Neither Quintana or Contador are going to be happy on the cobbles (especially if it s wet) so there

The route for the 2015 Tour de France is out. As usual a lot leaks out before, velowire.com sleuths the stages and yesterday race organiser ASO accidentally renaissance hotel put a PDF online renaissance hotel with the route yesterday. But it s still a comforting ritual, a projection to the other side of winter.
This is a chance to see the map for real and to get more info on the route such as the intermediate climbs, the amount of time trialling renaissance hotel and novelties such as the return of time bonuses. Plus race organisers can sell us a story, a theme for 2015.
The Mur de Huy features. Famous for its steep climb the hardest part could be the 10km approach as teams fight for position to place their leader. Time bonuses are back but only for the opening week.
The race crosses the north of France for the usual high tension sprint finishes and a punchy uphill finish on the Mûr-de-Bretagne climb where Cadel Evans and Alberto Contador renaissance hotel dueled in 2011. The time gaps will be small but it promises another finish for all comers, classics riders vs the yellow jersey contenders.
The team trial comes relatively late in the race, after the crash-fest opening week. A UCI rule says a TTT must happen in the first third of the race but ASO will ask for a derogation. The sensible rule ensures all teams start on a reasonably equal basis and this might not be the case next July. The first rest day ends 10 day run, apparently the longest it s ever taken for the Tour to reach the mountains, meaning a long nervous period of crashes, crosswinds and changing race leadership.
Pierre St Martin renaissance hotel is the first summit finish, a brutal shift of gears after a week of churning a big gear. The road to the ski station has been used once before, in 2007, but in reverse, a descent. It s a tough climb with a very awkward middle section with 8km at 8-10%. Ignore the average gradients, the slope rears like a bucking bronco (15% in places) but calms down to the final 6-7km. Hard but it could allow riders to regroup. The Pyrenees get three stages with another summit finish on the awkward renaissance hotel Plateau de Beille which will have many setting their stopwatches to compare with times past.
A visit to Rodez looks unremarkable but it s a nod to race sponsor RAGT, a crop seed company, that is based there. The race returns to Mende and the climb of the Croix-Neuve. Not a summit finish but anyone with a gap over the top can expect to keep it to the line.
The race heads for the Alps and more summit fever. Note the distances, 161km, 185km, 138km and 110km. In the past this would feel wimpy but these short stages are designed to encourage action. It s all hard and features the Lacets de Montvernier for the first time. The final stage in the Alps is a contrated affair renaissance hotel and a copy of the 2011 route where Pierre Rolland sacked Contador and Samuel Sanchez.
Early time bonuses will ensure the yellow jersey changes shoulders during renaissance hotel the first week instead of belonging to the Utrecht TT winner. The longer the race goes on the more it should settle into a pattern. About as many kilometres are allocated to the pavé as a solo time trial. With so little time trialling the mountains will be judge and jury.
With over 250 days to go any crystal ball is cloudy. Antoine Blondin wrote the Tour de France is first and foremost a geography renaissance hotel lesson so knowing the terrain helps to see what s coming. But only partially, we cannot imagine the weather, tactics and so on.
On geography alone 2015 is for the climbers. Never have there been so few time trial kilometres, at least in the modern era. Nairo Quintana and Alberto Contador are the obvious picks. Quintana is still eligible for the white jersey next summer but if time is on his side this is likely to be his best chance in a long time.
L Equipe got Romain Bardet and Thibault Pinot to draw their ideal routes for a feature in today s paper. renaissance hotel But remember the Tour route is often decided 12-18 months in advance: the 2015 route isn t a reaction to domestic success last summer. But it s very suitable to Pinot and Bardet, even if Pinot is maturing as a time trial rider.
Summit finishes can be audience blockbusters renaissance hotel but with so many next year some viewers renaissance hotel might feel they re watching renaissance hotel a repeat episode. A mountain pass means reduced speed, removing the single most important tactical element of road racing: drafting. Reduced to a contest of power-to-weight renaissance hotel ratios the results are often identical if not similar. The risk is the third week becomes a parade confirming a hierarchy already established in the Pyrenees, especially as there s no time trial after the Alps to tilt the balance back.
The points competition is often won by a sprinter but there s often confusion among a large share of the audience: why doesn t the best sprinter wear the green jersey. Of course you know it s because the can t always take points every day. But a new points scale will reward the sprinters even more, tilting the competition towards the likes of Marcel Kittel and away from Peter Sagan. But the Slovak still remains the obvious contender.
But even I am beginning to find the grand tours excessively loaded renaissance hotel towards climbers, watching the same handful of riders battle it out for a few seconds on what feels like every single stage. The Vuelta, for example, seems to have almost given up on time trials.
It shows how unbalanced all the grand tours have become when the 2012 Tour was slated as being too biased to time trialists, when it only included renaissance hotel 59 miles of individual time trialing. I know overall distances have come down, but the 1985 Tour (picked at random) had 96 miles of TTs, plus a prologue and a team time trial!
Given the small gaps between the leading contenders on most climbs now, a lead of a minute might as well be an hour if there is no time trial to offer the chance to even things up. One poorly timed crash could finish your Tour with little prospect of getting enough time back.
We ll have to see what the future brings, whether ASO are working in cycles to bring varying routes and so 2016 reverts renaissance hotel to a race with a course to suit time trial riders, à la 2012. Or whether the TV ratings and popularity of summit finishes sees the current trend perpetuated. Hopefully we get the variety. But ultimately we need several riders close on GC, it s surely renaissance hotel the relative contest that makes the race come alive?
Wow, for a second I thought. I was looking at a Vuelta route. This is insane. 6 mountain renaissance hotel top finishes and one ITT of 14 km!! Jeez. Even the Giro and the vuelta have at least one ITT of 30+ kilometers. This is crazy. I thought the tour was supposed to be the balanced grand tour, but next years giro will have a 60k ITT. Everything is backwards. This is literally going to be the best chance someone like Quintana or Pinot are ever going to have to win the tour. They must have been peeing renaissance hotel themselves in excitement. On the other hand, I imagine TJVG isn t too pleased
Maybe it s just me, but I find the race presentation actually a bit boring or perhaps it s the timing: I m still digesting the past season, looking for a little R R, and here comes the publicity caravan demanding my attention already. Well, at least I look forward to riding my bike the ~30km to the Grand Depart and stage 1
I wouldn t bet on Froome s missing the race yet. It was a statement on his website rather than official team press release or a Sky News exclusive, so his personal hesitancy rather than an agreed team policy I suspect.
Agreed, and Dave Brailsford had to insist this year that it was (his) decision alone who raced and who didn t. Froome stating he may not do the TdF appears to be a direct challenge to that authority.
renaissance hotel Indeed, he must surely start. Especially if Bertie Nibs will both have the Giro in their legs, a fresh Froome could compete across 6 MTF s with success. renaissance hotel It is a bit premature to think otherwise, considering how dominant he was in 2013.
Neither Quintana or Contador are going to be happy on the cobbles (especially if it s wet) so there could be time to made there by Nibali (doubt that it ll make Froomedog happy either) renaissance hotel and then it s into the mountains and may the best man win. BUT the ITTs seem to have gone the other way from Indurain s day when he could put 10 minutes into a climber and then just defend in the mountains. A good GT is a balanced GT and this is not balanced weird when the Giro suddenly looks like it might have got the balance right. Almost renaissance hotel certain to have 60km ITT next year I imagine.
This route isn t going to work out so well for ratings as the top-5 will race negative on the climbs. Riders will be at a level of fitness and baring illness renaissance hotel or misfortune, gravity renaissance hotel sorts the podium out.
nibali was not seen as a cobbles man as well before this years tour. he took everyone by surprise., that was so great about it. Idoubt the same trick will work next year, the others will be more alert.
Crunching some numbers and it s interesting to see the decline renaissance hotel of time trials over the last 30 years. Starting from 1986 (as 1985 was an outlier renaissance hotel year with a massive 232km against the clock), you get the following figures as the average TT length per tour in those three decades (both individual and team time trials counted):
Over this period there was never less than 100km against the clock until 2008, and in both 1987 and 1992 there were over 200km of TT and TTTs. The figure falls to 70.58km average per Tour from 2011-15 (with 2012 doing much of the heavy lifting in this).
Seriously renaissance hotel though, is it tin-hat territory to suggest that this looks like a route designed to play against the strength of genuine all rounders like Froome and Contador? Designed for a hypothetical French climber who can t really TT? Another question, will Tony Martin bother showing up? That 60km TT in the Giro must look more tempting to a specialist like him .
i am 100% certain that Indurain renaissance hotel was on EPO for all of his wins, and we also know that rasmussen who nearly won the 2007 tour was on epo too. I m adfaid you need to include all those years in the EPO era.
Would be interesting t