OP by @Devil's Elbow: https://forum.cyclingnews.com/threa...4-stage-by-stage-analysis.39775/#post-3032421
You know your race is backloaded when a TT of this length is unquestionably the most important GC day in the first half. It’s a moderately hilly affair – I would say well suited to the specialists, but all the top time trialists here are either GC riders or Wout van Aert, so that doesn’t really fly.
The route
Before I start, there is a hyper-detailed breakdown of the route here (in French) that deserves a shoutout. If you think my analyses are long, think again.
This is another stage straight from the Giro playbook, although this time, it’s a 2010s thing: the wine time trial that they kept including and marketing as such for years on end. It’s a good concept to copy, though – you get good scenery and solid hills included in the package by definition. This TT is a bit flatter than most of those Giro TTs, though.
The wine region in question for this TT is the Côte de Nuits, northernmost of the main French wine-producing areas. The stage connects the two centres of this region, starting in the town that gives its name to these hills: Nuits-Saint-Georges. The Tour has been here once before, when Marcel Kittel beat Edvald Boasson Hagen in a photo finish in 2017.
Despite the length, ASO have decided it’s a good idea to have three time checks on course, so undoubtedly they will struggle to keep track of all three once the GC riders are racing. Most of the route is untechnical and never steeper than a false flat, with the exception of one real hill, Côte de Reulle-Vergy.
That section aside, it’s a case of speeding between the pinot noir vines, speeds unquestionably picking up on the way to Gevrey-Chambertin. Nothing screams prestigious wine town like having the name of your most famous wine appended to your original town name as early as 1847, and that’s exactly what the municipality of what had been known as Gevrey did with the Chambertin wine. In fact, vines have been planted here since at least the 1st century BC – making it possibly the oldest winemaking area in Bourgogne.
What to expect?
With all the bigger names more than capable in this discipline, big gaps in the GC battle seem a stretch until you get further down the top-10 – indeed, we could even have something along the lines of the main TT in the 2023 Giro. But then again, Planche des Belles Filles and Combloux did happen in the past four years…
You know your race is backloaded when a TT of this length is unquestionably the most important GC day in the first half. It’s a moderately hilly affair – I would say well suited to the specialists, but all the top time trialists here are either GC riders or Wout van Aert, so that doesn’t really fly.
The route
Before I start, there is a hyper-detailed breakdown of the route here (in French) that deserves a shoutout. If you think my analyses are long, think again.
This is another stage straight from the Giro playbook, although this time, it’s a 2010s thing: the wine time trial that they kept including and marketing as such for years on end. It’s a good concept to copy, though – you get good scenery and solid hills included in the package by definition. This TT is a bit flatter than most of those Giro TTs, though.
The wine region in question for this TT is the Côte de Nuits, northernmost of the main French wine-producing areas. The stage connects the two centres of this region, starting in the town that gives its name to these hills: Nuits-Saint-Georges. The Tour has been here once before, when Marcel Kittel beat Edvald Boasson Hagen in a photo finish in 2017.
Despite the length, ASO have decided it’s a good idea to have three time checks on course, so undoubtedly they will struggle to keep track of all three once the GC riders are racing. Most of the route is untechnical and never steeper than a false flat, with the exception of one real hill, Côte de Reulle-Vergy.
That section aside, it’s a case of speeding between the pinot noir vines, speeds unquestionably picking up on the way to Gevrey-Chambertin. Nothing screams prestigious wine town like having the name of your most famous wine appended to your original town name as early as 1847, and that’s exactly what the municipality of what had been known as Gevrey did with the Chambertin wine. In fact, vines have been planted here since at least the 1st century BC – making it possibly the oldest winemaking area in Bourgogne.
What to expect?
With all the bigger names more than capable in this discipline, big gaps in the GC battle seem a stretch until you get further down the top-10 – indeed, we could even have something along the lines of the main TT in the 2023 Giro. But then again, Planche des Belles Filles and Combloux did happen in the past four years…
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