Tour de France Tour de France 2022 route rumors thread.

[roundabout]

mini profiles of all stages

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBqK5kiXoAAGS0t?format=png&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBqK9hXWYAAYQmN?format=png&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBqLEC_X0AAPH1x?format=png&name=large

no positive surprises there as well (all unmarked climbs are lower than cat 2)

edit: looks like 23 climbs of cat 2 and higher, I think

 

[noob]

Lol this is like getting a script and envison the play. The script is always worse than the finished product.

 

[Netserk]

But what is the problem with the flat starts? On most of those stages, the break cannot establish itself before the first mountain anyway, which makes the racing even harder than if it's just a W/kg slugfest from the beginning.

Edit: okay, "most", is - admittedly - perhaps stretching things a bit.

How did this play out in the Pyrenees last year?

 

[Rackham]

Just tuned in - speaking the rumours of the l'Alpe d'Huez and a spectacle stage, I was reeally hoping for a La Marmotte stage, i.e. Bourg d'Oissans - Col du Glandon - Col du Télégraphe - Col du Galibier - l'Alpe d'Huez - (+5500hm in just 174K).
Now all the "hard" stages are ~150k short, i.e. no endurance races making it suitable for the hardmen stamina guys.
Bring at least one mammoth +260K Argelés-Gazost - Pamplona stage in with 7 mountains followed by 100 k pursuit in +46°C (like the one in 1996), please.
This presented 2022 route seems more suited and designed for a certain Frenchman...(sorry).

I think that ship sailed last year for Alaph, i.e. in 2022 he won't survive Granon or Alpe with the likes of Pogacar & Roglic going all out. The mountain stages feature climbs which are just too hard for him.

I know "who" is does suit very well but I really doubt A.S.O. did that on purpose. If team Jumbo Visma can survive the cobbles (& I don't see why not with WvA spearheading the charge), then it's game on.

 

[railxmig]

I dunno if i should wait for the rate the 2022 route poll to give that phat 0 or not? I'm joking. There are some decent flat stages, Calais and maybe even Saint-Etienne may have some wind? Cobbles are always interesting. Granon is good. Col de la Croix... from the WRONG side... I guess because the virus ASO decided to use their extortion powers on usual suspects. Waiting for Gaudu to show his GC potential so maybe the mountain stages will be at least less neutered.

 

[Froome]

What climbs the route will have before la super planche des belles filles? I can't see that information.

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

I don't think it's negative at all. But I think it's impossible to have a discussion with that point of view here, because every time ASO are about to announce a route most people have been honing their farmer's weapons and mehaphones and begin shouting OMG, Not Good Enough, That stage is too short, Those two stages should be switched, Too few TT kms, Planche des Belles Filles is crap because LS says so, That mountain would hsve been better than this and so on and so on, automatically. If there is a good stage in the eyes of the CN mob it gets ignored because it's not cool to express an ounce of satisfaction on this day. The negativity is infinitely more annoying than the racing which could be good. It was the same before the Worlds with OMG, I can climb that climb, what is it doing on a Worlds course? and then, when the racing ended up good, it was lucky because no race organiser ever knows what they're doing at all.

I think we all can agree on, that even a seemingly boring stage can end up in an unexpected exciting spectacle, if the riders choose to.
As well as it for the last couple of decades (except for most recent years revolution of new kind of rider types), that long, exhausting stages on several occations has tended to be a reluctant race with a final 500m sprint.
What I complain about in the 2022 edition is that at least one exhausting long stage excels at it's absence...

 

[yaco]

Womens route looks pretty okay to me, apart from that it could've used a 20km ITT in there. 175km stage must be among the longer races on the womens calendar right?

We have enough experience with 20Kms ITT's in one week stage races blowing up the GC - Ideally they would have a prologue for the Champs.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

mini profiles of all stages

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBqK5kiXoAAGS0t?format=png&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBqK9hXWYAAYQmN?format=png&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBqLEC_X0AAPH1x?format=png&name=large

no positive surprises there as well (all unmarked climbs are lower than cat 2)

edit: looks like 23 climbs of cat 2 and higher, I think

Stage 4 will feature the climb to Cap Blanc Nez at 10k to go. There will be also a few small climbs on that stage. Also wind could be a factor.

 

[roundabout]

Cap Blanc Nez is like 1km long. The difficulty of the stage would probably depend mostly on the weather.

 

[OlavEH]

mini profiles of all stages

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBqK5kiXoAAGS0t?format=png&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBqK9hXWYAAYQmN?format=png&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBqLEC_X0AAPH1x?format=png&name=large
no positive surprises there as well (all unmarked climbs are lower than cat 2)

edit: looks like 23 climbs of cat 2 and higher, I think

The Calais stage also like somewhat hilly. And the Saint Etienne stage too. Could we perhaps only have 5-6 sprinters stages next year? That must be an all-time low.

 

[stonerider]

This could be a route for Wout. He could gain some time in the TT's and the cobbled section and hang on as long as he can in the climbs if he doesn't have to work for Roglic.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

If you go back to the Jean Marie LeBlanc days when Prudhomme was designing the course, there were usually only 21-23 cat 2 or higher climbs in the tour. Goveneou has increased the number. He just reduced the number of very hard mountain stages

30 is plenty. Just need to pack them into less mountain stages, which are LONGER in distance.

Apparently there are only 22 total in this year's race (there are 22 climbs marked in the mini-profiles and they usually mark everything cat. 2 and up, and the marked Parménie and Mosses are already overcategorised at cat. 2), so it's absolutely an easy route.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

The Calais stage also like somewhat hilly. And the Saint Etienne stage too. Could we perhaps only have 5-6 sprinters stages next year? That must be an all-time low.

2015 had only 5, including the echelon stage and a stage where Cavendish was dropped.

 

[yaco]

Women's route - My first reading is that riders like AVV will hold nothing back at the Giro.

Men's route - A classical design when the GC is usually done by the 18th stage.

 

[Leinster]

This could be a route for Wout. He could gain some time in the TT's and the cobbled section and hang on as long as he can in the climbs if he doesn't have to work for Roglic.

He will have to work for Roglic.
He won’t gain enough on the cobbles and TT to make up for what he’ll lose to Pogacar and others on PDBF.

 

[BlueRoads]

What's changed in this regard relative to 10 or 20 years ago? Or compared to Italy, where half the country is broke, half the roads are in poor repair, mayors force reroutes days in advance, yet RCS mostly avoids the issues omnipresent in ASO designs?

I don't know but I suppose that cycling / the Tour plays a lesser role in France nowadays? And that Italian authorities are more willing to pay for the peloton passing them? (Also, ASO seems very intent of presenting perfect road conditions, while the Giro is more willing to take some bad roads maybe.)

 

[perico]

I don't think it's negative at all. But I think it's impossible to have a discussion with that point of view here, because every time ASO are about to announce a route most people have been honing their farmer's weapons and mehaphones and begin shouting OMG, Not Good Enough, That stage is too short, Those two stages should be switched, Too few TT kms, Planche des Belles Filles is crap because LS says so, That mountain would hsve been better than this and so on and so on, automatically. If there is a good stage in the eyes of the CN mob it gets ignored because it's not cool to express an ounce of satisfaction on this day. The negativity is infinitely more annoying than the racing which could be good. It was the same before the Worlds with OMG, I can climb that climb, what is it doing on a Worlds course? and then, when the racing ended up good, it was lucky because no race organiser ever knows what they're doing at all.

I don’t have a problem with Planche des Belles Filles as a climb being used by the TdF. What does irritate me is when Planche des Belles Filles being used by the TDF every other freaking year and hyped like it’s the new Alpe d’huez or Mt Ventoux.

I get people’s irritation with the Alpe, but I also understand why it’s so revered. It’s the first true TDF mtn top finish and became a symbol of the Tour during the Hinault-Fignon-LeMond-Roche-Delgado era which saw some spectacular racing at the summit. Same as Ventoux: Iconic; Tom Simpson; No trees and wind, steepness. I mean I get it. It’s redundant, but it makes for compelling viewing with the crazed spectators and such. That stuff sells the sport. PDBF has none of that mystique and the gaps are minimal.

Problem is that people gripe about those being used too much and boring, but since Prudhomme really started to put his own stamp on his Tour legacy, it gets used twice as much as the ones everybody bitches about.

In defense of Jean Marie Leblanc, who was about as innovative in his route design as the guy who oversees the garbage truck route, he did have some absolutely brutal mountain stages.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I don't know but I suppose that cycling / the Tour plays a lesser role in France nowadays? And that Italian authorities are more willing to pay for the peloton passing them? (Also, ASO seems very intent of presenting perfect road conditions, while the Giro is more willing to take some bad roads maybe.)

This definitely isn't the reason - French cycling is in a much better spot now than in the dark ages of the 00s and early 10s, whereas Italian cycling is badly on the slide and to my knowledge, the Gazzetta rarely has cycling as its lead article even during the Giro in recent years.

 

[OlavEH]

This could be a route for Wout. He could gain some time in the TT's and the cobbled section and hang on as long as he can in the climbs if he doesn't have to work for Roglic.

Definitely. Based on the first look he could be a contender on stage 4, 5, 6, 8, 13 and perhaps 9 and 10. And the ITT stages.

 

[Forever The Best]

Profiles for stages?

 

[BlueRoads]

This definitely isn't the reason - French cycling is in a much better spot now than in the dark ages of the 00s and early 10s, whereas Italian cycling is badly on the slide and to my knowledge, the Gazzetta rarely has cycling as its lead article even during the Giro in recent years.

Okay, it was just my guess and I don't really know how things are in both countries, it's just that I was told by Frenchmen that road cycling is a sport for old people to watch nowadays - pretty much like in Germany, and I thought maybe the enthusiasm is still higher in Italy. After all the French didn't seem super-keen on having Paris-Roubaix in the corona-time.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

The cobbles:

I marked the sectors, that have been in the last edition of PR. I added the stars of PR + the ones of La Flamme Rouge, when not used in PR.

11 Villers-au-Tertre à Fressain 1400 m ***
10 Eswars à Paillencourt 1600 m **
09 Wasnes-au-Bac à Marcq-en-Ostrevent 1400 m **
08 Émerchicourt à Monchecourt 1600 m (Here you can take a peek, it looks quite narrow and nasty) It isn't on the cobbled map of LFR.
07 Monchecourt à Émerchicourt 1300 m **
06 Abscon 1600 m ***
05 Erre à Wandignies-Hamage 2800 m (in PR this is the 3.7k long sector Hornaing à Wandignies, here not the complete sector is used) ****
04 Warlaing à Brillon 2400 m ***
03 Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes à Sars-et-Rosières 2400 m ****
02 Bousignies à Millonfosse 1400 m ***
01 Hasnon à Wallers / Pont Gibus 1600 m *** (in PR done vice versa)

 

[tobydawq]

Okay, it was just my guess and I don't really know how things are in both countries, it's just that I was told by Frenchmen that road cycling is a sport for old people to watch nowadays - pretty much like in Germany, and I thought maybe the enthusiasm is still higher in Italy. After all the French didn't seem super-keen on having Paris-Roubaix in the corona-time.

Wasn't that just the prefect of the Nord region?

 

[Jan the Man]

Very uninspiring.