Tour de France 2020 | Stage 8 (Gazeres-sur-Geronne - Loudenvielle)

Inquitus

After the peloton labeled stage 2 "a flat stage with a few early bumps", stage 4 an "uphill sprint stage" and stage 6 "hilly at best" it is now time for the first mountain stage of this years Tour de France. So the big question arises. What will be the excuses for not attacking this time?



Map:


Profile:


Timetable:

Start: 13:30

Intermediate Sprint: 14:38/14:35/14:32

Col de Menté: 15:11/15:06/15:02

Port de Balès: 16:32/16:21/16:14

Col de Peyresourde: 17:15/17:02/16:52

Finish: 17:28/17:14/17:04



Climbs:

Today we offer a three course menu with a special recommendation for the 2nd course.

We start with light with the Col de Mentè, the easiest climb of the day albeit still being 1st category and relatively steep. It's the 2nd and 3rd climb however which come in quick succession and will hopefully lead to meaningful attacks and time gaps. First the Port de Balès, a climb the once made an 11 year old Andy Schleck fan called Gigs cry, followed by the Col de Peyresourde a climb you might know from literally every Tour de France.



Michael Rasmussen's legs will start hurting thinking of how he just managed to follow Alberto Contador on his ruthless attacks on a very similar combination of finishing climbs in 2007.



General classification after Stage 7

Adam Yates
Primoz Roglic + 0.03
Guillaume Martin + 0.09
Egan Bernal + 0.13
Tom Dumoulin s.t.
Nairo Quintana s.t.
Romain Bardet s.t.
Miguel Ángel López s.t.
Thibaut Pinot s.t.
Rigoberto Uran s.t.
Points classification after Stage 7

Peter Sagan 138
Sam Bennett 129
Wout Van Aert 106
Bryan Coquard 105
Alexander Kristoff 93
Mountains classification after Stage 7

Benoît Cosnefroy 25
Michael Gogl 12
Primoz Roglic 10
Alexey Lutsenko 10
Nicolas Roche 10
Young riders classification after Stage 7

Egan Bernal
Enric Mas + 0.09
Sergio Higuita + 0.28
Tadej Pogacar + 1.15
Daniel Felipe Martinez + 18.44
May the suffering begin.

Borrowed from here

ratracer

It’s gonna be interesting to see how fast the first hour goes to the intermediate sprint.

How much has Sagan and Bora left in the tank after yesterday’s effort, did Sam and DQS ease off enough after they knew getting back in touch was gone? After the chain slip yesterday, the race for the green jersey is still wide open!

Come on Sam!!

at1withmyself

I predict a snooze fest among the gc but hopefully the green Jersey comp brings in some excitement!

Although maybe Trek might try get some time back for Mollema? Or Landa try something?

happytramp

It'll be interesting to see how committed DQS are to getting Sam back in green. If they are they should be trying to keep it together until the intermediate today and instigate an early break tomorrow to mop up the points after the Cat 1.

Inquitus

happytramp wrote: »

It'll be interesting to see how committed DQS are to getting Sam back in green. If they are they should be trying to keep it together until the intermediate today and instigate an early break tomorrow to mop up the points after the Cat 1.

Looking at the remaining stages it looks pretty good for Sam. Stage 13 is the next one where Bora could drop Sam, but then they can only get intermediate points on that stage as the finish is far too hard for Sagan.

Stage 19 is one where Sagan could take Intermediate and points at the finish.

c.p.w.g.w

Looks like nota not going to be a sprint stage? 13 riders over 2 minutes ahead, so intermediate sprint now gone for Sam or Sagan

Inquitus

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

Looks like nota not going to be a sprint stage? 13 riders over 2 minutes ahead, so intermediate sprint now gone for Sam or Sagan

Aye only 2 and 1 point will be left.

Itziger

Peloton look like they might actually stop any minute now.

retalivity

I forgot Zakarin was even at the tour

c.p.w.g.w

What time is this stage due to get to the mountains?

Inquitus

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

What time is this stage due to get to the mountains?

Col de Menthe in about 30-40 mins.

dastardly00

Random stat - Sam Bennett has won €11,900 in prize money in the race so far. WVA has won the most; €22,000.

retalivity

What is Morkov doing, hanging 2-3 bike lengths off the back of the break? Gonna go back for Sam?

Inquitus

Zakharin the best placed in the break but at over 16 mins back.

MPFGLB

Now todays break was the one to be in for Nico or Dan
Good break but no real top climber (or super strong men) except maybe Zakarin who crashes downhill more often than I have hot dinners
Also very big break and not having to ride at 50km per hour for first hour to get away will make them fresher


As for GC I expect Pogacar to try something ..maybe with Buchmann and Landa
Mollema is very good downhill as is Allaphilipe and Bardet



The top 20 in GC are still so very near each other (within 94 seconds) so still lall to play for everyone of them

lawrencesummers

Nico resting for future attempts and Dan doesn’t look in a good place to me, hopefully he rides his way into contention somewhere along the way but that injury is taking its toll on Dan.

eeeee

They're talking about the Galway Classic on TG4 now, TG4 rocks!

neris

Bit of a snoozefest

lawrencesummers

eeeee wrote: »

They're talking about the Galway Classic on TG4 now, TG4 rocks!

It takes a skilled ability to waffle to commentate on cycling where 95% of The time in a 3/4 hour race absolutely nothing happens.

They spent an age the other day talking about songs you would have in your head to give a rhythm when climbing.

neris

lawrencesummers wrote: »

It takes a skilled ability to waffle to commentate on cycling where 95% of The time in a 3/4 hour race absolutely nothing happens.

They spent an age the other day talking about songs you would have in your head to give a rhythm when climbing.

Carlton Kirby the king of waffle

c.p.w.g.w

Totally forgot about Van Arte's accident on the time trail last year...maybe my Brian decided to forget, due to how bad it was

c.p.w.g.w

neris wrote: »

Carlton Kirby the king of waffle

I actually like Kirby(I must be the only one tho)

lawrencesummers

Two points for sam, and none for Sagan it looks like

Inquitus

lawrencesummers wrote: »

Two points for sam, and none for Sagan it looks like

Aye Sagan's lead down to 7, and a couple of sprinters stages in the middle of next week!

eeeee

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

Totally forgot about Van Arte's accident on the time trail last year...maybe my Brian decided to forget, due to how bad it was

Great to see him back so strong again, it was an awful crash and injury.

c.p.w.g.w

eeeee wrote: »

Great to see him back so strong again, it was an awful crash and injury.

Seeing the replay there with Wiggins, my stomach felt sick, remember watching that stage* in work on the phone last year

*In fact watched all grand tours on my phone in work while I worked there:p

retalivity

Nizzolo abandons.
One less sprinting adversary for Sam.

MPFGLB

retalivity wrote: »

Nizzolo abandons.
One less sprinting adversary for Sam.

Sam only adversary is getting over the mountains in the 3rd week ..he does that and he will win green

lawrencesummers

“Nil aon thoin tinn mar do thoin tinn fein”

Classic.

MPFGLB

lawrencesummers wrote: »

“Nil aon thoin tinn mar do thoin tinn fein”

Classic.

Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin.
Sorry had to correct that

Wonder what they were alluding to? Seems rather random for Tour coverage

retalivity

"No sore ass like your own sore ass"
A clever bit of word play is how I read it...