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Christian Estrosi the Mayor of Nice thanked Sophie Ricourt, mayor of Barcelonnette for her presence and he was mentioning Col de la Bonette. So there might be a chance.
I also like the profile but as always with final day ITT you're betting on the GC being tight enough to make it interesting.
At the very least, stage 20 features almost no flat and a climb right out of the gate, that still leaves open the possibility of chaos before the final climb. It's still far from ideal, though - this should have been stage 19, or finished in Valberg (short descent + cat. 3 climb to the finish, or alternatively looping back around like the Mercantour Classic route and then one less climb before Couillole). The TT is very hard by ASO standards, which makes me fear it will be the only one - if not, it's fine. Overall, a bit of a wasted opportunity, but not completely terrible.
Okay. But knowing ASO, it will probably be something pretty underwhelming.
Something like these.
Or alternatively, a proper murito stage in the Grasse/Vence area, the stage they cancelled in Paris-Nice last week only scratched the surface of what is possible.
It's hard to tell when we don't know what stages 18 and 19 will be like. My first reflex is a meh. It's not bad, it could be worse, there wasn't much more that the designers could have done for stage 20 so close to Nice. When you have La Promenade, use it for the ITT maybe not all the way to Antibes, but use it. Unless there's another one at least as long as this one, and flat, this ITT doesn't feel right.
It's not obvious to me why it would be better to have a mountain stage that calls for long-range action on the day before the ITT rather than a MTF.Something like these.
Or alternatively, a proper murito stage in the Grasse/Vence area, the stage they cancelled in Paris-Nice last week only scratched the surface of what is possible.
I'm not necessarily opposed to the final mountain stage being a MTF. I am, however, opposed to the MTF on said stage being the hardest climb of the day, which is inevitable if you finish on Couillole on a stage starting from Nice, because it incentivises playing the waiting game, which is the exact opposite of what you want on the final mountain stage because it's arguably the best place for taking risks. The two stages mentioned work way better for that, and while they are a risk in some ways (as seen with the disaster that was the 2020 La Roche-sur-Foron stage), a lot of the Tour's final mountain stage MTFs have been really poor. Luz Ardiden 2021, Val Thorens 2019, Izoard 2017 all come to mind, that's three of the last four final mountain stages that ended with a big MTF.
In addition, the last pairing of mid-mountainy, attack-oriented stage 20 and decent-length TT stage 21 was the 2021 Vuelta, which worked brilliantly despite Roglic' win being done and dusted at that point. That tells us such a pairing can work. Yes, it was the Vuelta and not the Tour, but it's not like that Vuelta was raced particularly aggressively overall, and the Vuelta has had some underwhelming final mountain stage MTFs in its own right.
Hautacam 'worked' but only because Pogacar was 2 minutes down and Spandelles was hard enough.
The final mountain stage this reminds me of most is Cervinia 2018 and Aitana 2016. And those were a blast.
I would have preferred a downhill finish on stage 20 as well, but if stage 19 uses most of the good climbs, you can only approach Madone with a longer flat part, and Saint-Roch - Peille as the selective section with 27 km to go will just rarely work.
So I have higher hopes for long-range action on stage 18 if that one would allow for that.
So I have higher hopes for long-range action on stage 18 if that one would allow for that.
Stage 20 is fine, when you consider the stage 21 ITT is brutal and will lead to big time gaps - We already know that stage one and two are hard for the opening of a GT, so there is potential for the 2024 TDF to be a tough route - The non GC riders will be unhappy with the difficulty of the stage 21 ITT, so expect a few to bail out.
Those aren't great comparisons though, imo. Cervinia 2018 had a flat first half and Aitana had a bunch of middling cat. 2s as the run-in, so this is clearly better than those two.
I don't see why the TT is seen as "brutal"? The climbs aren't that steep, it's TT bars all the way, and you descend all the way back to sea level, and the length is pretty mid as well. It reminds me a lot of the 2012-2014 Vuelta ITTs that didn't have the biggest gaps.
You can head up from Saint-Roch towards Turini as far as the start of the ridge road (profile below as far as the junction to Lucéram), that's still a proper climb if Turini itself is off the table. Putting that additional bit into the 2015 Paris-Nice stage definitely increases the chances of that working as the final mountain stage in a Tour.
Literally one person has described it as brutal. The climbing is also a bit harder than any of those Vuelta ITTs, it's basically the KOM of the 2013 TT with the KOM of the 2014 TT shortly after it.
A TDF that is actually raced for 21 stages and not 20? Sign me up.
Okay, then I misunderstood your post where you talked about
"if stage 19 uses most of the good climbs," and "I have higher hopes for long-range action on stage 18", my bad.
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