-
The Cycling News forum is still looking to add volunteer moderators with. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to
In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.
Thanks!
I definitely agree. I think there should be two long ITT's each year. In the end, however, with regards to who wins, it doesn't really matter. More often than not, at least in recent times, the best climber is also the best time trialist.
Every single year there is this little part in the back of my mind hoping, that maybe this will be the year when the ASO changes its policy and releases all the profiles right after the route reveal.
They still have to figure out if there's any road between those places. They will send an expedition to find out they way they did before 1910 Tour: then the man they sent got lost near Tourmalet and survived a terrible night in the wild Pyrenees.
So the organizers will be hoping for a little French success with Madouas in his home region and Gaudu or Little Lenny M in the lumpy stuff. I suppose a week of MvdP/Van Aert/Green Jersey contenders is better then 3 weeks of non-stop Pogi.
What's the deal though with stage 20? Seems like a last minute change or something odd going on there.
What's the deal though with stage 20? Seems like a last minute change or something odd going on there.
All the stage profiles
https://www.velofute.com/post/parcours-et-profil-des-étapes-du-tour-de-france-2025
Finally less flat stages, it was so boring this year.
https://www.velofute.com/post/parcours-et-profil-des-étapes-du-tour-de-france-2025
Finally less flat stages, it was so boring this year.
Of course he is going to say that. What do you think he's going to say - the tour will be decided when Pogacar takes three minutes on Hautacam before winning the MTT, so, might as well not watch the last week?
The empirical evidence is that this is not in fact what is happening.
In fact if anything the trend since COVID is remarks from the peloton that stages are being ridden hard from a significant distance out. This reached a point last year where people were actually complaining that breaks weren't being given enough time on mountain stages, despite breaks taking mountain stages usually being a sign of passive racing.
You can say it has nothing to do with stage design but frankly the constant complaining in these threads confuses me when the actual racing since 2021 has suggested that whatever their stage design philosophy has been since then, it's been either producing good racing, or at least not hampering it excessively.
Warmed up a bit to it now.
Overall thoughts:
- I don't give a damn about weekend stages being boring, I actually prefer it that way although I also have the privilege to work in a relaxed desk job where I can easily watch the Tour during the week. I honestly have better things to do on a nice warm July weekend in Europe than sit indoors all afternoon watching TV.
- I don't care that stage 20 is a nothingburger, what difference does it make if the Tour is decided on stage 17,18, 19 or 20? Besides, since 2020 stage 20 was always a letdown where nothing major changed anyway.
As for the route:
- First week is way better than I expected. Honestly, in recent years the puncheur stages often were more fun overall than the pure mountain stages so I don't need some token unipuerto MTF in the first week and I'm happy what stage 2,4,5,6,7 and 10 seem to offer.
- Flat ITT on stage 5 with over 30km is fantastic, sadly the MTT later on is terrible but I guess I have to be satisfied with one good ITT.
- Only one massif central stage is a letdown, also one with a lack of proper steep gradients. It's still a good stage overall, mind but I still feel we're missing out.
- Now for the big mountain stages: Mainly terrible.
- Hautacam and Mont Ventoux are a joke, I know there's no great way to integrate Ventoux but it's still a sad waste of these climbs to have them as basically unipuertos where UAE/Visma are gonna chooochooo 90% of the climb.
- Stage 14,18 and 19 obviously have a lot of overall elevation gain and a good potential to deliver but it's still such an uninspiring setting. Not a single one of them starts with a climb or rolling terrain right out of the gate so there's just a very small chance an actual interesting break will get ahead and it also limits the role satellite riders can play. The way we've seen the hard stages raced the last year UAE or Visma will set such a hard pace from the beginning of the first climb that everyone ahead will simply be caught before the penultimate climb.
- Positive is that I think the route will be very scenic. Also happy that Madeleine is finally included in a potentially relevant position again.
Overall thoughts:
- I don't give a damn about weekend stages being boring, I actually prefer it that way although I also have the privilege to work in a relaxed desk job where I can easily watch the Tour during the week. I honestly have better things to do on a nice warm July weekend in Europe than sit indoors all afternoon watching TV.
- I don't care that stage 20 is a nothingburger, what difference does it make if the Tour is decided on stage 17,18, 19 or 20? Besides, since 2020 stage 20 was always a letdown where nothing major changed anyway.
As for the route:
- First week is way better than I expected. Honestly, in recent years the puncheur stages often were more fun overall than the pure mountain stages so I don't need some token unipuerto MTF in the first week and I'm happy what stage 2,4,5,6,7 and 10 seem to offer.
- Flat ITT on stage 5 with over 30km is fantastic, sadly the MTT later on is terrible but I guess I have to be satisfied with one good ITT.
- Only one massif central stage is a letdown, also one with a lack of proper steep gradients. It's still a good stage overall, mind but I still feel we're missing out.
- Now for the big mountain stages: Mainly terrible.
- Hautacam and Mont Ventoux are a joke, I know there's no great way to integrate Ventoux but it's still a sad waste of these climbs to have them as basically unipuertos where UAE/Visma are gonna chooochooo 90% of the climb.
- Stage 14,18 and 19 obviously have a lot of overall elevation gain and a good potential to deliver but it's still such an uninspiring setting. Not a single one of them starts with a climb or rolling terrain right out of the gate so there's just a very small chance an actual interesting break will get ahead and it also limits the role satellite riders can play. The way we've seen the hard stages raced the last year UAE or Visma will set such a hard pace from the beginning of the first climb that everyone ahead will simply be caught before the penultimate climb.
- Positive is that I think the route will be very scenic. Also happy that Madeleine is finally included in a potentially relevant position again.
Just used some of my lunch break to fast-forward/skim through yesterday's presentation (I thought it was on Friday, but must've interchanged my mind with a football thing, oops 
).
The just revealed 2025 tour route is truly and honestly a route design very, very to my taste.
Not only the chronology of the tension conservation to last week spectacles.
But also and even more so all the stages in Brittany and then the Jura stage, the penultimate stage from which I "expect the unexpected"-
I can only applaud this route design and in no way understand the dissatisfaction with it.
I can read between the lines that some here prefer predictable results with their favourites, as often as possible, preferably every day.
I'm sitting in the distant opposite corner.
I want a race where as many riders as possible get the opportunity to show off, and not least some mixed stages where several rider types can assert themselves.
Such a route design exudes and oozes the 2025 version far more than the version this year, I think.
And I like that.
9/10 from here.
Without blouse.
).The just revealed 2025 tour route is truly and honestly a route design very, very to my taste.
Not only the chronology of the tension conservation to last week spectacles.
But also and even more so all the stages in Brittany and then the Jura stage, the penultimate stage from which I "expect the unexpected"-
I can only applaud this route design and in no way understand the dissatisfaction with it.
I can read between the lines that some here prefer predictable results with their favourites, as often as possible, preferably every day.
I'm sitting in the distant opposite corner.
I want a race where as many riders as possible get the opportunity to show off, and not least some mixed stages where several rider types can assert themselves.
Such a route design exudes and oozes the 2025 version far more than the version this year, I think.
And I like that.
9/10 from here.
Without blouse.
Agreed completely. There's a lot of interesting stages but Hautacam and Ventoux are just.. ugh. Why not do a cinglé stage of the Ventoux?
Or at least climb it two times: first climb from Malaucène, descent to Sault, ride through the Gorges de la Nesque (absolutely gorgeous landscape btw) then climb it from Bédoin.
Stage 19 definitively falls in the category "start with a climb or rolling terrain right out of the gate" in my eyes, even if the first 7 km are "flat" before the 11 km categorized climb. This stage should definitively see a strong break, like on stage 20 this year where Carapaz and Mas was kind of close to staying away.
Stage 18 should also see a strong break of good climbers. The first 10-15 km are flat, but then there is a section of like 15 km with 400 meters of climbing and what looks to be some steeper ramps. It should be enough to give the climbers a chance to move. It's also only 40 kilometers to Glandon starts, so the real break might not get away before that and then it should definitively be possible to see strong break riders or strong satelite riders move.
Stage 14 starts with 70 km of flat, so there I agree with you, but still when one of the most likely satelite rider is Wout van Aert I think we might see strong satelite riders in the break also here.
The problem on stage 18 and 19 is that these first uphill sections are basically already on the first of 3 major climbs. What we have seen this year is that UAE and especially Visma will want to put as much fatigue as possible in the riders legs before the last climb so they nuke the climbs and then sit up on the flat sections because you can't put fatigue into drafting riders on the flat. This is where the break/satellite riders normally get some breathing room.
With basically no flat in between the climbs everyone ahead, satellite or break, is basically doomed because they'll be just mowed down on the climbs with domestiques pumping out +6w/kg on every climb.
What you want ideally is one climb or a few smaller ones right at the start and then some longer valley stretches to get an interesting dynamic.
I have no issue with the Ventoux being a one climb stage, other than 2021, pretty much all Ventoux stages historically have been unipuerto.
I don't mind one big MTF, as long as there are other stages that aren't solely about the final climb, that's the problem with this route, it's just a MTF fest, with no incentive to attack from far.
Regarding the first week, other than the disappointment of there being no cobbles, it's actually much better than first feared. Really like the amount of punchy stages and I think that's the best you can get with that part of France.
Also, I'm bored with Loze, I think it's being way overused, if Courchavel is paying, finish there as it gives more opportunity to attack on Madeline, like 1997 for example.
I don't mind one big MTF, as long as there are other stages that aren't solely about the final climb, that's the problem with this route, it's just a MTF fest, with no incentive to attack from far.
Regarding the first week, other than the disappointment of there being no cobbles, it's actually much better than first feared. Really like the amount of punchy stages and I think that's the best you can get with that part of France.
Also, I'm bored with Loze, I think it's being way overused, if Courchavel is paying, finish there as it gives more opportunity to attack on Madeline, like 1997 for example.
Last edited:
It's not, in the scenario I was talking about it is very hard to put a worthy amount of fatigue into a bigger drafting group.
Obviously if you would have 30 teammates who can roll above threshold turns and you nuke along with +60 km/h then yes, even drafting on the flat will be tiring. But we're talking about a scenario where you have 3-6 teammates left and still climbs ahead where you want to put the hammer down. Burning through these teammates on the flat will serve no bigger purpose.
Don't think there are less flat stages. This year there are 7 next year there will be 7 as well.
oh so you mean posts discussing what we like and dislike about the route in a thread about the route are useless now? should we all just pack it up and close the forum then? because there's no point then.
but that's exactly the point. we are in an era where riders are actually willing to race from far distances when the routes allow it but we ended up with a route where that is basically impossible. it's then very disheartening that the ASO would rather appease the youtube highlights watchers than the fans who are willing to devote 4 hours to watching a stage.
it's no coincidence that the best designed TDF stages of the past 3 years were also the most aggressively raced from far out. 2022 had Galibier-Granon and Spandelles-Hautacam. 2023 had Tourmalet-Cauterets and this year had Le Lioran. those were all great stage designs that everyone loved (except maybe Cauterets) when they were released and then they delivered on the road. there's no stage like those this year but there easily could've been if they were just a bit more creative.
Last edited:
The MTFs from the Tarentaise valley are really not very inspiring. And next year there are two of them. Loze should after next year be used again until they have paved both sides of Tougnete and could do a Tougnete - Loze double with a stage finish at the Courchevel altiport.
TRENDING THREADS
-
World Championships 2024: Men's Road Race (September 29)- Started by Devil's Elbow
- Replies: 2K
-
Il Lombardia 2024, one day monument, October 12, farewell to Domenico Pozzovivo- Started by Lequack
- Replies: 880
-
Teams & Riders The Remco Evenepoel is the next Eddy Merckx thread- Started by DNP-Old
- Replies: 28K
-
Teams & Riders The Great Big Cycling Transfers, Extensions, and Rumours Thread
- Started by RedheadDane
- Replies: 11K
-
Teams & Riders Tadej Pogačar discussion thread- Started by Lequack
- Replies: 22K
-
-
Teams & Riders Everybody needs a little bit of Roglstomp in their lives- Started by johnymax
- Replies: 19K
Latest posts
-
-
-
-
Teams & Riders The Great Big Cycling Transfers, Extensions, and Rumours Thread- Latest: GenericBoonenFan
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram