Amazing writeup by @Devil's Elbow:
The route
The stage starts from Mâcon, historically the southernmost city in Bourgogne. This was a strategic site, as the Saône (on which the city was located) was the border of first Bourgogne and then France with Savoie until the French conquest of the lands between Saône and Rhône in 1601. With that, the military importance was gone, but its position for trading remained strong – indeed, it is still a major crossroads today. It is also the hometown of France and Atlético Madrid star Antoine Griezmann.
The only KOM of the day, Col de Bois Clair, comes very early. It definitely feels like it could be the sort of day where nobody wants to enter the breakaway.
Just after this, the peloton passes the famous Abbey of Cluny, the leading monastic order and one of the most powerful forces within Catholicism during the High Middle Ages. Cluny grew so rich that the basilica constructed at the apex of its power was the world’s largest church until the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, five centuries later. Most of the site was razed in the French Revolution.
The intermediate sprint in Cormatin comes shortly after.
And that’s as much as there is to tell about this stage. We could have had a pretty hard hilly stage through the famed vineyard-covered hills of the Côte d’Or, but instead it’s a flat trek through the floodplains into Dijon. Even the finale is pretty straightforward, although sprint teams should beware of a significant narrowing into a slight left-hand corner at 1700 metres to go (marked on the map).
Dijon is the historical capital of Bourgogne, now a French region known for its rich food and wine, but a powerful duchy in the second half of the Middle Ages. Although nominally subject to the French kings, the duchy usually had a great degree of independence. It reached its zenith in the 15th century, when it controlled not just modern Bourgogne and its surroundings, but also a vaguely triangular area stretching from Luxembourg to the English Channel and Holland, with its dukes attempting to forge an independent kingdom. However, this was suddenly halted when the last duke died without male heirs in 1477. Dijon was then swiftly annexed by France, but the area east of it fell to the Habsburgs, who besieged the city in 1513. French expansion eastward in the late 17th century removed such threats, and with first the canal and then the railway from Paris reaching the Saône floodplains here, its location became progressively more favourable again. In the Tour, this situation between the Alps and Paris meant it often hosted the decisive final TT of the race, with Charly Gaul in 1958 and, more famously, Stephen Roche in 1987 flipping the GC lead on the penultimate stage here. Oddly, this will be the first stage it hosts since 1991.
What to expect?
Too early in the race and too easy to think of anything other than a sprint.
Crosswinds in the forecast for nearly the entire day, it will be hectic.
Stage 6: Mâcon - Dijon, 162.5k
The single easiest stage of the race is a trek up the Saône valley into the heartlands of the Bourgogne.The route
The stage starts from Mâcon, historically the southernmost city in Bourgogne. This was a strategic site, as the Saône (on which the city was located) was the border of first Bourgogne and then France with Savoie until the French conquest of the lands between Saône and Rhône in 1601. With that, the military importance was gone, but its position for trading remained strong – indeed, it is still a major crossroads today. It is also the hometown of France and Atlético Madrid star Antoine Griezmann.
The only KOM of the day, Col de Bois Clair, comes very early. It definitely feels like it could be the sort of day where nobody wants to enter the breakaway.
Just after this, the peloton passes the famous Abbey of Cluny, the leading monastic order and one of the most powerful forces within Catholicism during the High Middle Ages. Cluny grew so rich that the basilica constructed at the apex of its power was the world’s largest church until the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, five centuries later. Most of the site was razed in the French Revolution.
The intermediate sprint in Cormatin comes shortly after.
And that’s as much as there is to tell about this stage. We could have had a pretty hard hilly stage through the famed vineyard-covered hills of the Côte d’Or, but instead it’s a flat trek through the floodplains into Dijon. Even the finale is pretty straightforward, although sprint teams should beware of a significant narrowing into a slight left-hand corner at 1700 metres to go (marked on the map).
Dijon is the historical capital of Bourgogne, now a French region known for its rich food and wine, but a powerful duchy in the second half of the Middle Ages. Although nominally subject to the French kings, the duchy usually had a great degree of independence. It reached its zenith in the 15th century, when it controlled not just modern Bourgogne and its surroundings, but also a vaguely triangular area stretching from Luxembourg to the English Channel and Holland, with its dukes attempting to forge an independent kingdom. However, this was suddenly halted when the last duke died without male heirs in 1477. Dijon was then swiftly annexed by France, but the area east of it fell to the Habsburgs, who besieged the city in 1513. French expansion eastward in the late 17th century removed such threats, and with first the canal and then the railway from Paris reaching the Saône floodplains here, its location became progressively more favourable again. In the Tour, this situation between the Alps and Paris meant it often hosted the decisive final TT of the race, with Charly Gaul in 1958 and, more famously, Stephen Roche in 1987 flipping the GC lead on the penultimate stage here. Oddly, this will be the first stage it hosts since 1991.
What to expect?
Too early in the race and too easy to think of anything other than a sprint.
Crosswinds in the forecast for nearly the entire day, it will be hectic.
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