Once again there is no such thing as a “routine” day at the Tour de France. On paper today looked like a day for the sprinters. The climbs were early and the route leveled off heading into the finish. What the route didn’t account for was the howling winds that whipped up overnight causing vicious cross winds over the last 50 kilometers. Team Sky came to the front and caused a split in the peloton over the last 15 kilometers which caught Dan Martin, Alberto Contador, and Louis Meintjes behind the split. Martin and Meintjes mounted a furious chase but were never able to make it back to the front group. They would lose 30 seconds to Froome and the other GC leaders on the day. Contador fared even worse conceding a full minute to the leading group effectively ending any shot he had at climbing back into podium contention.
Michael Matthews would take the win and the 30 points in the Green Jersey classification. Matthews also took the intermediate sprint for 20 points and now trails Kittel by a score of 373-344. The group containing Kittel finished almost 10 minutes after the conclusion of the stage having been caught out on an early climb.
Stage 17 La Mure to Serre-Chevalier (183 km)
The race moves into the Alps on Stage 17 with a brutal day that contains four categorized climbs including Tour favorites the HC Col de la Croix de Fer (24 km @ 5.4%) and Col du Galibier (17.7 km @ 6.9%). This is the first appearance in the Tour for the Galibier since 2011.
The top 4 riders in the Tour are separated by 29 seconds so I expect the race to be aggressive from the beginning. There will be a large breakaway and depending on who is in the group the winner will most likely come from there. The main contenders will try to hit each other on the Galibier however with a 28 kilometer downhill finish there probably won’t be large time gaps.
Bardet and Aru need to try to get time on Froome if they are able. Froome will beat both of these riders by at least a minute and a half on the time trial in Marseilles so they both must race as if they are 2 minutes or more behind. Uran is not as good of a time trialist as Froome but he won’t lose as much time as Bardet and Aru, he can afford to be a little more tactical in when he chooses to try to gain time.
What do you think will happen tomorrow? Will Bardet and Aru attack? Will Froome attack and ride away from the group with that funky descending tuck/pedaling thing he did last year?
Three Weeks in July 