The Daily Race: Tour de France Stage 12

… with someone trying to take KoM points and drop off before the ascent of the Montée Laurent Jalabert.

The winner could be a rider from that breakaway who soloes up the final ascent.

That scenario eliminates anyone who is less than, say, 10 minutes down on GC, so no one like Evans or Vino wins if this plays out, but someone 5-10 minutes down on GC could win from a group of race leaders if they pop out of the group 1 or 2 km from the finish.

locals near the start organized an unofficial “Etape du Tour” that replicated this stage. Not a race but more a social ride for a few hundred people.

Two friends that rode it (and who can really ride) said that it’s pretty hard and involves some rolling stuff that adds up but doesn’t appear as classified climbs.

With any luck, this may end up a very exciting stage.

Back in March the finish was directly at the top of climb. Tomorrow there are two kilometers afterwards that are more or less flat, gaps can be closed.

announces via twitter he’s had enough:

Cette étape facile ne m’as pas permi de récupèré.En concertation avec le staff,mon TDF s’arrête .Bonne chance aux copains et merci a tous.

I’d picked Sammy specifically for a routine stage win at some point, so doubtless it’s my VDS jinx all over again. :-(

First, its fun looking at the Paris-Nice Mende stage for contrast: so freakin’ cold! And tomorrow, so freakin’ hot!

Also, depending on who are the first to the top, we could see some time gaps hold to the finish line, especially if the first guys are good time trialists. My weird logic suggests that if a rider gets to the top first and among the first, they will have more energy left for the long dash to the line and might even increase the time gaps at the top of the climb. The riders coming up 30 seconds or a minute later or even 15 seconds will be just plain exhausted. And then they have to rev up their time trialing muscles? Tough.

Plus when the GC boys hit the climb, they will have little if any quality domestique help. The domestiques will already have worked so hard over the earlier part of the stage and when the climb hits 10% they will drop back quickly. It will be this sudden change: going through the town (where there will be intense jockeying for position (Carlos Sastre! Paging Carlos Sastre! Get you ass up to the front NOW!) and the early part of the climb there will be various other riders/pretenders near the front. But that 10% will almost instantly shed dozens leaving the few left.

There will be blood.

I feel sure that if I go for the whole stage the law of sod wil come into play and it’ll be a snoozefest.