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Tour de France Tour de France 2023, stage 10: Vulcania - Issoire, 167.2k

The first rest day is followed by the first of the obvious baroudeur stages.

Profile
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Map
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The route
After adding a new amusement park to the list of those the Tour has been to, it's an uphill start with the final 4.7 kilometres of Col de la Moréno.
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Its shallow descent backs into the Col de Guéry.
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The intermediate sprint in Le Mont-Dore, at the foot of Puy Sancy, the highest point of the Massif Central, is only 9 kilometres from here by road, but the riders take a detour of well over triple the distance. The terrain is rolling, and the sprint sits on a rise.
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The road rises more sharply after the sprint, as it is immediately followed by the start of Col de la Croix Saint-Robert, the final 6.9k of the profile below.
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After descending into Chambon-sur-Lac, where Christophe Laporte won a Dauphiné stage last month, there's a short valley section before the next categorised climb, Côte de Saint-Victor-la-Rivière.
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The next categorised climb doesn't start for almost 50 more kilometres, yet the interlying section is rarely flat, containing uncategorised climbs to Lac de Bourdouze...
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...the final 4.0 kilometres of Col de la Chaumoune...
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...and finally to La Godivelle, an easy hill for which I have no profile. After a plateau and a longer descent, it is time for that final categorised climb, Côte de la Chapelle-Marcousse. This is probably the hardest climb of the day and really should have been a cat. 2.
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The true summit comes at about 26 kilometres from the line. Most of those are on a shallow, but somewhat narrow and at times technical descent, which is interrupted by a brief rise into Ronzières.
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The descent then ends at about 10 kilometres from the finish line in Issoire. Both the finish and the run-in are different from the 2021 Dauphiné stage won by Brent Van Moer, which was the first time a professional race had been in town since the 2011 Tour stage to Saint-Flour won by Luis León Sánchez, but much better remembered for both Voeckler taking the yellow jersey and Hoogerland being crashed into a barbed wire fence by a car, started here.

Final kilometres
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5-10% chance of chaos at the beginning with some interesting guy(s) managing to sneak away. 90-95% chance that itll be a hard fight for the group which will get ~25minutes resulting in the 2nd restday in a row for the peleton
 
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This is the type of transitional stage where classic riders and breakaway specialists have a chance. Les trois magnifiques (Van der Poel, Van Aert and Alaphilippe) haven't won a stage yet, so they should seize this opportunity. Other candidates are Bettiol, Cort, Girmay, Campenaerts and Madouas.
 
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It is a tough stage, if they race it hard. It is up and down all day. Barely any flat km.

Lots of riders/teams should be interested in this one. Difficult to control.

Maybe wont produce big gaps among the GC-riders, but could be a brutal day.
 
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I’m they shouldn’t and they probably won’t. But Wout from the break has been used by Jbo before so maybe they close him down just to be safe.
No... I dont think so. Not gonna happen.

They are not gonna pull to control Van Aert or reel him back, if he as gotten into the breakaway.

It is more likely they will try to put someone in the break, as well.

Tomorrow is a day where it will be extremely hard to control and cost a lot for a team to pull all day. They will probably hope a break goes as soon as possible and preferably riders who are far behind, so they dont have to control. Give the break a lot of time and cruise to the finish.

Others may see it as a good opportunity to claw back some lost time... and it is a stage-win up for grabs, plenty of riders/team should see it as big opportunity.

Depending on what happens it could be a very hard day.
 
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