Welcome to the Alps!
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Starting just outside Geneva, the race immediately hits the foothills with some (relatively straightforward) climbing but getting bigger and more technical the further into the stage it goes.
The final climb, Joux Plane is an absolute bastard. I rode this in an Etape a few years ago and everyone suffered big time, it was horrific. Every little bit of shade (not many) there were riders flaked out on the grass.
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There is a nice lake at the top and then a toboggan run descent into the finish town of Morzine.
Over 4000m of climbing today so breakaway or GC contenders? Let’s go with the breakaway because UAE and Jumbo-Visma are challenging each other but neither of their leaders is making big moves, nor do they have to yet. Plus the breakaway stayed away yesterday when many thought it wouldn’t. EF’s Neilson Powless and Esteban Chaves both have a good chance, Powless will like all the climbs, at least early on. Pinot dropped out of the top 10 but is still a threat in terrain like this.
Still Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE) are safe picks, following each others wheels. Vingegaard might be the better descender for the finish into Morzine, Pogačar might have more punch to get over the top of the climb and to win a sprint between the pair. If they don’t put daylight into their rivals Tom Pidcock (Ineos) could be one to watch, there's some technical descending off both Ramaz and Joux Plane.
Ramaz was closed when I did my Etape as they were fixing landslides (it was open again when the race passed over it a few days later). They're having the same issues again, it's been recently repaired.
Anyway, I'm off to see Mission Impossible so I'll be arriving mid-stage this afternoon!
given the "scripted" peel offs from the Jumbo domestiques (and Wout rolling into the climb) I suspect they have something planned for today :/
@ads678 Loving your photos, great effort for a 10 year old. What smashing memories for you both.
Pidders should be buoyed by the fabulous stage win from Kwiato yesterday, hopefully if today is cooler Tom should do well.
I'm looking forward to this stage and Know the Samoens area a little bit.
@crazy_legs ' Mission impossible' surely can't be as exciting as today' TdF stage promises to be :o)
I’ll be very interested in how long they take to climb Joux Plane. I did it in 40 minutes from Samoens ….on my ebike a few weeks ago to pick up the van we’d left up at the top. Should give me a real feeling for how fast they can ride uphill.
ITV4 live coverage starts at 12 for today's stage.
going to be a warm one, 32 when they hit Samoens.
Adam Hansen rose the descent yesterday, ASO have done some remedial work to the road surface for safety.
https://twitter.com/hansenadam/status/1679539214906449947?s=46&t=_O2M6t13IbGzpYRpFxCz7g
looks like norfolk, don't think much is going to happen 😉
perhaps not 🙂
intermediate sprint
not as toothy as usual 🙂
Big crash there. Stage neutralised
another rolling start, nice for them to take a 20 min break while i was restringing my classical guitar.
Meintjes and Pedrero abandon due to the crash
and looks like half the peloton nursing a wound or two 🙁
Chaves looks ready to step off! looks as he has 🙁
blimey .... they not holding anything back on the descent!
Bardet down 🙁 and James Shaw !!! both out 🙁
Jumba pulling hard on the front of the peloton, wonder if jumbo ds got "bring a sense of order to this chaos" message.
Dunno which is the biggest carnage, the crashes on the road or Sean Kelly's butchering of rider names.
jumbo keep pulling
Looks like polka dot jersey will change wearer
Jonas has the best sun cream ever, he's the palest pro cyclist I've ever seen!
I bet it’s fun in morzine with closures for this an the normal Saturday arrivals
Strange race today, jumbo just completely indifferent to everyone.
Assuming vingegard is going to go for it
trouble with stages like this is the race can be all over at the finish.
Pidcock is rocking and a rolling
Looks like Tom Pidcock is done. Maybe he can preserve energy and go for it tomorrow as his time will be of no concern to gc
has Pog got an issue with his left thigh, he was shaking it out and giving it a rub.
Shame Pidcock couldn't stick with it, might as well sit up and go for stages.
squeaky bum time
brutal attrition !
Another crazy stage....
What's with all these guys on the mountain chasing the riders with their arsenal hanging out?
Madness
Wow- fantastic racing!
I am a bit gutted for pog but he could/should have attacked again.
crazy day
<p style="text-align: right;">Has Pog ended up a second further ahead? How did he manage that?</p>
Edit. I meant Vingegaard
It seems there were bonus seconds awarded at the top of the last climb and Vingegaard was first
I am a bit gutted for pog but he could/should have attacked again.
Based on what do you think he could have attacked. I suspect if Pog could have he would have.
Motorbikes did seem a bit asleep today in general but that incident looked more like the spectators were preventing them doing anything about their position.
Great viewing. The second coming of Van Aert was crazy. I thought when Vingegaard rejoined with Pog - admittedly it looked as much due to Pog easing off - he should have tried once to try and drop Pog.
