Ooooh, another flat stage, what fun, I for one can’t wait…For the race to get back into the mountains tomorrow. Anyway, for now, let’s pray for a breakaway and dream of it staying away.

Following Marcel Kittel’s fourth stage win at Bergerac, another bunch gallop is expected at Pau, the third most visited city behind Paris and Bordeaux in the history of the Tour de France. At half way into stage 11, the peloton will greet “The Chapel of the Cyclists” at Labastide-d’Armagnac. It’s a church full of cycling memorabilia such as champions’ jerseys and bikes. Jacques Anquetil, Tom Simpson, Bernard Hinault and Eddy Merckx are among the stars who donated some of their personal items to this museum of cycling. The last time the Tour de France passed by was in 2000 when the riders were going from Agen to Pau. It’ll be the fifth time since 1984. In 1989, Labastide-d’Armagnac was even the starting location of a stage to Pau. Stage 11 from Eymet to Pau is a long one, over 203.5km. The GC contenders will try to save as much energy as they possibly can ahead of the two Pyrenean stages that will follow. There’s no difficulty on the course and very few possibilities for a different scenario than a sprint finish on the Verdun square nearby the castle of Henri IV.

Let here a bit more on the stage and the finish.

The Route: 203km due south to Pau, gateway to the Pyrenees and . This is another sleepy stage across the kind of terrain where people enjoy long lunches, local produce and siestas. They pass the Notre Dame des Cyclistes chapel and near to the late Luis Ocaña’s house. There’s only one categorised climb but the route is hillier than the profile suggests, after the intermediate sprint the road rises and falls. It’s certainly not a festival for the climbers but it just adds to the fatigue.

The Finish: a fast and flat run into Pau. The city has its elegant parts, this route doesn’t. It crosses several junctions and roundabouts in the final kilometres but on big roads. Things get a bit narrower in the final kilometre and there’s a left hand bend with 650m to go, it’s not tight but it will stretch the field out before the 600m finishing straight.

Runners and riders?

The Contenders: Marcel Kittel is the obvious sprint pick but so obvious that even his close rivals have to start thinking about other tactics. The likes of Cofidis, Lotto-Soudal and Katusha can spend the day chasing or they could fire riders up the road early and make Quick Step do all the work. But getting a rider up the road is one thing, winning quite another and they’re likely to back their sprinters as the most certain chance of a win.

André Greipel got swamped yesterday as a wave of riders overtook him and he was boxed in. These things happen and he should be in the mix again. Dylan Groenewegen got third place, his best so far but in the absence of Démare, Sagan et al his relative speed compared to Kittel seems about constant.

Nacer Bouhanni lost his temper yesterday, feuding with a Quick Step on the run into Bergerac and the commissaires fined him 200 Swiss Francs (FAQ: the sport’s governing body is based in Switzerland which explains the Swiss Francs), a derisory sum which has no deterrent effect, in fact it’s so low it’s almost tolerating the incident, it’s like a parking fine of €5. Anyway he often wins when his back is up against the wall but Kittel seems so far much faster so this scenario seems uncertain. John Degenkolb was a surprise second yesterday but still very sore from his crash on Stage 4, he’s got problems pulling on the bars and got through yesterday’s sprint on adrenalin.

Yesterdays pics? Why not.
The break, Wanty-Groupe Gobert Fortuneo-Oscaro of course.

The peloton and sunflowers.

France looking good and the clouds looking moody.

He’s a bit good this Kittel fella.

Gah!

Blooming sprint stages.

Very very different to yesterday, so much variation and could be a whole upset in the waiting.

Not.

Bloke on a Mamil Bike will win, though I expect his commute this afternoon may be hampered by a petit bully.

Wanty in the break, Fortuneo will follow on shortly after. Not a chance of a handful of decent Belgians in there too to lighten the enthusiasm and entertain… ohhh no.

If it wasn’t for the ASO Travel Show, it’d not be worth watching at all.

Agree about the “spectacle” from our perspective

… but if I was mayor of Pau, I think I’d prefer a bunch sprint at 40mph over riders dribbling in 3s and 4s after a distant battle that I had to show on a big screen

Well you’d say based upon recent events that it’s worth sticking some money on Dolph for the win today. Can’t really see how anyone is going to beat him in all honesty.

Looking forward to today’s stage, I used to live in Pau – in fact I was there in ’92 when the stage finished in Pau. However I didn’t arrive until late August.

Got the PVR set to record the whole stage (and the whole of tomorrow’s stage which starts in Pau). NOt expecting to recgonise very much as it was 25 years ago, I was a youg student with little access to motorised transport so I did most getting around on foot or on the navette to work.

Breakaway to stick today

I’m going for a breakaway win today, well I hope it will be…

Great.. a day of watching a fast club run with a cafe sprint..Just knock 80k off the route and encourage them to actually race each other. Although I expect there will be some decent racing to establish a break, at least I hope there will.

weeksy – Member
Well you’d say based upon recent events that it’s worth sticking some money on Dolph for the win today. Can’t really see how anyone is going to beat him in all honesty.

If one were to go betting on the tour to try and make it interesting…… What bookie for the Tour De France?

There’s something very wrong with this stage..

The coastline from Biscarrosse down to Capbreton is Surfing nirvana. Quite why the ASO didn’t route them down the coastline, with occasional stops for some clean 3ft curlers, is incomprehensible.

NaughtyBouys.

What was the thinking of the organisers over the course this year? Give me a long time trial or team time trial over another one of these cookie cutter stages.

:pray for the breakaway:

There has been calls over the last few years that the Tour is too hard. Take a look at this years TdF, in profile it’s very similar to a late 80’s through mid 90’s edition. It’s a call from both riders and support crews, not enough transition and recovery, too many mountain stages and dead riders. It’s why the likes of Froomy only target the Tour these days, one race per year like this and that’s probably quite enough. One reason Quinty is flailing ATM is because the Giro was hard this year, Berties no where near on form of yesteryear, most of the transition stages are ridden at 40ks rollout because you just burn out too quickly.

Overall, so far, I’ve been begrudgingly supporting of this edition. It’s been a long time coming that the ASO listen, but this edition could lead to a call that the Tour has been dumbed down some what. I don’t see that, I’m hoping they stick to some longer transition stages taken at pace with a sprint for the fast guys. It’s a gruelling task to ask a sprinter to under take 5500mtrs climbing over 4 very large hills and still be fresh to sprint. One reason Cav is such a good rider is whilst he dislikes lumps, he’s pretty good at pacing himself over them. Sags too.

Or….this is what “clean” racing looks like.

I usually like a good bunch sprint, but only if there are rider there to contest it.

It seems that without Cav, Sagan and Demare, Kittel doesn’t have any challengers left. Greipel seems past it, Clay is not ready yet and the rest just aren’t strong enough. May as well give Kittel the stage win now and let the peloton have a rest!!

Lovely scenery yesterday though.

Peloton has not been at all generous to the breakaways on the flat stages this Tour. Can’t recall seeing anyone get more than a few minutes or a break of any decent size get away. Suspect today will be much the same. Kristoff, Greipel, Bouhani, all will be getting desperate for a win and their teams will chase any break. QS can probably sit back and let Kittel clean up in the sprint… again.

QS have no real need to do anything – Kittle has 4 stage wins and is comfortably in the green so they can more or less sit back and let the other sprint trains do the work to pull anything back.

Equally the other teams must be thinking that they can’t let this come down to a sprint cos they’ll just get their arses kicked by Kittel again.

So I’m hoping for a top-notch breakaway. None of this no-hoper stuff of the last few days, a proper group of hitters who can carry it off to the finish. Historically Pau has rarely come down to a bunch sprint. Also historically, Pau is usually the town where the first positive doping test is announced… It usually comes at the critical “midway through Week 2” phase where the test results are just beginning to come back.

Is the first week ever particularly interesting ? The Tour is generally about the mountains and the Pyrenees beckon.

I didn’t even bother with the highlights yesterday.

Highlight of the day to be a post with photos from Edukator.

If one were to go betting on the tour to try and make it interesting…… What bookie for the Tour De France?

All the main ones certainly do the overall, i don’t know about day to day stages though.

The coastline from Biscarrosse down to Capbreton is Surfing nirvana. Quite why the ASO didn’t route them down the coastline, with occasional stops for some clean 3ft curlers, is incomprehensible

Not enoguh chateaus, Commentators would struggle to say anything that interesting about miles and miles of pine forest. However, if they put them on fat bikes and made them ride along the beach – that would be a stage!! Biccarose to Hossegor 100km of soft sand, intermediate sprint over the bridge at vieux beacoup and the finish line directly outside the rock food 😆

another one to tune in at 10km to go…

I didn’t even bother with the highlights yesterday.

Certainly on ITV4, the highlights are very good. There was a good section in there from Chris Boardman and Ned Boulting about tubeless tyres and questioning why the peloton hadn’t yet woken up to the advantages. Extended shots of a whole load of stunning chateaux. Some deadpan piss-taking by Gary Imlach. And 10km of frantic sprint action.

with occasional stops for some clean 3ft curlers

Dumoulin isn’t doing the Tour.

Yeah I’ll always watch the itv4 highlights even on a pan flat stage. There’s only about 40 mins content if you fast forward thru the adverts and imlachs sarcasm is always worth tuning in for. Plus the boardman skits can be interesting.

The rest day highlights were interesting when they said that the Jura offered the steepness that they cant get elsewhere

There was a good section in there from Chris Boardman and Ned Boulting about tubeless tyres and questioning why the peloton hadn’t yet woken up to the advantages

What was the logic/reasoning then ?

I’m guessing the benefits are very low rolling resistance and self-sealing.

But one of the main reasons for tubs is that if/when the tyre does go flat fast, you have a chance of controlling the bike. (a front flat on a descent, for instance)

On the flip-side to that though – you see plenty of crashes where they roll a tub.

Well if I hadn’t watched yesterday’s full coverage I wouldn’t have known Chris Boardman is into cave diving.

What was the thinking of the organisers over the course this year? Give me a long time trial or team time trial over another one of these cookie cutter stages.

They didn’t want Froome to win I think. Less mountain top finishes, less TT distance, more flat with (hopefully) more echelons where Sky would miss the split. Turns out it didn’t work quite like that.

“Clean” well it’s taken to stage 11 before that topic came up so I’ll give it a punt.

Yes.

They didn’t want Froome to win I think

Or at least, they didn’t want him to walk it. To be fair, there’s still a lot of terrain to cover, he could still crack on the mountains or make a mess of the TT, I don’t think it’s as clear cut as some would have you believe.

Not enoguh chateaus

Chateaux.

As for tubeless – can’t they put some sealant in their tubs? You’d still lose air though so you might still need a new wheel anyway.

The mountain stages are HARD this year. I suspect if the sprint stages were also hard then the racing in the mountains would be less exciting, but as it is we’ve had two of the best TdF mountain stages for years. I think it’s a trade-off worth having.

I’ll go with the bookies predictions for this one, he’s 2/7 at the moment 😉

I assume there are no crosswinds forecast. Would be good to see a break away survive although I believe that is probably scheduled for a Frenchman on Friday.

Otherwise, some plucky outsider to attack 3km to go and steal it from the sprinters.

Is the first week ever particularly interesting ? The Tour is generally about the mountains and the Pyrenees beckon.

My view too and I normally find the huge alpine and Pyrenean stages the most interesting. BUT… those puny little Jura hills last weekend produced some brilliant racing. Watch Saturday and Sunday stages.

I have a complaint re. those descending stage finishes which feature on several mountain days this year. The flattish bits to the finishes are too long and spoil the spectacle of the descent. I’ve always enjoyed the stages that drop like a stone into the finish.

Well that’s the break of 3 gone in the first 60 seconds of the stage. Chris has stopped for piss. I’ll be tuning back in about 4 hours!

Nobody other than QS has even bothered to send a rider up to the front. Are they playing the “no point in us chasing so Kittel can win” card? Could QS call their bluff and sit up – playing the “we’ve won 4 stages already chaps” card?

QS and Lotto Soudal now with a rider on the front.

Waaaaaaaannnntttyyy in the break !!!!

Amazeballz.

I really can’t see anyone chasing this down, QS will dial in with 40k to go and the break will be written in history as an 3 hour Advertisement Break.

Even Kirby & Smith are bored already.

What was the thinking of the organisers over the course this year

1) to make it harder for Sky to dominate in the same way they have with their suffocating mountain trains

2) to give Cavendish a chance to beat Merckx’s record for total number of stage wins (he needed 5 I think).

and possibly

3) to give someone else a chance to win the green jersey.

As long as that overpaid underachieving thuggish idiot Bouhanni finishes the tour without a stage win I’ll be happy. Quite how the pr1ck didn’t get DQ’ed for punching Bauer (by the same jury that DQ’ed Sagan) is beyond comprehension. Apparently he’s earning twice as much as Kittel 😯 (according to the oracle that is INRNG Kittel had to take a pay-cut in order for QS to buy him out of his previous contract with Giant).

203.5km….203.5km. Of which 200km are going to be completely irrelevant. Can you imagine being a rider at breakfast this morning and getting a tap on your shoulder from your DS that it’s been decided its going to be you that gets in a break. 200km of blowing out your arse for what you know will be no real reason whilst the rest of your team gets a day off soft pedalling in the middle of the peloton with nothing but a powermeter two other blokes’ arses and some dull countryside to look at.

When they say Tour De France…they really mean Tour De France..well at least Eurosport commentary team are funny.