Tour de France Tour de France Femmes 2022 (July 24th-31st)

[sir fly]

STAGE 4
TROYES>BAR-SUR-AUBE 126.8 km

AND NOW, GRAVEL!

“There are no easy days in the Tour”, Marianne Vos established on Tuesday with the authority granted by the hundreds of successes she claimed in the past two decades and the two Maillot Jaune she has conquered since the start of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, on Sunday. The Dutch icon has escaped many traps to always battle at the front: 2nd on the Champs-Élysées, winner in Provins, 2nd again over the hills of Épernay. Few riders can say the same with significant gaps already opened up in the overall standings - there are only seven riders within a minute, and the 10th rider on GC, Tuesday’s stage winner Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, already trails by 1’48’’ in a very animated race where it seems everyone can rise to glory or tumble. Stage 4 will provide more opportunities to shine and lay new traps to be wary off as the race takes 12.9km of white roads and many hills (5 categorised ascent and a bonus point atop the Côte des Bergères, inside the last 10km) that promise more explosive racing on the way to Bar-sur-Aube. With her stellar experience of cyclo-cross, Vos has the skills to master such a terrain… But she’s also aware of the misfortunes that can fall on anyone, and she saw Silvia Persico join her on the podium of the Worlds this year. It definitely won’t be easy neither for Vos nor her rivals… Let’s enjoy the show!

Grand-Est Region
Departments : Ardennes, Aube, Marne, Haute-Marne, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle, Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin, Vosges
Population: 5.55 million
Prefecture: Strasbourg
Area: 57,441 km2
Specialities: champagne, sauerkraut, Alsace wines, Nancy blood sausage, Rethel white sausage, flammekueche, kouglof, Ardennes ham, baba au rhum, mirabelle plum, quiche lorraine, madeleine of Commercy

Sports clubs: RC Strasbourg, Stade de Reims, FC Metz, AS Nancy-Lorraine, ESTAC Troyes, FC Mulhouse (football), SIG Strasbourg, SLUC Nancy Basket (basketball), Etoile Noire de Strasbourg, Scorpions de Mulhouse (ice hockey),
Competitions: Moselle Open, Strasbourg International Tennis Championships (tennis), Reims International Jumping, Boucles de la Marne, Stanislas Meeting, Colmar Marathon, Paris-Colmar (athletics)
Economy: automotive (PSA Mulhouse and Trémery, Renault in Batilly, Bugatti, Smart), steel (Arcelor Mittal in Florange), luxury goods (Lalique), aerospace (Clemessy in Mulhouse), railways, banks (Crédit Mutuel), agriculture, beer, winegrowing (Champagne, Alsatian wines) Tourism.
Festivals: Christmas markets in Strasbourg and Colmar, Saint-Nicolas festival in Nancy, Livre sur la place (books on the square bookfair) in Nancy, Colmar book fair, Saint-Louis book forum, RenaissanceS festival in Bar-le-Duc, medieval festival in Sedan, International geography festival in Saint-Dié-les-Vosges, Gérardmer Fantastic Film Festival.
Tourist sites: Stanislas Square in Nancy, Grande île in Strasbourg, Reims Cathedral, Basilica of Saint-Rémi and Archbishop's Palace of Tau in Reims, Basilica of ND de l'Epine, Citadels of Longwy and Neuf-Brisach, Champagne hillsides, Claude and Duval factory in Saint-Dié-les-Vosges, Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, Pompidou Centre in Metz, Ecole de Nancy, Christmas markets.

 

[Skalman]

Based on Stage 3`s climbs , tomorrow will be murderous. looking forward to it. (By the way, that half meter pizza looks Italian , if it is a pizza )

 

[Sciatic]

Cille Solos on Celles?

 

[sir fly]

Based on Stage 3`s climbs , tomorrow will be murderous. looking forward to it. (By the way, that half meter pizza looks Italian , if it is a pizza )

View: https://youtu.be/-ZxvT0xL86E

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Sector 4 + preceding climb:

Sector 3 + preceding climb:

Sector 2 + preceding and following climbs:

Sector 1 + preceding climb:

Final two hills:

Keep in mind that the white roads, as well as the climbs leading into sectors 4, 3 and 1, are all built directly into the landscape without any modelling of the terrain, hence they will be more irregular than these profiles show. This is also why the Côte du Val des Clos is so steep near the end, it follows the most direct line from the end of the valley onto the ridge.

Also there's a chicane that ends at 160 metres from the line, if it's any sort of sprint that will definitely affect the timing.

 

[MartinGT]

A tasmanian woman called Nicole Louise Frain, 2015

Driver gets suspended sentence for fatal crash as judge impressed by 'honesty'

A 23-year-old Tasmanian woman is given a suspended three-month jail sentence after admitting to causing a fatal car crash when she fell asleep at the wheel.

www.abc.net.au

It's def her isn't it? The age, the name, the location. Man, not the first time she's had a brain fart then and caused damage

 

[Leggitte]

One of the greatest post race interviews ever

She is known for it:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkbyFDrF9kM

 

[VO2 Max]

maillot jaune...yellow jersey...you could almost set up a drinking game by how predictable some of their phrases are getting.

with Marty its odd because he only seems to turn it on for stuff like this, get him commentating on some unknown CX or Crit race on youtube with a handful watching, and he can be quite interesting to listen to,and isnt anywhere near as repetitive

whilst Ive noticed certainly on these style of full coverage races, Dani clearly memorises a couple of go to lines or phrases to say, but just repeats them constantly, though the daft thing is she does notice sometimes key important things happening in the race, she just needs to call more of them out, then wouldnt need to rely on the cliche stuff that AVV is a good climber etc etc

The other Dani is much better.

There seems to be a general problem at the moment with mainstream coverage of a lot of women's sport (the Euro's football is another example) where the analysis isn't sure whether to appreciate it as elite sport in its own right, or more as inspiration for coming generations of girls to take up sport. At the smaller women's races where it's mainly 'proper' cycling fans watching then the emphasis is much more on the sporting achievements on their own merits.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Why isn't Lucinda Brand here
today would have been great for her.

 

[yaco]

Brand has suffered an injury affected season and is gradually regaining top form. She was ggod at the Tour De Suisse, however she wasn't as good as the Giro - My understanding is she chose not to ride the TDF because it will affect her preparation for the upcoming cyclocross season.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Very hyped for today. The great thing about teams not being so big here is that it's very hard to control a stage like today and while I was a bit worried before the Tour that riders would approach the first couple of stages more conservative because of the big mountain stages on the last two days, it's been the complete opposite.
So I expect a proper one day classic race today with solid gaps. Gravel sections aren't long but I feel at the right spots between punchy hills to create seperation.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Hopefully there won't be too many punctures and crashes. It could also be problematic if the team cars have issues, although as we know, Ina-Yoko Teutenberg will simply power through in such a scenario.

I'm also interested in learning, whether the Danes will watch the stage or if they'll rather spend 8 hours looking at Jonas Vingegaard.

There's also a fight going on for the white jersey. The youngest rider in the race, Julie De Wilde, is leading, but Shirin van Anrooij could very well be leading after the stage. Anne Dorthe Ysland from Uno-X had apparently attacked yesterday to try and take the jersey, but that failed in the end.

Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio has confirmed that she's continuing for another season, so that gives her a little more time to finally get that first WWT win.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

From the pictures I'm seeing on social media, the gravel looks to be far worse than even the Paris-Tours variety. This will probably be a mess.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1552227346031288321

https://twitter.com/x/status/1552252374596698112

 

[mrgmyers]

Nicole Frain didn't brake at all there. Wow!

Cavalli is at least back on her bike.

I feel sorry for both of these women Frain was racing back on and came up to the back of the bunch saw a gap went for it and Wallop! But I have to say a racing incident no malicious intent, do not understand what the DS is whining about, this is a race and a bloody good one.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Some more images:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1552255460308389888

https://twitter.com/x/status/1552252176038346752

https://twitter.com/x/status/1552225915341574144

This will be Bièles CX worlds amounts of flats. Not to mention the crashes and their impact, that would be a worry even for a more experienced peloton...

 

[Davesta]

Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio has confirmed that she's continuing for another season, so that gives her a little more time to finally get that first WWT win.

Hang on, Moolman-Pasio doesn’t have a WWT win? How is that possible?!

 

[Pirazziattacks]

From the pictures I'm seeing on social media, the gravel looks to be far worse than even the Paris-Tours variety. This will probably be a mess.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1552227346031288321

https://twitter.com/x/status/1552252374596698112

That does seem a bit much for a road race with 4 short gravel sections, save it for gravel or cx races. The gravel sectors making up such a small part of the course means going for wider tyres and lower pressures isn't really an option, chaos and huge time gaps are likely. AVV would probably finish the race off today if she was feeling good.

Riding slightly challenging gravel on a road bike with narrow slick tyres is quite manageable over shorter distances, but going full gas makes it a completely different thing.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I feel sorry for both of these women Frain was racing back on and came up to the back of the bunch saw a gap went for it and Wallop! But I have to say a racing incident no malicious intent, do not understand what the DS is whining about, this is a race and a bloody good one.

Well for Stephen Delcourt it must have been like seeing one of his children get run over by a bus, so I can definitely understand his (inital) reaction.

Hang on, Moolman-Pasio doesn’t have a WWT win? How is that possible?!

She hasn't been too lucky. She would have had one if the Giro had been a WWT race last year.

Some more images:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1552255460308389888

https://twitter.com/x/status/1552252176038346752

https://twitter.com/x/status/1552225915341574144

This will be Bièles CX worlds amounts of flats. Not to mention the crashes and their impact, that would be a worry even for a more experienced peloton...

It looked a lot more smooth in the preview they produced for last year's route presentaion. This looks more like an actual gravel race than a road race with gravel sections.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

A strong group of more than 20 riders had a gap at one point, but it has been brought back.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Well for Stephen Delcourt it must have been like seeing one of his children get run over by a bus, so I can definitely understand his (inital) reaction.



She hasn't been too lucky. She would have had one if the Giro had been a WWT race last year.



It looked a lot more smooth in the preview they produced for last year's route presentaion. This looks more like an actual gravel race than a road race with gravel sections.

Parts of the sectors are fine, so that's what they will have used for the preview, and it does appear that the final sector is worse than the rest. Still, a combination of big rocks reaching the surface in places and an apparent lack of compacting and/or sweeping prior to the race (which, let's face it, would definitely have happened if this was the men's Tour) is problematic to say the least.

 

[Pirazziattacks]

Parts of the sectors are fine, so that's what they will have used for the preview, and it does appear that the final sector is worse than the rest. Still, a combination of big rocks reaching the surface in places and an apparent lack of compacting and/or sweeping prior to the race (which, let's face it, would definitely have happened if this was the men's Tour) is problematic to say the least.

Are these attempts at branching out with gravel sections often doomed to failure because Western Europe just doesn't have much in the way of actual gravel roads (as opposed to farm tracks or the occasional forest road)?

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Are these attempts at branching out with gravel sections often doomed to failure because Western Europe just doesn't have much in the way of actual gravel roads (as opposed to farm tracks or the occasional forest road)?

Counterpoint: Tro-Bro Leon.

Really I also think it's about ironing out the kinks. Schaal Sels was a disaster when it intoduced dirt roads for the first time, with all the cars getting stuck in the middle of a corn field. Nowadays, with Sels being back to a sprinters' race, the dirt roads have been moved to the Antwerp Port Epic, and that runs pretty smoothly for as far as I can tell. Dwars door het Hageland is a great mix of cobbles and gravel, and Slag om Norg did fine prior to it being pulled at the last minute due to circumstances beyond the organisers' control this year.

So maybe it's just ASO being terrible at correctly implementing gravel, considering Paris-Tours too.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Urgh, after seeing these pictures, I hope it will be positive carnage not punctures and crashes on mass. I said before, I have a feeling ASO is trialing this for the men's edition, which is fine if not done in a reckless way.
I already thought the run-in into the second to last climb (where Niewiadoma crashed) yesterday was indredible dangerous. Plenty of corners on small roads through a village on a downhill/flat before an important climb where everyone wanted to be at the front was a recipe for disaster to happen.

Ah well, let's see.

 

[Pirazziattacks]

Counterpoint: Tro-Bro Leon.

Really I also think it's about ironing out the kinks. Schaal Sels was a disaster when it intoduced dirt roads for the first time, with all the cars getting stuck in the middle of a corn field. Nowadays, with Sels being back to a sprinters' race, the dirt roads have been moved to the Antwerp Port Epic, and that runs pretty smoothly for as far as I can tell. Dwars door het Hageland is a great mix of cobbles and gravel, and Slag om Norg did fine prior to it being pulled at the last minute due to circumstances beyond the organisers' control this year.

So maybe it's just ASO being terrible at correctly implementing gravel, considering Paris-Tours too.

Races like Tro-Bro Leon are great, it's just that including that sort of road kinda randomly in a stage race isn't easy to pull off. It's not like eg. Australia where finding a well trafficked, wide, smooth and well graded gravel road is fairly easy in most areas. Most gravel roads in Western Europe are generally going to be quite out of the way and not designed for more than very local use.

 

[Zoef-Lightning]

It's def her isn't it? The age, the name, the location. Man, not the first time she's had a brain fart then and caused damage

Yes, it's her. Has been confirmed. Then she didn't know what had happened. Then she found out that she had fallen asleep. The judge believed that and granted a suspension of imprisonment.

She could hardly make that excuse, having fallen asleep on the bike.