Tour de France 2017 Stage 19:Embrun-Salon-de-Provence 222.5K

neris

The day after the up hilly stuff the day before the TT and its all a bit uppy downy uppy downy and probably as you were like gentlemen please

Stage 19 and longest stage this year

220 kilometres, stage 19 is the longest stage in the 2017 Tour de France. The route, travelling from Embrun to Salon-de-Provence, seems to be tailor made for fast men. Or are we going to see an attacker who gets lucky?

The first part of the race is hilly, which will no doubt inspire a bunch of escapees to give it a go. In fact, stage 19 might be the last chance in the Tour de France of 2017 to form an early break. However, it will be hard to stay ahead of the peloton as the sprint teams will do everything to bring them back since the arrival in Salon-de-Provence is perfect for a bunch sprint.

The race leaves from Embrun, in the 2013 Tour de France host to a climbing time trial that was won by Chris Froome. In this stage the riders descent from an elevation of 881 metres at the start to 78 metres at the finish in Salon-de-Provence.

The race takes in two KOM climbs in the first 43 kilometres. Col de Lebraut amounts to 4.7 kilometres at 6%, while Côte de Bréziers is a 2.3 kilometres climb at 5.8%. The route continues on rolling roads until Col de Pointu looms at kilometre 171, which is a 5.8 kilometres ascent with an average gradient of 4.1%. The last 45 kilometres run on descending and fat roads to the line in Salon-de-Provence.

The old town of Salon-de-Provence is located on a hill with a castle: Château de l’Emperi. Nostradamus lived in the town before he died in 1566. He is widely known for his predictive powers. Who is going to win today, Nostradamus?

Stage winner prediction by: Neris Nostradamus: Defo not Kittle or Cav



Le TV 11am

MPFGLB

Nico ftw


there i said it

MPFGLB

Thanks for the great previews Neris

robyntmorton

What is Nostradamus's opinion of Sagan? Any chance today? :P

I really don't know how to call this. Get a big breakaway up the road and all bets are off.

el tel

Something unexpected is going to happen. Everything is going too smoothly for Sky and Ag2R.
I think there's going to be an incident; Froome and one or both of Bardet or Uran is going to lose a lot of time, and Dan Martin will leap up to third in GC place at least.
For Froome to take the GC he will then have to claw back a two or three minutes in the TT, which he will fail to do by the skin of his ballsack.

death1234567

el tel wrote: »

Something unexpected is going to happen. Everything is going too smoothly for Sky and Ag2R.
I think there's going to be an incident; Froome and one or both of Bardet or Uran is going to lose a lot of time, and Dan Martin will leap up to third in GC place at least.
For Froome to take the GC he will then have to claw back a two or three minutes in the TT, which he will fail to do by the skin of his ballsack.

Nope. It's going to a soft day for "main peleton" while a breakaway group gets 12 minutes on the road.

MPFGLB

Froome right up the front covering the breaks

Without Dumoulin , Valverde, Quintana , etc Froome to walk the Vuelta it seems

MPFGLB

MPFGLB wrote: »

Nico ftw


there i said it

Scarp that ..its all in for GVA

irishrover99

MPFGLB wrote: »

Froome right up the front covering the breaks

Without Dumoulin , Valverde, Quintana , etc Froome to walk the Vuelta it seems

Without Dumoulin,is that confirmed?

MPFGLB

irishrover99 wrote: »

Without Dumoulin,is that confirmed?

http://nos.nl/tour/artikel/2184309-dumoulin-niet-in-vuelta-kelderman-kopman.html

Seeing stuff being reported about Tom on Dutch and German media in the last hour , I'll run it through google to see whats up.

EDIT: Seems he's going for World Championships ,

What about Nibali ? Assuming he isn't DQ'd again

Macy0161

death1234567 wrote: »

Nope. It's going to a soft day for "main peleton" while a breakaway group gets 12 minutes on the road.

Attention drops, and all skybots down!

Tigerandahalf

Neris

You have no option in the poll for 'all of the above'.

Great previews. Gives a good insight.

Have to say the tv production by the French is very good.
Planes fly through now with the smoke the colours of the French flag.

terrydel

Its 'scree' not 'screed'

neris

todays stage

neris

at least Eddy's happy

robyntmorton

Kirby asking Brian Smith for his favourite thing to get in a feed zone musette:

Brian: A bit of tablet
Kirby: *splutters* A bit of what?!

(It's Scottish Tablet he was referring to, which is basically sugar. It wasn't a confession)

neris

Froome be missing one bot for next year

https://twitter.com/Laura_Meseguer/status/888391672102629376

Smith and Kirby are barely holding it together today

EDIT: Kirby - Some spots on the camera there , no it's not that Brian (Comfort Breaks happening)

neris

Deleted User wrote: »

Smith and Kirby are barely holding it together today

EDIT: Kirby - Some spots on the camera there , no it's not that Brian (Comfort Breaks happening)

in fairness to them its a long boring day and with feck all happening they have to talk about something

robyntmorton

I love how they keep pointing out that there are 22 staff members to take care of the FDJ riders... All 3 of them!

neris

robyntmorton wrote: »

I love how they keep pointing out that there are 22 staff members to take care of the FDJ riders... All 3 of them!

And 2 of them are still sharing a room.

Think was a giro few years ago where orica only finished with 2 riders

neris

EBh going from a long way out

Think that was well deserved for Eddie Boss

Inquitus

Deleted User wrote: »

Think that was well deserved for Eddie Boss

Yep I have a lot of time for Eddie, Chapeau Sir!

fat bloke

BOH-ring.

py

Good to see TDD get a stage win with Cav obviously not about for a while

Inquitus

Cav in with the early congrats

https://twitter.com/MarkCavendish/status/888424470309990400

Mint Sauce

No body from the penalton went for it then.

neris

that TT course looks mad, pan flat with a 1 big steep lump to add to the cruelty

DanDublin1982

Only caught the highlights but every time they showed the peleton there was 8 sky riders up front. No point in attacking that I guess. No disrespect to the stage winner (super effort) but it may as well not have happened today.

For me this year Chris Froome has not won the Tour de France , Team Sky have. More so than any other year. Froome if he'd been isolated more would have had problems but due to the strength they have as a team it was never allowed to happen.

Inquitus

Deleted User wrote: »

For me this year Chris Froome has not won the Tour de France , Team Sky have. More so than any other year. Froome if he'd been isolated more would have had problems but due to the strength they have as a team it was never allowed to happen.

I don't know the way things have panned out, he has been in control since the opening stage, with the TT to come in stage 20 of 21 he knew all he had to do was mark his challengers and he has won. The loss of Porte was huge, and unfortunately it hasn't made for much of a spectacle. He has ridden very defensively because he really didn't need to do anything else. Obviously a strong team makes controlling the race much easier, but his rivals haven't been able to make a dent at all really.

Lumen

Deleted User wrote: »

For me this year Chris Froome has not won the Tour de France , Team Sky have.

It's a team sport.

But I think he'd have won anyway, on the combined strength of his climbing, descending and TTing.

This isn't like Wiggo's win where he was nursed round.

ThisRegard

Yeah, in fairness to him he's improved all round, not a bad descender these days given a few years ago you were just waiting to see at what point he'd fall on the flat.

Tigerandahalf

At the moment he seems miles ahead of the opposition. He came into the tour lightly raced as it seems he wants to win the Vuelta as well.

None of the others have done anything to come near him. They just aren't good enough. The quality just isn't there.

Froome hasn't had to exert himself and why should he when he has the Vuelta to come.
The one time he had trouble with a mechanical and lost 45 secs he then made it up within about 8km. Just goes to show that he has a well to dip into where nobody else could compete with.

Quintana seems to have gone backwards and not sure if Porte would have made any inroads.
Didn't make for the most exciting of tours.

I wouldn't mind see a couple of 100km stages being put in to just shake things up.

Inquitus

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

The one time he had trouble with a mechanical and lost 45 secs he then made it up within about 8km. Just goes to show that he has a well to dip into where nobody else could compete with.

Yep this was the key show of strength, GC Group full gas, Froome has trouble and manages to close almost a minute, I think it was fifty something seconds when he changed bike, before the top of the climb and rescues himself from potential disaster. As Dan Martin said in an interview, he doesn't think anyone else would have been able to close that gap bar Froome.

Tigerandahalf

Inquitus wrote: »

Yep this was the key show of strength, GC Group full gas, Froome has trouble and manages to close almost a minute, I think it was fifty something seconds when he changed bike, before the top of the climb and rescues himself from potential disaster. As Dan Martin said in an interview, he doesn't think anyone else would have been able to close that gap bar Froome.

Froome will never be loved as he is not a very flamboyant character. Comes across as quite shy and not fussed about the limelight.

I do wonder how he managed to drop all that weight. A lot of athletes are on the borderline taking fat burning supplements and that whole area is very grey.

However Froome seems to have a real quiet determination so it is possible he has put the work in. I think his weight is slightly up this year too as he hadn't raced much.

The Tour just needs fresh talent to emerge.