Pithy Title: Exploring Stage 19

Well my friends, we're getting down to the last few days of this great thing we punish ourselves with sleep deprivation to enjoy.  Tomorrow's stage is a welcome flat stage, only one Cat 3 and one Cat 4 to speak of and at this point, I imagine the rider's laugh in the face of such hellingen.  The last chance for a breakaway... perhaps... but I'm thinking sprinters want to stretch those twitch-fibers one more time before doing it in front of frothing mad cycling hordes on the streets of Paris.

The stage is 165km long from Roanne to Montluçon .  There hasn't been any word on whether Wim Vansevenant will be asked to put out the red light in Rooooooanne.

Now it's not pancake flat... there are little bumps and bruises along the way.

Here is the first rated climb, the Cat.3: La Croix du Sud... 11k at 3.5% gradient.  I believe La Croix du Sud translates as "Lacrosse Beer"...

It ain't much of a descent... sort of an inverted false flat I suppose, but that drops you right off on to the massive slopes of the Cat.4 Côte de la Croix-Rouge a 1.4k climb averaging 6.4%... which I suppose is actually sort of a misery... I wouldn't want to commute over that by bike.  That said, I had to guess where to put the flag, everything sorta looks flat now compared to the stuff around Briançon.

And now, flatness Charlie Murphy... flatness.

Here is the official race profile from the Tour website... note the stunning lack of anything remotely resembling scale...

And the last kilometer you ask?  I'm gonna call it "The Robbie McEwen Flats"...

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