Tour de France Femmes 2024 (August 12th-18th)

[dobrien]

Nice win for Ghekiere; this one means a lot obviously. All to play for tomorrow.

 

[dobrien]

Kasia looks happy and relaxed warming down; guessing her legs will be as good as anyone's tomorrow. Will be interesting to see if Demi has what it takes to take back that gap.

 

[Lequack]

So is there any doubt that Vollering will take at least 2 minutes on everyone tomorrow?

 

[Coffeeplanter]

So is there any doubt that Vollering will take at least 2 minutes on everyone tomorrow?

None.

 

[JR1012]

So is there any doubt that Vollering will take at least 2 minutes on everyone tomorrow?

I think Vollering will become easy second, but can she beat Kasia? I am not so sure.

 

[dobrien]

So is there any doubt that Vollering will take at least 2 minutes on everyone tomorrow?

I don't know; Kasia looked pretty frisky today (perhaps a little TOO frisky but that's her)... depends on whether she has the 'Yellow Jersey Legs' or not; something tells me she'll be up for the fight, and that perhaps Demi won't be 100%. Hoping it will be an interesting fight regardless.

Of course I'm often completely wrong about this stuff....

 

[Coffeeplanter]

I reckon Demi does not want to let it all come down to a sprint on Alpe d'Huez from foot to top, so we'll probably be seeing her famous choo-choo on Glandon. Much, much different effort than todays stop and go race on shallow percentages, where draft makes a huge difference. On those 8/9 percent slopes she won't be followed, and then it's done. The valley to the foot of Alpe d'Huez also much in her benefit compared to Kasia.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Tbf I think it was not a bad idea tactically from Kasia to test Vollering given that riders often feel quite bad the second day after a crash. She should've stopped pulling completely tho when she didn't get distance into vollering after the attack at 1km to go, let everyone get back and let the bonus seconds go to someone else.

Canyons team looking a bit meh to be honest, why are Bauernfeind or Niedermaier not here? Would've been perfect to have someone just riding tempo at the front today at.the end. Sadly I think Vollering will take the 1 minute back tomorrow with ease.

 

[sam6]

It is going to be really close tomorrow I think. Vollering is stronger, but I don't know if she is strong enough to make up that time. I think it is about 50-50. I am hoping that Niewiadoma wins by 1 second to make SD-Worx pay for Thursday's disgrace

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Tbf I think it was not a bad idea tactically from Kasia to test Vollering given that riders often feel quite bad the second day after a crash. She should've stopped pulling completely tho when she didn't get distance into vollering after the attack at 1km to go, let everyone get back and let the bonus seconds go to someone else.

Canyons team looking a bit meh to be honest, why are Bauernfeind or Niedermaier not here? Would've been perfect to have someone just riding tempo at the front today at.the end. Sadly I think Vollering will take the 1 minute back tomorrow with ease.

Niedermaier was owed a break after the Giro and Olympics, and Bauernfeind is recovering from a knee injury. Losing Chabbey early and Bradbury also going down in a crash haven't helped either.

 

[JosefK]

Kasia tomorrow?

 

[MLKarlos]

Tbf I think it was not a bad idea tactically from Kasia to test Vollering given that riders often feel quite bad the second day after a crash. She should've stopped pulling completely tho when she didn't get distance into vollering after the attack at 1km to go, let everyone get back and let the bonus seconds go to someone else.

Canyons team looking a bit meh to be honest, why are Bauernfeind or Niedermaier not here? Would've been perfect to have someone just riding tempo at the front today at.the end. Sadly I think Vollering will take the 1 minute back tomorrow with ease.

Bauernfeind is injured but Niedermayer would be so valuable now

 

[Izzyeviel]

Kasia tomorrow?

I hope not. I want her to win the yellow jersey

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I hope not. I want her to win the yellow jersey

Voeckler was still in yellow after that stage.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Memories of doing La Marmotte, always a special place in my heart. LOVE GLANDON! And in women's cycling, its pretty much a guaranteed to see action on that climb even before Alpe d' Huez.

 

[ontheroad]

It sets tomorrows finale up perfectly to be a real cliffhanger. I think Demi will attack on the Glandon as well and make it survival of the fittest and after that Kasia just has to ride on the wheel knowing that she has a buffer of over a minute. I think Demi will probably win the stage but Kasia has a slight edge on GC given the time buffer she has.

 

[Sciatic]

Kasia tomorrow?

Will definitely be a different vibe if she has her tongue hanging out that much.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Aspin + Tourmalet, 2023 TDFF:
Vollering 1st
Niewiadoma 2nd +1'58

Les Mosses + Torgon, 2023 Tour de Romandie:
Vollering 1st
Niewiadoma 2nd +0'02

Ballon d'Alsace + Super Planche, 2022 TDFF:
Vollering 2nd +30
Niewiadoma 4th +1'52

Petit Ballon + Platzerwasel + Grand Ballon, 2022 TDFF:
Vollering 2nd +3'26
Niewiadoma 5th +5'18

Croix + Villars-sur-Ollon, 2024 Tour de Suisse:
Vollering 1st
Niewiadoma 12th +1'41

I'd say that this still looks on historical precedent to be in Demi's court, at least as long as she explodes things early on to take intra-team stuff out of it. I always go on a rule of thumb also for looking at gaps created by a climb that the women's races are approximately 33% shorter on average than the men's races, therefore the climbs are 50% longer as a proportion of the race (i.e. a 20km climb will be 1/6 of a 120km stage, but 1/9 of a 180km stage), so you should treat a climb in women's cycling as equivalent to if that climb was 50% longer in men's cycling. There's a lot of Unipuerto in women's cycling, and even on some of those tougher stages with 2-3 climbs, the mid-stage climbs have not been as tough as Glandon, so it could well just blow up from attrition by the top of that climb anyway. 20km at 7% is brutal enough in anyone's language, but as I say, by my rule of thumb it should do as much damage in the women's péloton as 30km at 7% would in the men's. And there really aren't too many climbs that monstrous that could be used as guides either. And those that there are mostly aren't used in racing (things like Roque de los Muchachos in the Canary Islands, Pico de Orizaba in Mexico) or are only possible as MTFs (Blockhaus from Scafa)...

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Kasia tomorrow?

She did at least buy his guide to racing tactics and energy conservation.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Also, 7% is one thing, but another thing is long, long sections with between 8-9% consistently. It has a plateau, so its basically something like 16 km at 8%. Thats a big deal.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Aspin + Tourmalet, 2023 TDFF:
Vollering 1st
Niewiadoma 2nd +1'58

Les Mosses + Torgon, 2023 Tour de Romandie:
Vollering 1st
Niewiadoma 2nd +0'02

Ballon d'Alsace + Super Planche, 2022 TDFF:
Vollering 2nd +30
Niewiadoma 4th +1'52

Petit Ballon + Platzerwasel + Grand Ballon, 2022 TDFF:
Vollering 2nd +3'26
Niewiadoma 5th +5'18

Croix + Villars-sur-Ollon, 2024 Tour de Suisse:
Vollering 1st
Niewiadoma 12th +1'41

I'd say that this still looks on historical precedent to be in Demi's court, at least as long as she explodes things early on to take intra-team stuff out of it. I always go on a rule of thumb also for looking at gaps created by a climb that the women's races are approximately 33% shorter on average than the men's races, therefore the climbs are 50% longer as a proportion of the race (i.e. a 20km climb will be 1/6 of a 120km stage, but 1/9 of a 180km stage), so you should treat a climb in women's cycling as equivalent to if that climb was 50% longer in men's cycling. There's a lot of Unipuerto in women's cycling, and even on some of those tougher stages with 2-3 climbs, the mid-stage climbs have not been as tough as Glandon, so it could well just blow up from attrition by the top of that climb anyway. 20km at 7% is brutal enough in anyone's language, but as I say, by my rule of thumb it should do as much damage in the women's péloton as 30km at 7% would in the men's. And there really aren't too many climbs that monstrous that could be used as guides either. And those that there are mostly aren't used in racing (things like Roque de los Muchachos in the Canary Islands, Pico de Orizaba in Mexico) or are only possible as MTFs (Blockhaus from Scafa)...

The outlier is the Romandie stage, but that was only because Demi was just sitting on to allow Reusser to come back. Otherwise she probably could have taken a lot more time that day as well.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The outlier is the Romandie stage, but that was only because Demi was just sitting on to allow Reusser to come back. Otherwise she probably could have taken a lot more time that day as well.

Kasia is, however, improving at long climbs. Historically for much of the time she had been best in the 4-8km kind of range for climbs, lots of medium mountain up and down. Lombardia type size, or País Vasco stuff. She's clearly getting better at the longer stuff. I suspect that may be to do with spending more time over in Colorado tbh, since a lot of the time before that she'd liked to go back home to train and the Polish mountains around hers are all medium mountain kind of size. While the Colorado climbs largely aren't especially steep, they are both very long and at very high altitude.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Kasia is, however, improving at long climbs. Historically for much of the time she had been best in the 4-8km kind of range for climbs, lots of medium mountain up and down. Lombardia type size, or País Vasco stuff. She's clearly getting better at the longer stuff. I suspect that may be to do with spending more time over in Colorado tbh, since a lot of the time before that she'd liked to go back home to train and the Polish mountains around hers are all medium mountain kind of size. While the Colorado climbs largely aren't especially steep, they are both very long and at very high altitude.

She has improved yes, but as your own recap suggests, she's not really come any closer to Demi. But that might of course be about to change tomorrow. However if Kasia starts closing gaps to any other rider than Demi, which she probably will, then I won't believe it'll be possible for her to keep the lead.

 

[Skalman]

Looking at the stage tomorrow i wonder how many will be left for Alpe d'Huez, seems to hard a stage for 90 % of the women peloton

 

[memyselfandI]

I think tomorrow climbs suit Niewiadoma better, if team can just tame her down to not work for others with those closing gaps when not her job. Of course it depends now how race goes up to intermediate sprint or like first 70k, green is already semented, no? Are Lidl and Fenix sending any satellites or not and trying to force things with that?