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Morning all. After a quite ridiculous day yesterday I suspect we’re in for more of the same today.
Due to the difficult weather conditions expected on stage 20 and landslides noticed, the course has been modified. After taking off from Albertville, the race will use the N90 road to head directly to Moutiers to reach the planned route at the N90-D915 roundabout 36km from the finish. The start will be given in Albertville at 14.30 for a total distance of 59km. The KOM prize at the finish in Val Thorens remains.
The Val Thorens climb is 33.4 kilometres at 5.5%, although that statistic is biased by a number of downhills on the way to Europe’s highest ski resort (2,365 metres). The steepest kilometre slopes at 9.1% and is located 5 kilometres before the finish.
Val Thorens high altitude finish was included only once. In 1994, Colombian Nelson Rodriguez climbed to victory on the hors catégorie slopes.
Time bonuses of 10, 6 and 4 seconds are awarded to the first three riders on the line.
The profile is clearly new to the Tour website so isn’t great, but...
VT
Th contenders?
The Contenders: Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) is in yellow and en route to winning the Tour de France only he hasn’t won a stage, only seven others have won the Tour without a stage win and if his team’s priority today is to guide him to the finish they’ll surely want to set him up for the win today too and show what he can do. The course suits him with the long climb to altitude.
The breakaway has a chance today, think Nairo Quintana (Movistar), Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) and Romain Bardet (Ag2r La Mondiale) but they’ll need to deploy their whole team in some kind of team time trial to tow the break away. But Jumbo-Visma and Bora-Hansgrohe still trying to place their respective leaders Steven Kruijswijk and Emanuel Buchmann on the podium in Paris they have a shared interest in cracking Julian Alaphilippe and seeing if they can overhaul Geraint Thomas as well and this should see a high pace
And as ever, yesterday.
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for a total distance of 59km
So a total team time trial up hill then! Will GT be under Team instruction or will it turn in to a Team mate race to the top (if he can keep up)
There are going to be some very very exhausted riders at the finish line in VT
ASO should earn their money and re-route. 59km isn't worth getting out of bed. What's wrong with going up and over the Madeleine before the VT climb?
Tour is over. Well done Bernal.
Bardet to win the spotty dress.
Bernal to win the Tour.
Sagen to win the jolly green giant pullover.
It’ll be rather like a climbing ITT I reckon. Stage win could be any climber with even the slightest amount of red corpuscles left that haven’t been smashed to bits, so I’m not going to even attempt to offer up just one person... could be anyone.
Sadly, the bunch will just fracture and be all over the road.. probably with some riders still leaving the K0 whilst others have finished.
Bonkerz..
ASO should earn their money and re-route. 59km isn’t worth getting out of bed. What’s wrong with going up and over the Madeleine before the VT climb?
I think they probably know the logistical difficulty of last minute re-routes, road closures, signage, marshals etc. better than any of us on here.
They had a ~64km mountain stage last year, everyone got out of bed for that one.
team oleaginous greenwash to smother it today.
CHARGE!
It’s going to be a smash fest - Bernal will want to win to prove he is worthy of the jersey, Thomas will want second on the podium - as will Kruijswijk and Buchmann and Alaphilippe
Anyone know what channel it might be shown on in France?
Probably all of them.
any idea of revised timings, I have to run several errands and was planning on being back for the finale but can't work out when that will be now. Normally it's about 40kph average and I think I read 1330 start (UK time) so allowing that it's mainly uphill but short, I reckon 25-30ave so a 2-2.5hr stage? Means the climax will be say three onwards?
Let's hope the weather doesn't throw further spanners in the works.
So it’s got to be a mad crazy charge.
Empty all tanks in a mass team trial to as far up as the teams can take the climbers . Hopefully.
I’m cheering Bardet on for the spots & I hope juju’s team can muster an effort to make it really exciting.
Hope g makes it on to the podium at least.
theotherjonv
Should be quite a bit faster then that closer to one hour 45 minutes. Budget a largish half an hour to Moutiers and then a bit over an hour from Moutiers to the finish.
ITV coverage changed from 12.30-17.00 to 13.10-16.00
Cool. I've never witnessed an uphill mass start race before.
Nickjb, it's on fr3 from 1 til 3, then switches over to 2.
Apparently they might be cancelling the whole stage 20, decision incoming in the next 10mins or so.
Such a rubbish last two days. 🙁
60km uphill time Trial would be good! Winner would be the deserved winner of the Tour.
Apparently they might be cancelling the whole stage 20,
Where did you read that?
https://twitter.com/nedboulting/status/1155055887310106624
Assuming they actually start, I think the uncertainty of it all will make for even more hectic racing. If the stage finish is moved 10km further back down the mountain or something, there's no option for teams to leave it to the last, they'll HAVE to go from the gun - taking every point on the road as though that's the actual finish just in case something happens again and they shorten the stage or stop it mid way during the race.
It also has the potential if the weather is bad to be horrendously dangerous... 🙁
Some videos on twitter now of the conditions - it is absolutely torrential.
https://twitter.com/carltonkirby/status/1155059697847869440
I'm beginning to think that if they ride at all it'll be a neutralised run to the bottom of the hill then a hill climb race.
Don't they know about rules 5 and 9?
theotherjonv
Should be quite a bit faster then that closer to one hour 45 minutes. Budget a largish half an hour to Moutiers and then a bit over an hour from Moutiers to the finish.
Official Tour website has averages of 26, 28 and 30kph; as you say a long half hour to Moutiers but they then reckon 90 mins +/- to the top, for more like 2:15
So in old money, it all kicks off proper around quarter past two UK time.
Interesting what they'll do with the possibility of another curtailment - no bet hedging to be done!
Just seen an aerial shot of part of today's original route being bulldozed clear of mud and rock. It might have been possible to clear the route if it had happened two or three days ago but unlikely in 24hrs.
It might have been possible to clear the route if it had happened two or three days ago but unlikely in 24hrs.
The year I did Etape du Tour (2016, Megeve to Morzine) they took out Col de la Ramaz for our ride due to landslides but they'd managed to repair everything by the time the race went over there about 3 - 4 days later.
This is going to be insane. The riders who want the KOM Jersey will be going for the stage win because it's relatively close on points at the top.
The riders on GC will all be going for it too because of the time gaps - it wouldn't be that difficult to throw the entire podium on its head at this stage - a badly timed mechanical, shortening the stage, a rider suffering in the conditions and the whole podium could change.
They've said on the live feed that there is a possibility of losing the last 11km. They'll make the decision with 39km to go (i.e. the bottom of the official climb)
sorry - 33km to go
Here we go! Jumbo are off.
Here we go! Jumbo are off.
Minus their team leader, forcing a slight recalibration.
Movistar levels of cooperation!
At least the brightening weather has meant we get the full climb.
Pretty spectacular speeds so far! I haven't looked at Strava, but I'm guessing every record will be broken today 🙂
Woohoo 🤪🤯
Hi Julian, can we show you out via the back door? Thanks.
Blimey, he may just stay in the top 10.....
How dull is this though! Hopefully some fireworks imminently
That looked like a big blow up there. How much time will he lose?
How much time will he lose?
40" already and he's still got 11km to go!. I reckon it'll be the thick end of 2 minutes.
There's a weird part of me that wants nibbles to hold them off
I want Yates to bridge across and win. Not a fan of Nibali.
Just bunged a fiver on Nibali.
Tipped for several riders yesterday and technically one of them won, but Sky bet doesn't pay out as the stage wasn't completed. Bullshit.
Someone get Nibali a bib
Getting tense now.
Can G hold onto his 2nd place? Will Yates get the polka dot jersey?
Will Bernal go for the stage win?
Racing: Pretty Awful
Coverage: Absolutely awful
I suppose the previous 3 weeks do mitigate somewhat mind
Yes the coverage was awful for the final 1km,missed it all
Nibali had a good race/win ... overall a very boring stage, and anti-climax to the TDF-2019
shame nobody had a go at the end. Must be all pooped. At least we don't have to listen to Kirby any more.