Indholdsfortegnelse for Tour 2019 i Cycling Weekly

THE WAY Geraint Thomas won the Tour last year — masterfully and without a single mistake — you could be forgiven for thinking that the assured welshman was on his third or fourth Tour win. Not so. his best placings before 2018 were twice 15th overall in 2015 and 2016. Before 2018 he had not come near winning a three-week Grand Tour. Thomas was always admired as a rider of immense class who had either buried himself in the service of others (Froome, wiggins) or had suffered from crashes and off-days in the high mountains in Grand Tours. At 32 he started last year’s Tour with top six a realistic target. as with any Tour winner, coming into the race in the best form of your life is not always…

Adam Yates Team Mitchelton-Scott Age 26 2018 TdF 29th overall T19 ⋆⋆⋆⋆ NO MOMENT SUMS up Adam Yates’s 2018 tour de France better than the instant his bike slipped away from him on a damp corner as he was leading the race down the fast and technical descent off the Col de Portillon, with the stage win in Luchon seemingly his for the taking. Before the Lancastrian had even started to pick himself up off the tarmac, Julian Alaphilippe barrelled past him, the Frenchman hurtling to a second stage win and leaving Yates to contemplate what might have been towards the end of a race where his goal of a high overall finish had already long since gone. Fourth overall and best young rider in 2016, Yates had seen his…

Cavendish Team Dimension Data Age 34 2018 TdF DNF T19 ⋆⋆ ANYONE WHO FOLLOWED the Tour de france last year will have noticed that something was not right with Mark Cavendish. expectations had been modest going into the race due to underwhelming form and an injury-interrupted start to the season, but even taking all this into account his performance was strikingly below par. He looked a shadow of his former self in the bunch sprints, failing to get involved whatsoever in the first few days before Labouring to a couple of top-10 finishes at the end of the opening week. Six weeks later, it suddenly became clear why Cavendish had struggled so much. The dimension data rider released a statement explaining how he had been diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus,…

There was a time not so long ago when fans from these shores tuning into the Tour de France would have been lucky to have any British riders to cheer for. When Bradley Wiggins made his debut in the 2006 edition, for instance, he was one of just two Brits to compete, along with David Millar. But now, surfing the wave of Wiggins’s famous 2012 triumph and the five additional yellow jerseys that followed courtesy of Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas, the peloton is bursting at the seams with quality British talent. Team Ineos (formerly Sky) have of course been instrumental in that development, and two of their stalwarts are again in the running for the 2019 line-up. Luke Rowe boasts a 100 per cent success rate having been present…

For anyone on the Tour de France, the roadbook is the only document that matters. It features everything you need to know about the race, from mountain profiles and dangerous roundabouts to hotel addresses, hospitals, car parks, and even a little bit of local culture. By the end of July it is little more than a tattered collection of paper barely held together by the wire binding, having been scribbled all over in biro, crammed into car door pockets, shoved into rucksacks and lobbed around the team bus for a month. This is your very own Tour roadbook. The following section contains everything you need to know about what’s coming up this July: key stage details, riders to watch, tactical analysis and the rich history of the roads of the…

Stage 3 | Monday, July 8 | 214km | Tour rating: ⋆⋆ | Rolling Binche › Epernay ROB SAYS… It’s not quite the mountains yet but the hills are here and King Julian Alaphilippe will want to come out to play. From humble beginnings and showing talent in cyclo-cross as a youngster, to becoming a fighter, an attacker and entertainer on the bike; even with a very special spring and a first Monument win already under his belt, he’ll want more. He will, however, have huge competition for the day’s champagne moment. Profile It’s a long way down for the Tour’s first uphill finish. The hot sun shimmering over the golden wheat fields will beckon the race south on stage three as La Grande Boucle enters its homeland for the…

Bunch sprints are not for the faint-hearted. Shoulders lean, elbows bash, occasionally heads butt and even the odd punch gets thrown. Few pack quite the punch like Nacer Bouhanni. Known in France as ‘the boxer’, the 28-year-old practised the noble art alongside cycling for much of his youth and still spends his offseasons training in the ring. A MIXED BUNCH Although the skills of the ring find a natural home in the high-speed, breathless rivalry of the bunch sprint finish, the pugnacious reputation of the feisty yet softly-spoken and shy man from Nancy has hindered the progression of one of the sport’s greatest talents. His 2013 Tour debut ended with illness the first week, and a falling out with his former team boss, FDJ’s Marc Madiot, saw Bouhanni join the…

Ever heard of a town called Etupes? You can be forgiven if you haven’t: it isn’t much more than a large village of a few thousand people down the road from the start of today’s stage in Belfort. But everybody in the world of cycling has heard of it. The lumpy roads of the ‘Pays de Montbéliard’ between the Vosges and the Jura mountain ranges are familiar to Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), Kenny Ellissonde (Team Ineos), Alexis Vuillermoz (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Warren Barguil (Arkea-Samsic), Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Petr Vakoc (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Guillaume Martin (Wanty Groupe-Gobert), Hugo Hofstetter (Cofidis) and more. CLIMBING THE RANKS All of them have spent one or more seasons at the town’s local club, CC Etupes, and in particular under the tutelage of the club’s former director Jérôme Gannat,…

Stage 10 will be the fourth stage over 200km in the 2019 Tour de France, with a further three to come. Only one other Tour in the last 10 years, the 2017 edition, has had so many long days; arguably by introducing short mountain stages the organisers have to make the distance up somewhere else in order to reach their target total of around 3,500km. 300 MILES Riders will no doubt curse the days they are required to spend more than five hours in the saddle, but they can console themselves that the organisation no longer deems it suitable for them to undertake the gargantuan feats of endurance that characterised the early editions of the Tour. Take this: the longest ever Tour stage was 100 years ago, the fifth stage…

Yellow is the colour of road cycling. It is the one colour that any self-respecting roadie thinks twice before going out in. It’s the colour that we look for in the Tour de France without even thinking. It all had to start somewhere. And it did, 100 years ago today, on July 13 in 1919. Frenchman Eugène Christophe was leading the Tour de France as the race was about to leave the Alpine city of Grenoble when its creator and organiser, Henri Desgrange, handed him the first ever yellow jersey. Legend goes that Desgrange, with two eyes on publicity and little concern for what his riders had to say, wanted the race leader to stand out. Christophe already wore a green armband but there were so few team sponsors in…

MISTY MOUNTAINS Storms and weather fronts barrel into the Pyrenees straight off the Atlantic. The moist air means that their mountain peaks are often shrouded in mists, and riders frequently have to climb through low-lying clouds before emerging into fierce blue skies at the top. Thunderstorms bubble up from the scorched, barren slopes of the south-facing Spanish side. Riders can sometimes face all four seasons in one afternoon. CRAZY PAVING The road climbs are generally at a much lower altitude than the Alps, but what they lack in height they make up for in character. Pyrenean climbs are notorious for their fickle gradients, steep surprises, and unpredictably choppy road surfaces. Even the most brilliant climbers struggle to dance to their irregular rhythm; anyone else is left struggling like an embarrassing…

Stage 16 | Tuesday, July 23 | 177km | Tour rating: ⋆ | Flat Nîmes › Nîmes ROB SAYS… A commentator’s dream, this stage. It should be the same hotel for two or three nights running and that means a chance to get some washing done! The cycling could be interesting, too. Which sprinters are still standing and how are the energy levels? Unless there’s one of those crazy chases to grab green jersey points, it should be an opportunity to avoid post rest-day hiccups by staying in the bunch and letting the fastmen take some glory. Profile What better way to round off an extended stay in Nîmes than with a sprint finish. With three nights in the ancient Roman city, one of which being a rest day, riders…

When today’s stage zooms across the finish line, a large proportion of the peloton will feel their hearts sink. They are the sprinters and their big, powerful team-mates. They are just a matter of days away from the Champs Elysées and the chance to sprint for that most glorious of Tour de France stage wins, but standing between them are three enormous mountain stages and three fights to make the time cut, a certain percentage of the stage winner’s time. Cross the line after that limit and they are eliminated. HUNTERS BECOME THE HUNTED To survive in such terrain there is safety in numbers. The gruppetto is the Italian term for the little group of riders who find themselves drawn together, though the French call it the ‘autobus’. Bitter rivals…

TOUR FACT Michael Rasmussen is the only rider to win a Tour stage in Tignes, doing so in 2007 Stage 19 | Friday, July 26 | 123km | Tour rating: ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ | Mountains Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne › Tignes ROB SAYS… Don’t leave your climbing legs on the bus before this stage! It’s short, mostly uphill and takes on the Alps’ highestpaved pass. The GC situation will dictate whether a group is allowed up the road or it’s another of those full-gas days from start to finish. Altitude is a key here, so those who don’t react well may be in trouble. Profile Imagine the stage profile of a medium mountain transition stage. Now cut off the first half and tilt the whole lot at an angle so that it’s higher at the…

Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) The real deal. Bernal smashed his debut Tour last year as a 21-year-old super domestique wunderkind for Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome. A full leadership role at this year’s Giro has been hampered by injury. Miguel Angel López (Astana) Third in the Giro and then third in the Vuelta last season, the 25-year-old climbing specialist is an aggressive rider who would thrive on a mountain-heavy Tour route. Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott) The pocket rocket with a big smile has struggled to replicate his stellar 2016 season, where he missed out on the Giro d’Italia title by a whisker. At 29 years, the self-confessed Italophile has yet to put in a decent performance in the Tour. Iván Sosa (Team Ineos) A good friend of Egan Bernal, Sosa was…

Exclusive competition courtesy of This Tour de France yellow jersey was personally signed by Geraint Thomas in Oxford on September 12, 2018 in a private signing session for Exclusive Memorabilia. You will also receive a certificate of authenticity, which includes the details of the signing session, a photo of ‘G’ signing one of the product line and a numbered hologram that matches an identical hologram affixed to the jersey. The 2018 Tour de France champion took the prestigious yellow jersey with a stage 11 win and extended his lead by winning stage 12 in a sprint finish atop Alpe d’Huez ahead of Tom Dumoulin and Chris Froome. He retained the lead for the remainder of the event and became the first Welshman, and the third British cyclist after Bradley Wiggins…

TDF19: dumoulin for the podium and a stage win, Matthews for stages and the green jersey Sunweb’S aStoniShing 2017 tour in which they racked up three stage wins as well as overall victories in the points and mountains classifications was going to be hard to repeat in 2018 and sure enough, they came away with a single stage and second overall. good enough for most teams but for tom Dumoulin it was his second runner-up gC place of the year and the team missed Michael Matthews after he withdrew from the race early on with food poisoning. Dumoulin had targeted the tour of italy last year after winning it in 2017 but he and the other gC favourites were ambushed by Chris Froome’s incredible stage19 solo which catapulted him into…

106th Tour overview After the race Grand Départ in Belgium which consists of a flat stage and team time trial, the Tour heads into northern France for week one’s sprint and explosive climbing stages. On Wednesday in the first week comes the first proper GC test in the Vosges mountains. From there the race journeys south through the Massif Central and into the Pyrenees. Here riders will face an individual time trial and two mountain stages, including a finish at the top of the Tourmalet at the end of week two. The race then transfers across a chink of the south where it resumes in Nîmes, before working its way to a final showdown in the Alps. The survivors will then face the final crucial stages, with three tough mountain…

Froome Team Team Ineos Age 34 2018 TdF Third overall T19 ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ AMONG THE questions that are asked of tour de France contenders, one is, eventually, common to every single one of them: are they too old to challenge for the yellow jersey? During the first part of this season, Chris Froome’s performances have suggested that his reign as the race’s apex predator is coming to its end. he was off the pace of his rivals, so far off it in fact that the gulf appeared almost impossible to bridge. At the tour of Catalonia at the end of march, his deficits on the key days in the mountains were multiple minutes rather than mere seconds, and he revealed that he was contemplating adding extra races to his programme to…

Bardet Team Ag2r La Mondiale Age 28 2018 TdF Sixth overall T19 ⋆⋆⋆⋆ IT IS NOW 34 years since Bernard Hinault rode into Paris to claim the yellow jersey, his fifth triumph the last by a home rider at the tour de France. It is an astonishing statistic given that French riders have claimed 36 overall victories, including eight in the 10 years before the Breton’s 1985 success. the reasons for the drought are many, but going into the 2019 edition the solution to it appears to rest on the narrow shoulders of one man, Romain Bardet. Fifteenth on his debut appearance in 2013, the 28-year-old who hails from the Auvergne region in central France, has finished inside the top 10 in every tour since that promising start. Initially overshadowed…

THERE’S ONE OBVIOUS question about Dan Martin: how high would he go if he could survive all three weeks of the Tour de France without suffering a crash that leaves him nursing significant wounds? undoubtedly a member of the Grand Tour GC hierarchy, in recent seasons the irishman has appeared on the verge of a stellar performance at the Tour de France, only to get waylaid by bad luck that wasn’t at all of his own making. In 2017, his final year with Quick step, Martin finished a career-best sixth overall despite sustaining two fractured vertebrae in the sickening crash on the descent from the Mont du Chat that put richie Porte out of the race and left the irishman unable to get out of the saddle climbing. Last year,…

Alaphilippe Team Deceuninck-Quick Step Age 26 2018 TdF 33rd overall, two stage wins T19 ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ MARCH’S STRADE Bianche said much about the extent of Julian Alaphilippe’s ability, which has led to comparisons with Italy’s two-time world champion Paolo Bettini. despite making his debut in the beautiful race over the rolling hills of tuscany, the 26-year-old Frenchman was almost everyone’s favourite for the title. he acknowledged his explosive power on steep ramps would give him a significant edge on his rivals on the final climb up towards the finish in the heart of siena, and marshalled his key opponents perfectly, firstly with the assistance of his Deceuninck-Quick step team-mates, notably Yves Lampaert and Zdenek stybar, then moving himself when astana’s Jakob Fuglsang attacked late on, the pair…

It is extraordinary to think that raymond Poulidor never wore the Tour’s yellow jersey despite finishing on the race podium a record eight times. The litany of near-misses that were the result of bad luck or poor tactics led to the term poulidorien entering the French language to describe someone who never managed to get quite to the top of their particular hierarchy. Although the Frenchman didn’t don the yellow jersey at the Tour, he did get his hands on one on three different occasions. He was presented with one by long-standing rival Jacques Anquetil (left, in yellow with Poulidor behind) in 1969 after the two men had spent the evening together. He also featured in an advert for Samaritaine in which he starred; he is seen looking for one…

1 Know how to switch off “When you get that time to switch off, really try to switch off. I think a phone is a big part of that, after the race not spending too much time on your phone. Take yourself out of the bubble.” 2 Own your mistakes “From time to time you’re gonna make a bad call and you’ve gotta say, ‘I hold my hand up boys, I said to do something and it went the wrong way and it messed up’. We all make mistakes, live and learn. As long as most of the time it comes off, I think that’s how you get the respect and people start to listen to you.” 3 Do your homework “You’re constantly kind of thinking. You go to bed…

In the years since a certain disgraced Texan bowed out of the sport, a void has been left in American cycling that no one has been able to fill. From Tom Danielson to Tejay van Garderen, many have been touted as the next big thing only to flatter to deceive, and the fact remains that no American has legitimately finished on the podium in the time since those revoked overall victories from he-who-must-not-be-named between 1999-2005. However, hope lives on in a new generation of riders. Last summer, an exuberant 23-year-old named Sepp Kuss (above) caused quite a stir by dominating the Tour of utah, one of America’s most prestigious stage races, from start to finish, winning three mountain stages and the overall classification. Could he one day become the first…

As this year’s Tour passes through the charming countryside of northern France, it is worth bearing in mind quite how different things were when the Tour visited this region 100 years ago. The 1919 race was the first to take place after the First World War, and it has gone down in history as both the slowest ever Tour and the race with the fewest finishers. Just 10 riders registered on the final classification after eighth placed Paul Duboc had been disqualified when it emerged he had borrowed a car to drive his broken bike to a mechanic. FALLEN HEROES This outcome wasn’t just down to the abysmal state of France’s war-torn road network. Three former winners — Octave Lapize, Francois Faber and Lucien Petit-Breton — had died in the…

La Planche des Belles Filles is the Scotch Bonnet of Tour de France mountains. It may only be little — just seven kilometres long — but it packs one mighty punch. Even after just three appearances in the race, all of them in the last seven years, riders know well to treat this place with respect. Located deep in the lush, green back country of the Vosges, the climb is a high mountain in miniature. Its average gradient of 8.7 per cent disguises the presence of steep ramps well into doubledigits, and its peak altitude of just over 1,000m says nothing of the famous final kick to the Tour finish line that touches 25 per cent. This year, that brilliant television shot of riders seemingly emerging from the tarmac head-first…

With every passing year, memories of a French rider standing on the top step of the podium in Paris grow a little fainter. Thirty-four years have passed since Bernard Hinault won the Tour de France. A French rider hasn’t even worn the yellow jersey at all since 2014. There’s no easy explanation for the decline in French fortunes in the Tour. They were arguably outgunned in the pharmaceutical arms race of the 1990s and 2000s, and the inherent conservatism of a dyed-in-the-wool cycling nation meant that French riders and teams were slower to embrace the new thinking around training and technology brought in by the Anglo-Saxons into the noughties. Barring Jean-Christophe Péraud and Thibaut Pinot taking second and third behind Vincenzo Nibali in 2014, modern French success has been restricted…

Stage 11 | Wednesday, July 17 | 167km | Tour rating: ⋆ | Flat Albi › Toulouse ROB SAYS… Part of the battle in a Grand Tour is managing to stay fit and healthy, and as we’ve seen down the years, not every athlete’s body always reacts well to a rest day. The mental break and a coffee ride will have done other riders the power of good. With a hugely important week coming up, GC contenders will be happy to leave stage 11 to the sprinters, who should come out on top in Toulouse. Profile The peloton is gently eased back into the Tour after the first rest day with a meandering sprint stage through the Tarn. Although far from flat, the terrain begins to soften after the short,…

Today’s stage skirts past Lac de Payolle, where the inflatable arch marking the flamme rouge — or one kilometre to go point — collapsed on Adam Yates in the 2016 Tour as he made a late attack. It wasn’t the first time the Tour has come a-cropper thanks to unlikely incidents, and it certainly won’t be the last. HAIL TO THE BUS DRIVER The opening stage of the 2013 Tour almost ended in catastrophe when the team bus belonging to orica-GreenEdge wedged itself under the finish gantry in Bastia, Corsica. With the bunch blistering along the coast, organisers frantically raised the barrier as much as they could, deflated the bus’s tyres, and scraped it under in the nick of time. SERGEANT PEPPER SPRAY There’s nothing quite so French as a…

They are the riders who probably get the most televisual air time of the whole bunch. Their names are some of the first that managers put down on the team sheet. Their role is one of the most important in the race. Yet they will never win the Tour de France. They probably won’t win a stage. You might not have even heard their names! COOL AND CALCULATED They are the breakaway hunters, and they will be back at work again on today’s stage. Generally belonging to sprinters’ teams, they are the riders charged with keeping the break within reach of the peloton, calculating how much time they can reasonably allow it to gain and how quickly they ought to reel it back in. In practical terms, the job they…

After taking over the reins of the race in 2007, it didn’t take long for the Tour’s current boss Christian Prudhomme to conclude that the long-distance slogs of the 80s and 90s belonged in a bygone era. Today’s modern heroes would not need to become the chemically turbo-charged superhumans of the previous generation. Racing could be condensed into less than 150km, with all the action of a traditional mountain stage jam-packed into a smaller, more viewer-friendly package of non-stop entertainment. ACTION-PACKED BURN-UPS The first true stage to test the new mould took place in 2011, a 109.5km race from Modane to Alpe d’Huez via the Col du Galibier. Alberto Contador attacked with just 16km gone, setting off a relentless series of breaks and counter-attacks that finally concluded three hours later…

Many minutes after the winner crosses the line, today’s stage will decide the lanterne rouge of the 2019 Tour de France. Like the red lantern facing back from the final carriage of a goods train, the lanterne rouge marks the last rider of the race. Yet for the rider, the lanterne rouge is a mark of suffering, sacrifice and tenacity. The ‘winner’, if you can call them that, will undoubtedly have ridden in support of others. They may have deliberately lost time on certain stages once their job was done in order to save their efforts for the following day. They may have picked up an injury along the way, and there’s a good chance these days that they are riding their first ever Tour. When you think about it,…

TOUR FACT The Tour finished in Ville d’Avray (1903), at the Parc des Princes (1904-67) and the Velodrome de Vincennes (1968-74) Stage 21 | Sunday, July 28 | 127km | Tour rating: ⋆ | Flat Rambouillet › Paris-Champs-Elysées ROB SAYS… The End. Almost. Usual caveats applying, the race for the yellow jersey will be over. After the winner has had his Champagne on the way to town, the sprinters will then get their opportunity to taste the final sip of glory in Paris. The travelling circus will be tired and ready to rest. Time to enjoy that feeling of having ‘made it’. The day after Paris always feels bizarrely empty, but there will be all-round relief of having finished the Tour de France. Profile The most famous and prestigious of…

6 Number of British winners with Wiggins and Thomas on one and Froome with four 176 Riders in the 2019 race, eight per team, the second year the field has 22 riders less than before 8 Times the Col d’Iseran will have been climbed in the Tour after this July. At 2,770m it is the highest col in the 2019 Tour 1987 Stephen Roche became the first and so far only Irish winner of the Tour de France 1980 Last time a Dutchman, Joop Zoetemelk, won the Tour de France. Tom Dumoulin is the first Dutch favourite in many years 36 French winners of the Tour, which remains the record despite the last home win coming in 1985 thanks to Bernard Hinault 2 Countries visited by this year’s Tour: Belgium…

The door has been opened for Adam to prepare for the Tour TDF19: Top four overall and stage win for adam Yates with sprint stage win from Trentin TWO YEARS AGO young Colombian esteban Chaves was being hailed as a Colombian grand Tour contender. Illness and last year’s blow that he had been suffering from the debilitating epstein-Barr virus — similar to Mark Cavendish’s diagnosis — will downgrade expectations this July but if he is healthy the fans’ favourite should be climbing with the best. In the last two years, however, the yates brothers have gone from young pretenders to genuine grand Tour favourites. In the 2017 Tour simon yates finished in a strong seventh place overall and took the white jersey of best young rider. Twin brother adam was…

Dumoulin Team Sunweb Age 28 2018 TdF Second overall, one stage win T19 ⋆⋆⋆⋆ WE OFTEN CARRY preconceptions about the personality of a rider based on whatever their speciality is. Pure climbers are meant to be mysterious, sensitive introverts, happiest when riding alone amid the isolated landscape of the high mountains; sprinters are by necessity macho, brash and aggressive, characteristics that render them tough enough for the rough-and-tumble of a bunch finish; and time triallists are cold and calculating, fussy perfectionists who bring a logical approach to everything and are cautious never to take risks. Real individuals, of course, rarely fit so neatly into such stereotypes, as tom Dumoulin demonstrates. a specialist against the clock, who has over the past few years developed into one of the peloton’s leading Grand…

Sagan Team Bora-Hansgrohe Age 29 2018 TdF 1st overall points classification, 3 stage wins T19 ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ THE TOUR DE France has never quite been the same since an impudent, fun-loving 22-year-old called Peter Sagan showed up in 2012. It was one of the race’s all-time great debuts, in which the fresh-faced upstart sprinted his way to a hat-trick of opening week stage wins — each accompanied by an outlandish celebration, most memorably the ‘running man’ gesture — and went on to win the green jersey by a country mile. Fast forward seven years, and Sagan approaches the 2019 Tour poised to make history. Should he again defend his points classification title and win a seventh career green jersey, he will overtake Erik Zabel to become the outright record holder for…

Since Eugène Christophe became the first rider to wear the yellow jersey in 1919, another 284 riders have followed him, not including Lance Armstrong, who had his results stripped following his admission of doping, and Michel Pollentier, who was ejected from the 1976 race after he was found trying to cheat the drug-testing protocol having taken the lead at Alpe d’Huez. At the top of the list, inevitably, is Eddy Merckx, who led the Tour for a record 96 days, which included 111 appearances in the maillot jaune thanks to the large number of split stages that used to take place during his period of dominance. Bernard Hinault’s 75 days in yellow put him in second place in the all-time ranking behind the Belgian, with Miguel Indurain in third place…

In the world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Or, in the low countries, even a 100m-high hill can assume the place of a mountain. The Muur Van Geraardsbergen is the centrepiece of Flemish cycling. Although it is less than a mile away from the French-speaking region of Wallonia, the jagged cobblestones are a hallowed ground for Flandrians, a quasispiritual place wrapped in the local folklore and culture of this cycling-mad country. COBBLED CORRIDOR It is not for the faint hearted. It may climb just 68m in a kilometre from bottom to top, at an average of 6.8 per cent, but stats only tell half the story. The first portion through the town square is only a steady pre-amble to the narrow corridor of steep stones barely wide…

PROPER PREPARATION PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE Pacing, rotations, handling a time trial bike, communication: the TTT demands a broad range of skills and becoming proficient at it takes time and practise. The winning squad will have performed many training sessions — likely a mid-season TTT specific training camp — and honed their technique in warm-up races before the Tour. COMMUNICATION The hardest bit of the TTT is when a rider has to get back on to the back of the pace line when they have done their effort and peeled off the front. It’s vital that teams keep as many riders for as long as possible, so a winning team’s riders will all talk to each other (as best they can at 60kph) to ensure they stick together. SKINSUITS Clothing offers…

Stage 4 | Tuesday, July 9 | 215km | Tour rating: ⋆ | Flat Reims › Nancy ROB SAYS… I’m of the opinion that we’ve entered one of the most competitive eras in the history of sprinting. There are contenders aplenty, and the recent reduction in team sizes has meant messy, uncontrollable and unpredictable sprints so far this season. Dylan Groenewegen started the year the strongest, but Fernando Gaviria also showed good early form. What counts however, is July, so don’t count anybody out. Today will be one of many big battles. Profile It’s pan-flat and a sprint: pure and simple. From the shadow of the cathedral in Reims where the old kings of France were crowned, the Tour heads east towards the baroque city of Nancy and a reprise…

Everyone wants to wear the yellow jersey, so why don’t the overall contenders set off the fireworks today? Well, there are good reasons why a rider who wants to win the Tour in Paris wouldn’t necessarily want to take the race lead as early as stage five. TEAM WORK The team of the race leader is expected to ride at the front of the peloton and control the race. No problem for the likes of Team Sky; a big ask for their smaller rivals like EF or Ag2r, who could exhaust their leader’s team-mates before the tougher mountain stages begin. CLOTHING Yellow jersey sponsors Le Coq Sportif have put great eff ort into making the world’s most famous piece of cycling kit comparable to the custom-fitted clothing today’s Tour riders…

Stage 7 | Friday, July 12 | 230km | Tour rating: ⋆ | Flat Belfort › Chalon-sur-Saône ROB SAYS… A long day to digest the happenings in the Vosges, with plenty of commentary downtime to think about the state of the race seven days in. The bunch will be hoping for a similar afternoon as either enthusiastic riders put their hand up to show off the smaller teams’ jerseys on TV, or unlucky domestiques are chosen for the job. Behind the mic we’ll be talking about the region and (hopefully) keeping you all entertained. These are the days we spend the winter months researching for. Profile The sprinters get their reward for battling through the deeply unpleasant experience of stage six with another classic fast finish dished up on the…

Besides the rules and regulations of the sport’s governing body, the uCI, the Tour peloton is somewhat bound by a set of unwritten rules. NO ATTACKING IN PEE BREAKS Rule: It is highly unsporting to attack a rider while they have stopped to answer the call of nature. Get around it: Pretend not to have seen the rider pulling over to water the flowers and then say “that’s bike racing.” DON’T EXPLOIT MECHANICAL ERRORS Rule: Do not gain advantage from your rival’s puncture or dropped chain. Get around it: Claim you had started your attack before the rider had his mechanical, and then say “that’s bike racing.” SUPPORT YOUR LEADER Rule: Team-mates will willingly sacrifice their own chances by donating a wheel or bike to a team leader, or dropping…

Stage 10 | Monday, July 15 | 218km | Tour rating: ⋆⋆ | Rolling Saint-Flour › Albi ROB SAYS… At the route presentation, race organisers wondered aloud if this would end in a sprint or with a break taking the prize. One thing is certain, riders will know that a few difficult, smaller country roads await them. Teams don’t leave much to chance, nowadays. With reconnaissance of routes and roads being important, they’ll know what’s in front of them. Whoever does their homework has part of the battle already won. Today’s result depends on how much interest there is behind to bring back any group. Profile The final stage before the long-awaited rest day may look simple on paper, but in reality this transition stage will be anything but easy.…

RIDE Riders will go for a light recovery spin for a couple of hours to stop the body shutting down, to flush out any lactic acid and to rediscover the joy of riding a bike again. MEDIA The press pack descends on the team hotels like vultures, grabbing what they can from riders at press conferences or the odd doorstep interview. The yellow jersey wearer will be in high demand, and will usually have to pose for an awkward photo shoot. SLEEP ‘Don’t stand if you can sit, don’t sit if you can lie down’, goes the old moniker for optimum bike-race recovery. On the rest day, riders take it a step further: don’t be awake if you can sleep. EAT Riders will eat surprisingly little on a rest day.…

The highest paved pass in the French Pyrenees at 2,115m, if ever a climb were to sum up the Tour de France, it would be the Col du Tourmalet. The very name includes the word Tour, and although it derives from Gascon portmanteau meaning ‘the distance mountain’, in French it translates roughly as ‘bad trip’: pretty apt considering those first visits the race paid. It is the most ‘un-Pyrenean’ of Pyrenean climbs, an atypical high-altitude behemoth that combines the best of both the Alps and the Pyrenees. At times it is painfully ugly, at others it is stunningly beautiful. A vital bridge across the French side of the border, it passes through trees, fields, deep gorges and exposed mountain slopes. At the top the road flattens for a moment before…

It’s hard to believe that 30 years have passed since what is arguably the greatest Tour de France of all time. Three decades on, those eight seconds between winner and loser represent the lowest and most famous winning margin in the history of the race. After 3,285 kilometres and 22 stages, those eight seconds separated two men. Laurent Fignon, the insouciant, ponytailed Frenchman nicknamed ‘The Professor’, owing to his geeky steel-rimmed glasses; and Greg LeMond, a chisel-jawed American with a boyish charm like Marty McFly from Back to the Future. The two riders had been in and out of the yellow jersey throughout the race, never separated by more than 53 seconds. Joined by a cast including Gert-Jan Theunisse, Robert Millar, Charly Mottet, and future five-time Tour winner Miguel Indurain,…

Stage 17 | Wednesday, July 24 | 206km | Tour rating: ⋆⋆ | Rolling Pont-du-Gard › Gap ROB SAYS… Gap stages are the home to breakaways and unpredictable events. We’ll hope for more drama this year, and while we wait, there’s a chance to go back to YouTube to watch that Lance Armstrong ride through a field. The profile suggests a chance to attack leaving a small group to come to the finish, but this is the third week of the Tour and this is Gap… anything could happen. Profile Today could easily lull the riders into a false sense of security. When the peloton heads north-east from the Rhone Valley it generally means one thing; Mont Ventoux. This time however the Tour will ride under the shadow of the…

The French have their own idiomatic way of talking about cycling, known as ‘le jargon.’ Impress (or confuse) your friends with the following phrases CHASSE PATATE Translation: A potato hunt Meaning: A futile task or a pointless attempt to achieve the impossible, such as attacking your breakaway companions shortly before getting caught by the rampaging peloton. UNE JOURNEE SANS Translation: A day without Meaning: one of those inexplicable off-days without a particular cause or explanation, leading riders to concede time. Familiar to fans of richie Porte. PEDALER AVEC LES OREILLES Translation: To pedal with your ears Meaning: To ride in an ugly and ungainly manner, as if the riders’ ears are attached to the cranks. Familiar to fans of Chris Froome. DES FOURMIS DANS LES JAMBES Translation: Ants in the…

These days you’re most likely to see the yellow jersey cross the line in Paris a good half a minute after the hustle and bustle of the fight to be stage winner, with arms around his team-mates and a big smile across his face. But you try telling Bernard Hinault to stay out of a scrap. In 1979 the unwritten truce in the general classification was thrown out of the window when Joop Zoetemelk, over three minutes down on the Frenchman in the overall standings, attacked on the final stage, hoping to claw back some time. Hinault followed, and the two raced together into Paris. ATTACK AT YOUR PERIL Racing sense dictates that all Hinault had to do was sit on the Dutchman’s wheel. But they didn’t christen Hinault ‘Le…

Last year Belgium’s most ruthless team won 73 races TDF19: Stage wins and polka-dot jersey for alaphilippe with Jungels for top 10 overall LAST YEAR BELGIUM’S most ruthless team won 73 times, the highest score by a single team for nearly 10 years. Not bad in a year when for many months the team’s future was in doubt. that can either motivate riders to raise their value if they have to jump ship, or it can result in the opposite as morale drops. Well Quick step, as it was last year, does not do bad morale. their top sprinter, Colombian tracer bullet Fernando gaviria, won two stages on his tour de France debut but was lured away from the team and must have signed for a healthy figure at uae…