels and outsprint them in the end. Alaphilippe, I think this will be too hard for him unless the tempo is really easy.

 

[cellardoor]

How about that last descent? Is it technical or not? If it is not, a group should always have the benefit over a lone attacker. If it is, the winner will have to be someone with descending skills. Dumoulin is not a bad descender, and if he attacks before the summit, the others will have to work and Roglic can just sit in the wheels and outsprint them in the end. Alaphilippe, I think this will be too hard for him unless the tempo is really easy.

Yeah, unfortunately I think you're right that it's too hard for Alaphilippe otherwise we could see some downhill attacking.

 

[Breezy1985]

How about that last descent? Is it technical or not? If it is not, a group should always have the benefit over a lone attacker. If it is, the winner will have to be someone with descending skills. Dumoulin is not a bad descender, and if he attacks before the summit, the others will have to work and Roglic can just sit in the wheels and outsprint them in the end. Alaphilippe, I think this will be too hard for him unless the tempo is really easy.

If I was Bardet ide definitely look to give it a go

 

[bambino]

I feel we will get Kuss leading Pog, Roglic, Dumo, Pinot and Nairo over last climb and then confortably descending as a group to finish. Roglic taking stage win in sprint. MAL and Landa attacking on the way just to get reeled in and eventually dropped when Pogacar makes his late attacks.

Only remarkable surprise is when fans see only in results that Rigoberto "Haimar" Uran descended to the lead group, completely un-noticed although wearing Hello Kitty.

 

[houtdffan]

Relevant:

View: https://youtu.be/6WRqxW9Jyt8

That stage was a 5 climb stage, not this much easier and shorter 3 climb day.

Not sure there are any riders in today's peloton who would attack like Contador and Rasmussen did that day. Today's riders won't risk blowing up

 

[houtdffan]

And relevant in the thread for a stage that features that climb.

Watching that video, I feel sad. Main group of about 10 riders, no one team dominating, attacks from 10km out - I miss the bygone days of the Tour.

Also riders today not attacking because it's not an MTF or because it's too early in the race, look at stage 9 that year. What a great stage.

And let's not forget, Phil and Paul were complaining about the LACK OF ATTACKS that day. They were disappointed Contador waited until 2 km to go before he started attacking

 

[Salvarani]

I think there will be a reduced group. With a few losing time. Question is who.

 

[Lequack]

Today's finishing climbs, minus the descent at the end

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Pogacar, Landa and Porte have already lost time, so they really need to start attacking if they don't just want to ride conservatively for a top 10 place. Quintana, Lopez and Pinot are still good, but they also need to attack to take time on the time trialists. Bernal needs to do something too if he wants to win a second Tour. Otherwise they might as well give it to Jumbo on a platter.

It's a three week race, so Porte will just ride conservatively for a top 10 place.

I feel we will get Kuss leading Pog, Roglic, Dumo, Pinot and Nairo over last climb and then confortably descending as a group to finish. Roglic taking stage win in sprint.

Kuss doesn't think there's any point in trying anything if the stage doesn't finish at the top of the steepest mountain, so I'd love to see some hypocrisy from him.

I think there will be a reduced group. With a few losing time. Question is who.

That was what should have happened on stage 6. I thought you said they soft-pedalled stage 6 to be rested to give us fireworks today

 

[Red Rick]

That stage was a 5 climb stage, not this much easier and shorter 3 climb day.

Not sure there are any riders in today's peloton who would attack like Contador and Rasmussen did that day. Today's riders won't risk blowing up

Funny thing is the climbing time that Peyresourde wasn't even that crazy, though I'm sure the way they rode it they could've gona a lot faster if Contador had drilled it from the bottom and worked together afterwards.

If it is a hard stage or not mainly depends on if someone wants to use their team to drill the Port de Bales

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

That was what should have happened on stage 6. I thought you said they soft-pedalled stage 6 to be rested to give us fireworks today

I guess "fireworks" is 2020 speak for a ~ 5.6 W/kg pace up Peyresourde, with some pretenders dropping out the back.

 

[RedheadDane]

That was what should have happened on stage 6. I thought you said they soft-pedalled stage 6 to be rested to give us fireworks today

No no no. They clearly "soft-pedalled" stage 6 to give us fireworks yesterday! GC action on the mountain stages is sooooo last year.

 

[ThePirate81]

It's a short stage,it could be a day for the breakaway to take the win but the pan flat start up to Mente isn't good for climbers as you gotta be a proper climber to finish it off.
I hope Pogacar and maybe Landa will try to keep the race tight and attack on Peyresourde.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Obviously it would make zero sense in this route, but I wish we'd see Menté west in a meaningful role one year. Problem is unless you finish at the Station de Mourtis, I think the nearest place to make it a final climb of the day that's big enough to host Le Tour would be Saint-Gaudens; Aspet has enough parking space etc. but its population is less than 1000, making it far smaller than Jausiers which became the smallest actual urban area to host the race when it had a stage finish in 2008.

 

[Pantani_lives]

I hope Pogacar and maybe Landa will try to keep the race tight and attack on Peyresourde.

I hope they won't wait that long and attack on the PdB already. After that it's a descent, not much flat, so it should be possible to stay away.

What I don't want to see is more than twenty riders crossing the line together.

 

[Red Rick]

Obviously it would make zero sense in this route, but I wish we'd see Menté west in a meaningful role one year. Problem is unless you finish at the Station de Mourtis, I think the nearest place to make it a final climb of the day that's big enough to host Le Tour would be Saint-Gaudens; Aspet has enough parking space etc. but its population is less than 1000, making it far smaller than Jausiers which became the smallest actual urban area to host the race when it had a stage finish in 2008.

I'd love to see some innovation in the Pyrenees. It's always the same underwhelming climbs.

My simplest idea would be a finish in Ax-les-Thermes after Port de Paillheres.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Formolo and Bilbao in the break, Pogacar and Landa to attack at PdB and bridge to the helpers. Cycling 101.

Only to be killed by the Jumbots.

 

[Lequack]

 

[SafeBet]

Hopefully Formolo in the break so everybody can dream of a Pog attack on Port de Balès and I can secretly dream the break gets 10 minutes and Formolo wins the stage.

 

[Salvarani]

That was what should have happened on stage 6. I thought you said they soft-pedalled stage 6 to be rested to give us fireworks today

I hope that it is gonna be fireworks today. But I still think it will be a small group. But not 20-30. More like groups of 5-10 with time gaps. And maybe someone steering clear, who knows?

Also can you stop quoting me about this. I find it annoying now having to repeat myself when I answered most of it. Stage 6 just not a good opportunity and since most thought so, from the teams and riders, nothing happened there. Let it go.

Now hopefully today will be a interesting stage. Have a good day.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I'd love to see some innovation in the Pyrenees. It's always the same underwhelming climbs.

My simplest idea would be a finish in Ax-les-Thermes after Port de Paillheres.

Well, we've got Issarbe tomorrow, but unfortunately it's not married up to a point where PSM is paying so it'll be a bit lost mid-stage, but in fairness to ASO that's new to them. I've had a few thoughts for what the Tour could realistically do further west (let's face it, things like Errozate and Arnostegi are the preserve of the Race Design Thread, even if the Vuelta successfully used Ahuzki in 2016). But it needs places like Mauléon-Licharre and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to be interested in hosting. A descent finish in Mauléon-Licharre after Arangaïtz would be really interesting I think, cos it could be chained after Soudet or Burdincurutcheta. But, if the Tour is happy to do Ahuzki after the Vuelta's success on it they could do Soudet, Bostmendieta, Bagargi, Ahuzki and then descend through Arangaïtz to Mauléon-Licharre and that would be an amazing final mountain stage. I still think it would be a difficult sell because the climb to Ahuzki is very narrow, and there's a huge difference in the logistics in terms of dealing with the fans between using a climb mid-stage in the Vuelta, and using it as the focal climb of a final mountain stage of the Tour de France.

Just quickly putting something together gives me this. It starts in Pau, so could be chained from a classic MTF like Luz Ardiden, Hautacam or Gourette-Aubisque... or even the Tourmalet, yes.