Tour de France Tour de France 2026 route rumours

[Izzyeviel]

What's the obsession with 7 hour stages? They'll just go slower and attack in the final km

like they do when Pogacar isn't there?

 

[Red Rick]

like they do when Pogacar isn't there?

No it's for everyone. Longer, harder mountain stages are usually raced more passively because in a shocking discovery, riders do not have infinite energy resources.

 

[HashRouge]

So much of going to the Tour comes down to availability and determination. Of course, that rumored time trail on stage 16 looks to be just about the perfect stage. It’s a time trial. It’s easy to get to through transit and it’s in a gorgeous location.

I watched the stage 13 ITT last year and it was a great spectating experience. Maybe I need to look at the Alpine stages this year rather than focusing so much on the Pyrenees.

 

[Izzyeviel]

For much of the past 30 years, tactics at the grand tours & especially the tour consisted of the strongest team & rider not doing anything because they knew the weaker teams & rivals will ride all day. We used to call T-Telekom 'Lance Armstrongs own private taxi service'. If i'm forced to suffer watching another giro were the riders refuse to race a small mountain stage, then i'm all for making them suffer seven hours of an actual queen stage.