Date: Monday, July 14
Distance: 165km
Start location: Ennezat
Finish location: Mont-Dore
Start time: 13:10 CEST
Finish time: 17:25 CEST (approx.)
Normally, the second Monday of the Tour de France is designated a rest day, when the riders can (in between the obligatory training ride to keep the legs active) put their feet up and enjoy some well-earned recuperation after a hard week’s racing. Not this year. This Monday happens to fall on Bastille Day, the national holiday commemorating the storming of the Bastille prison during the French revolution, and an especially prestigious day for home riders to win a stage on. To avoid missing it this year, the organisers have pushed back the rest day to Tuesday, meaning the riders will be racing for a tenth successive day.
In fact, this is about as far from a rest day as you can imagine. This will be the first real climbing rest of the Tour so far, featuring an exhausting 4,450m vertical gain as they wind their way through the Massif Central. There are no less than eight categorised climbs on the menu, more than in any other stage of this year’s race, and it has been deemed the first ‘mountains’ stage of the Tour.
Is ‘mountainous’ really the right word, though? We’re in the Massif Central rather than the high mountain range of the Pyrenees, which a long transfer south during tomorrow’s rest day will bring the race towards, and the peaks here aren’t as high or as long as what's found there. The eight ascents today would better be described as hills, all but one of them ranked category two, and none lasting longer than 5.1km.
Regardless, it’s certainly hard enough parcours to draw the GC riders into a fight. The question is, where will the action kick off? The first four are too early, and will instead host the battle to get into the day’s break, which is likely to be a fierce one. French riders will want to get in it as it’s Bastille Day, King of the Mountains contenders as there’s lots of points on offer, and stage-hunters as it’s likely to survive to the finish, especially given that tired teams may need some persuading to chase on a day that was supposed to be a rest. There’s a reasonable chance the break still won’t have formed by the top of the fourth climb, the Côte de Berzet, which comes 78km into the stage.
The GC teams might start thinking about applying the pressure come the next two climbs, the Col de Guery and Col de la Croix Morand, but these are still some way out for attacks, while the 5.7% slopes of the latter (the only climb given the lower category three designation) are relatively benign. Instead, the 6.4% slopes of the 5.1km Col de la Croix Saint Robert crested 10km from the finish might be where the GC moves are made; or, if they’re feeling conservative, they may wait until the uphill finish at Puy de Sancy. At only 3.3km you can’t really call this a mountain top finish, but the average gradient of 8% is still enough to cause selections and time gaps, and give us the clearest indication yet of who’s climbing best among the yellow jersey contenders.
Contenders
Yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) enters the day as the favourite. The Slovenian thrives on summit finishes like this, where his explosive acceleration can tear apart rivals in the final kilometres. With a strong UAE team likely not to give the breakaway much of a lead. But will the lose of João Almeida on stage nine affect the way the team approaches the race?
However, the last time the Tour visited the Massif Central, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) took a surprise stage win so can't be discounted. Likewise, the man currently second on GC, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quickstep) could challenge. On the other hand, if the pace ramps up too early, he may find himself in damage-limitation mode.
Behind the main GC trio, Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL), Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Matteo Jorgenson (Visma), Florian Lipowitz and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) will all look to contend but will have to do so from the peloton as they would unlikely to be allowed in the break.
The breakaway riders have a good chance on the stage. The only breakaway win so far went to Ben Healy (EF Education–EasyPost) and the Irishman could claim victory again.
As it will be Bastille Day, there won't be a shortage of French riders looking to get into the breakaway, riders like Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor Pro Cycling), Valentin Madouas and Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ), and Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team). Other capable climbers riders lower down the GC like Ben O'Connor (Team Jayco Alula), Guillaume Martin (Groupama-FDJ) and Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) may also try to get into the break.
Prediction
We think the breakaway won't get enough of a gap and Tadej Pogačar will claim his third stage of this year's race.
