*Previews will be “short” for the rest of the week as don’t have a lot of free time on my hands, especially when I’ll be doing three a day come this weekend when the Tour de Suisse starts. Sorry!*
Today’s Recap
A barnstorming performance from Porte saw him beat the current World Champion (Tony Martin) by 12 seconds with Valverde a very impressive third place.
Froome and Contador shipped a bit of time to the Australian, but nothing that will concern them too much. Although with the way Porte has been climbing this year, it might do!
Let’s have a look at what’s in store for the riders tomorrow.
The Route
A rolling day but one that should end in a sprint.
The peloton will climb from the gun, albeit briefly, with a short and sharp climb that averages 8.6%. I’m sure there will be several riders on the rollers who will be looking to get into the morning breakaway.
From there, we have some small uncategorised lumps and a Cat-4 climb before the main test of the day: the Cat-2 Col du Fut d’Avenas. Averaging 5.1% for 8.8km, it certainly will drain the sprinters legs but it surely comes too far out from the finish to be of any major difficulty for them. That is unless of course a team decides to up the tempo!
The road then “rolls” for the second half of the day, with lots of small uncategorised peaks.
The riders will pick up some speed for a technical finale as the road descends ever so slightly from the 4km to go banner for just over a kilometre.
We have several tight turns, twists and kinks, and even a roundabout to contend with in the closing kilometres. A strong lead-out train and good positioning will be important, but thankfully most of the technical aspects are finished by 1.5km to go so things shouldn’t be too chaotic!
Contenders
The stage should end in a sprint but we’ve only had one stage won by the bunch so far in this race so who knows!
Nonetheless, with the days to come, I would expect the sprint teams to take control as this will be their last opportunity of the race.
Démare on current form seems to be the fastest rider, having won stage 2 and the bunch sprint on stage 3. His lead-out train seems to be firing well too, so he is certainly the rider to beat. He has gone missing in the past in technical finishes but with his confidence levels sky-high just now, I can’t see that being the case!
Coquard at least got a bit closer on stage 3 but it is hard to tell how hard some of the other guys were trying once they knew the stage was gone. He won’t be a massive fan of the flat finish.
Boasson Hagen has been knocking on the door all week but hasn’t managed to take advantage of his good form. Can Thwaites drop him off in the perfect position?
Bouhanni will thrive in the technical run in and with one of the most dedicated teams here, they should be able to take control of the race earlier than others. Will they have enough men left from 1.5km to go to deliver Bou-Bou into the right place?
Kristoff is another rider that will benefit from a strong team around him. They were strong on stage 2 but seemed to run out of steam just too early. The Norwegian was apparently suffering from a cold but is he over that now?
Ackermann, Bauhaus, Colbrelli, Richeze and Swift should all be there or thereabouts too.
Prediction
I’ll go for a French win, but not the rider you might expect. I’m hoping after the past few stages that Bouhanni will be up to race speed again and even more competitive than his third place on stage 2.
*insert fighting cliché* 😜.
Betting
No value, no bet.
Thanks as always for reading, and once again apologies for the ever so slightly shorter format. Who do you think will win tomorrow? Anyway,
Those were My Two Spokes Worth.
MyTwoSpokesWorth 