2016 Tour de France

[scotty]

Now the tour for me kicks up a notch, fun as it is sometimes to watch bunch sprints this is a GC tour. 

[LONE TWO]

I know the total distance is 3500km but does anyone know what the total ascent is? why don't they let us know how much the guys climb each stage like they do in MTB?

['Dale]

One for the data geeks amongst us:

 

Power files from the PROs, Stage 1

 

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/power-analysis-2016-tour-de-france-week-1

[Mntboy]

Anyone else expecting to see Stuyven in the break to protect his polka dot jersey? As already said today is gonna be good!

 

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[tombeej]

Anyone else expecting to see Stuyven in the break to protect his polka dot jersey? As already said today is gonna be good!

 

Sent from my GT-S6790 using Tapatalk

 

Could be a good call, that.

 

Also I expect to see someone like Gallopin taking a flyer in a break today.

 

These 'medium mountain stages' are the most difficult to control by teams. Much more opportunity for a break of strong riders to get away - and stay away. Often the GC teams seem to actually prefer that - let some good guys who are not GC threats go off and fight for the stage, which takes the pressure off them a little bit. It allows them to focus on their rivals, leaving things to the finale to try and take a few seconds out of each other.

 

So as a result, these medium mountain stages tend to become 'two races within a race': (1) a select group in a strong, committed breakaway contesting the win, and (2) the GC guys forgoing stage honours to rather focus on sneaking a few critical bonus seconds from their rivals in some last minute attacks.

 

Reinforcing this scenario even more is that fact that none of the big GC names are carrying yellow today, which means none of these teams feel obligated to defend the jersey.

[tombeej]

Well that is the traditional script for these sort of stages, anyway. 

 

So there's another scenario that might happen: a GC guy who has lost a bit of time (e.g. Porte) to attack from further out. The thinking behind this being that the main rivals might not respond because they're still watching each other and still want to keep their powder dry for the 100% efforts they'll be needing in the last 1 - 2 km.

 

So someone like Porte might be seeing this as a great opportunity to gain back some time before the proper mountains, which is when the GC teams will be much more alert and tend to respond immediately to everything.

[Davey_Jones]

Anyone on this thread actually at LeTour at the moment?  Wife and I are planning to go check it out next year, well in between our tour de wine farm.

Need some pointers on how to plan a trip around it.

[tombeej]

Anyone else expecting to see Stuyven in the break to protect his polka dot jersey? As already said today is gonna be good!

 

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Also someone like Take-me-home-or-not who seems to specialise in the mountains jersey.

[Wil6]

I really hope Meintjies can pull off something today. He's betting odds is 400:1

[Benjamin]

One for the data geeks amongst us:

 

Power files from the PROs, Stage 1

 

 

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/power-analysis-2016-tour-de-france-week-1

NP of 300 for over 4 hrs on day 2. 20 min peak at 410 at the end of that. I know that's what these ous do for a living but that's hard work. Anyone here sat at 400 for 5 mins, never mind 20?????????????????

[tombeej]

Romain Bardet agrees with me on today's prediction

 

"In an interview with regional newspaper Le Populaire, he explained that he expected a long breakaway move to go the distance, with another battle being held amongst the GC-contenders." Here.

[tombeej]

Regarding the idea that someone like Porte might attack long to take back time:

 

From Cycling News: The Tasmanian knows that he will have to take back time if he wants to fight for overall success but explained that the four short climbs on the road to Le Lioran is not the day to do it.

 

"With the downhill finish, I don't think you're going to make up much time but it's still a hard finish. You've got to take the initiative sometime but I don't think tomorrow is it."

 

Mind games before the start? We'll soon find out... 

[Bonus]

Anyone on this thread actually at LeTour at the moment?  Wife and I are planning to go check it out next year, well in between our tour de wine farm.

Need some pointers on how to plan a trip around it.

I've done it several times over the years, and we now live in northern Spain, so it's easier for us to see it for a few days now :-)

 

PM me if you have any specific questions.

[HappyMartin]

I know the total distance is 3500km but does anyone know what the total ascent is? why don't they let us know how much the guys climb each stage like they do in MTB?

 4541m of climbing today. Thats what Tour Tracker tells me anyway. The info is available from various sources I suppose.

[Corrado]

What websites do you guys use for streaming?

[tombeej]

BBC Sports commentators yesterday. Good work keeping it going there