The route for the 2020 Tour de France was unveiled on Tuesday, and is being described as a TT-light affair that will suit the pure climbers. The route starts with a bang, taking in the steep, sinuous roads outside of Nice, with two 15km climbs (and descents) on stage two. The rest of the race is full of steep summit finishes and other features that reward aggressive riders ready to seize the moment and stands in direct opposition to the plodding, measured style that Team Ineos/Chris Froome/Geraint Thomas have employed to win seven out of the past eight editions.

The reaction that 2020 is one for the climbers is somewhat accurate, as the race features a stunning ten mountain stages, with a record six summit finishes, only one 36km individual time trial, along with a mere three truly flat stages. Also, as in 2019, there will be time bonuses at the finish and on select penultimate climbs. These components will combine to create a race that favors riders who can climb with the best, handle technical descents, make split-second decisions on the road.

But make no mistake, the 2020 Tour will be decided by the 36km individual time trial on the penultimate stage.

On the surface, a single, 36km TT seems paltry. But by the numbers, this is the most ITT heavy route since 2017 (with that edition only having .5km kilometers than 2020). In fact, 2020 has 50% more solo time trial kilometers than in 2019 and 276% more than in 2015.

While the stage 20 TT finishes on the brutally steep La Planche des Belle Filles (5.9km at 8.5%), it still delivers 30km of time trialing on rolling roads, which is more kilometers of individual time trialing than the total amount in the 2019 route. Even with the inclusion of the finishing climb, the scales should tilt in favor of Tom Dumoulin, Primož Roglič, Geraint Thomas and a healthy Chris Froome. These powerhouse riders have proven they can outclimb the pure climbers in time trials. This is supported by Roglič’s win at 2019 Giro’s opening stage that finished on the steep climb to Madonna of San Luca in Bologna, Froome and Dumoulin finishing 1st and 2nd at the 2016 Tour de France climbing TT on stage 18 and Dumoulin, Roglič and Froome going 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at the 2017 TT World Championships, which finished with a 3.5km climb and an average gradient of 9.1%.

In year’s past, Dumoulin has voiced his displeasure with the Tour de France’s TT-light routes and opted instead to focus on the Giro d’Italia. However, as long as Christian Prudhomme is race director, he won’t get his desired ITT-heavy route. 2020 is one of the most ITT heavy routes in years, and Dumoulin will have to make a race-winning difference in 36 kilometers if he wants to be a Tour de France winner. Frankly, if you can’t put a significant amount of time into your rivals in 30kms of flat and 6kms of climbing in a time trial, you don’t deserve to win the race.

As we’ve seen in recent years at the Tour de France, riders simply struggle to put major time into each other in the mountains and riders tend to make each other more closely the fewer TT kilometers there are later in the race to make back time. It seems that the fewer TTs there are in the race, the more closely marked the ‘climbers’ are, and thus, the time differences are made in the small number of TTs kilometers remaining. Not to mention that at their fittest and lightest, the time trialists turned grand tour machines like Dumoulin, Thomas, Froome and Roglič can ride such a high tempo on the climbs that no pure climber can get significant gaps. This is how Dumoulin won the mountainous 2017 Giro d’Italia and Roglič won the recent Vuelta a Espana, which featured an incredibly hard route and only 36kms of individual time trials.

If this trend holds true, the climbers would be wise to bank some major hours on their TT bikes and the time trialist shouldn’t throw in the towel just yet because it is very likely that victory will be decided or sealed against the clock on Stage 20.

 

 

 

As the Tour de France heads into the final week, the race is as wide open as we’ve seen in recent memory. Six riders are clustered within 2:14 of the lead, which is astonishing in a race where the winner has been all but decided by the second rest day.

Endless questions hang over the third week, like what the hell happened to Team Ineos(Sky), who is the leader at Ineos, and most importantly, who will emerge as the race winner by this time next week?

While Julien Alaphilippe currently holds a hardy 1:35 lead over Geraint Thomas, he isn’t a proven elite climber over the highest Alpine passes. With world-class climbers like Egan Bernal and Thibaut Pinot and powerful diesel-engines like Geraint Thomas and Steven Kruijswijk all within 2 minutes, his lead appears tenuous with three brutal days in the alps, featuring horrid climbs like the Izoard and Galibier, still to go.

To help visual the direction each contender is trending, I laid out the gap each one had to Alaphilippe following the first true mountain stage on Saturday’s along with the gaps facing them after Sunday’s Stage 15, along with the pros and cons for each rider’s chance at overall victory.

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Egan Bernal

• Following Stage 14:
  3 minutes down on Julien Alaphilippe
  46 seconds down on Kruijswijk
  58 seconds on Geraint Thomas
• Following Stage 15:
  2 minutes 2 seconds down on Julien Alaphilippe
  15 seconds down on Kruijswijk
  27 seconds on Geraint Thomas

Pros: Has to be considered one of the best climbers in the race just as we head into three difficult and high days in the Alps. Looked strong in the finale of today’s stage. He is a better climber than the three riders in front of him on GC.

Cons: Completely unproven in a leadership role in the third week of a grand tour. Was gapped by Thibaut Pinot in the last few hundred meters of today’s stage.

Steven Kruijswijk

• Following Stage 14:
  2 minutes 14 seconds behind Alaphilippe
  12 seconds down on Thomas
• Following Stage 15:
  1 minute 47 seconds behind Alaphilippe
  12 seconds down on Thomas

Pros: Incredibly consistent rider. Tends to not go too deep and his fifth place at last year’s race shows a proven history of riding strong in the third week.

Cons: Had to ask George Bennett to slow down in the final few kilometers of Saturday’s stage. History of the third-week crash and time loss in the 2016 Giro still hangs over him.

Geraint Thomas

• Following Stage 14:
  2 minutes 2 seconds behind Julien Alaphilippe
• Following Stage 15:
  1 minute 35 seconds behind Julien Alaphilippe

Pros: As things currently stand, Thomas is the main benefactor of an Alaphilippe collapse in the high mountains.

Cons: He appears to at less than his best and has lost significant time in the last two mountain stages. Currently in an open war-of-words with co-leader Egan Bernal.

Thibaut Pinot

• Following Stage 14:
  3 minutes 12 seconds behind Alaphilippe
  1 minute 10 seconds behind Geraint Thomas
  58 seconds behind Steven Kruijswijk
  12 seconds behind Egan Bernal
• Following Stage 15:
  1 minute 50 seconds behind Alaphilippe
  15 seconds behind Geraint Thomas
  3 seconds behind Steven Kruijswijk
  12 seconds ahead of Egan Bernal

Pros: Appears to be the strongest rider/climber in the race. If Alaphilippe cracks, Pinot has an extremely manageable amount of time to make up on the riders currently in front of him and his punchy nature makes him the most likely to nab precious time bonuses.

Cons: Lost time in the crosswinds on stage 10. Has a history of inconsistent performances late in grand tours. Claims to struggle in the heat with a major heatwave rolling through France for the final few stages.

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The first thing that jumps out is how extremely tight the race is behind Alaphilippe. Pinot is only 3 seconds behind Kruijswijk, 15 seconds behind Thomas with Bernal only 12 seconds behind him. This means that if Alaphilippe slips and loses the lead, the Tour could very well be decided on finishing time bonuses on these final mountain stages. This has the potential to set up the most exciting final weekend since Lemond triumphed over Fignon by 8 seconds on the final stage in 1989.

The second trend that jumps out is just how quickly Pinot made up the time he lost in the crosswinds on stage 10. He nailed back 1 minute 41 seconds on Thomas in just two mountain stages by just being simply stronger than the rest when the race goes uphill.

The third is how Bernal is emerging as Ineos’ best shot at overall victory. The Colombian stumbled in the time trial, but has furiously eaten into that deficit and made up time on co-captain Thomas over the weekend.

When we look ahead at the profiles for the brutal final three alpine mountains stages (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), it is clear that climbing prowess will be key to riding into Paris in Yellow.

Many pundits have said that Ineos has to pick a leader and that Thomas is the safer choice, but I’m curious how they are coming to that conclusion. Thomas is hemorrhaging time in the mountains just as the race heads into the Alps. Meanwhile, his teammate who is only 27 seconds in arrears is clearly the superior climber. If I was forced to pick one, Bernal has to be considered the most likely to ride into Yellow in the Alps.

Another issue is the team’s mysterious case of missing form. While some have said it is simply not the Sky team of yore, they came to the Tour with the exact same support team in both 2018 and 2019 (subbing Dylan van Baarle for the injured Chris Froome in 2019). If they continue to lack their usual firepower, it will have major implications in the final few mountain stages where a team leader could be isolated from their team with 50km and an HC climb before the finish.

An entire team losing their mojo in 12 months is incredibly strange and something we’ll explore in more depth in a later feature.

Podium Prediction:
1st Pinot
2nd Bernal
3rd Kruijswijk

Since the 2019 Tour de France route was unveiled last week, speculation of who will benefit from the time trial-light course has been rampant. Two major narratives have emerged since the release of the course details. The first is that ASO has designed a course with minimal time trials and a preference for shorter, punchier climbs to benefit homegrown contenders like Romain Bardet and Thibaut Pinot. The second is that the arbiter of the race, Christian Prudhomme and ASO, are tired of watching Team Sky send out their formidable armada of word class riders to sit on the front of the peloton for three weeks with a pace that inevitably and methodically asphyxiates the competition.

ASO, a vestige of the old-school French cycling establishment, would certainly prefer a French winner of the national tour, and it is no secret that Sky’s stranglehold on the Tour since 2012 has stolen some of the race’s iconic luster. However, the assertion that ASO is tipping the scales in an attempt to foil the British squad has some major flaws.

The first major flaw in this argument is that if the French organization truly wanted to put the brakes on Sky’s dominance, they surely wouldn’t have included a 27km team time trial on the second stage. While Sky has never won a TTT at the Tour, the event has seen them solidify their GC leads whenever the discipline has been included in the route (2013, 2015, and 2018). Their collective team strength has seen them put time into their GC rivals and forced them into the unenviable position of chasing the world’s best stage race team with a deficit.

In theory, the event allows lesser time trialists like Bardet and Pinot to hide behind the collective strength of their teams and attempt to limit their losses. However, it is tailor-made to accentuate the team with the budget to afford the world’s biggest engines and makes it difficult for superior time trialist with weak teams, like Tom Dumoulin, to get an edge on the Sky leaders.

The second flaw in the theory is that, realistically, an anti-Sky route simply does not exist. When Chris Froome is on form, he is the best climber and time trialist in the world. To add to the team’s wide swath of dominance, at last year’s edition, his teammate Geraint Thomas proved himself to the strongest climber, while missing out on victory during the stage 20 time trial by a mere second. And even if their two veteran riders find themselves on the wrong side of their best performances come July, the team still has the young Colombian climbing sensation Egan Bernal. In short, Sky will likely show up to the 2019 Tour with riders that can potentially win over any and all terrain

Is an Anti-Sky Route Possible?

While there are riders that can challenge the Sky triumvirate of Thomas, Froome, and Bernal in the respective disciplines, nobody can match them as a combined force. If ASO substituted an individual time trial in place of the team time trial, hybrid time trialing/climbers like Tom Dumoulin could challenge Sky, but strong climbers with dubious TT pedigree like Quintana, Bardet and Pinot would hemorrhage time to Thomas and Froome before the race got to the mountains.

If ASO eliminated time trials from the route altogether, Thomas, Bernal, and Froome could outclimb the competition in the high mountains. Thomas won back-to-back mountain stages in the 2018 Tour, and looked like the strongest rider nearly every time the race tilted skyward. Even though age looks to be slowing him down, Froome would ritually slaughter every so-called climber on the opening mountain stage early in his reign, and his mountain ambush to win the 2018 Giro d’Italia on stage 19 proved he can still deliver knockout blows on the most demanding mountain stages. Bernal awed during the 2018 Tour with his ability to set a blistering tempo for an absurd amount of time up Alpe d’Huez, which prompted many pundits to anoint him the star of the future. Bernal wrestling team leadership away from his older teammates in 2019 would be a drastic departure from Sky’s familiar blueprint, but it wouldn’t be entirely shocking.

Since Sky’s top talent has proven to be the best at climbing and time trialing, while being competent in descending, tactical nous, dealing with the ‘chaos’ of the new, shorter mountain stages and winding roads of the rolling ‘trap’ stages, what route could ASO possibly serve up that could set them at a disadvantage?

Looming Issues in 2019

Even though Sky can’t be thwarted by a specific route, they do have a few major questions marks looming in 2019.

The defending Tour champion, Thomas, has spoken about inter-team tensions that arose during the race. For example, prior to the stage 3 team time trial, team directors informed Thomas that the team would not wait up if he flatted. This decision was made despite assurances that he would be a ‘protected’ rider going into the race. While he went on to win, these issues will arise once again at the 2019 Tour. While having two leaders can present an obvious advantage, it also doubles the odds of an ill-timed flat or mechanical derailing the team’s plans. For example, if Froome flats early on and Thomas is the closest rider, will he offer his bike to Froome as he did on stage 19 of the 2016 Tour, or will he ride on as Froome is left to wait for a spare from the team car? It is difficult to imagine a defending champion deferring leadership to a teammate, which means Sky will likely have to deal with the accommodating two full leaders from stage one.

The second major obstacle is the age of their top two riders. Froome will be 34 and Thomas 33 when the pair line up for the 2019 Tour. Winning a tour at this age is incredibly rare, with grand tour performances dropping off drastically after the age of 32 (Cadel Evans became the oldest rider to take a Tour title in the modern era when he won in 2011 at the age of 34). Also, once a ‘senior’ rider loses a Grand Tour, they almost never return to their winning form.

As Froome and Thomas find themselves on the downslope of their careers, Sky has the luxury of an insurance policy in Bernal. However, a nasty crash at the San Sebastian put him out of action for a few months, and his return at the late-season Il Lombardia saw him distanced on the final climb by Pinot and Vincenzo Nibali. If Bernal is looking to assume a leadership mantle at Sky, getting dropped by the likes of Nibali and Pinot isn’t a great sign. In addition to the questions of his ability to return to his Tour de France form, young Colombian stars have a history of burning bright at extremely young ages, only to plateau and struggle to improve the final few percentage points (i.e. Quintana, Uran, Henao). A similar development trajectory for Bernal would throw a wrench in Sky’s plans.

The 2019 Tour de France, while featuring limited time trial kilometers and a few punchy climbs, should play right into a Sky team at full strength. However, keep an eye out for increased team tensions and age considerations to potentially trip up Sky when the 2019 Tour finally gets underway.

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This piece has since been published by The Outer Line.