Escaldes-Engordany to Revel

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After a rest day the riders will head east and start climbing from the start up the 23km Port d'Envalira. Once they reach the highest summit of the Tour at 2308m, they turn north and will have nearly 60 km of mostly downhill riding to regroup. The Intermediate sprint comes at 122.5km into the race and should be a fast one on the slight downhill slope leading up to it. The only other categorized climb comes just 7km from the finish and will be a short steep 1.8km at a 6.6% grade category 3 climb. As the riders head into Revel for the finish they must first turn southeast and ride a 12km loop which includes a short climb up Côte de St-Ferréol before turning back toward town. The last obstacle for the sprinters will be a sharp left turn with only about 700 meters to the finish in the center of Revel.

Weather Forecast

For the climb up Port d'Envalira riders can expect lower temperatures than the last few stages. The will have a slight tail wind of about 6 km/h and temperature of only 18 celsius. After the climb and turning north temperature will start to rise a little and the wind will pick up slightly, being more of a right to left cross wind. At about 130km into the race the temperature will max out at about 22 and wind will remain cross out of the west at around 14km/h all the way into the finish at Revel.

Stage Analysis

The riders will face a test right from the start with the category climb up the Port d'Envalira. Majka is only 3 points behind Pinot for King of the Mountains, so there could be a battle to the first summit. Expect the first climb to take a bit under an hour to ascend for those going for the points. The descent starts off a bit technical, but straightens out and should be fast with a bit of cross wind to contend with. Even a small advantage over the top of 2 to 3 minutes could stick for a long time as a chasing peloton pushing 15% more power than a lead group would not be able to make much time up until the slight headwind section at about 85km through Tarascon-sur-Ariege. The best place to pull a break back for the sprint teams will be in the rolling hills from 120-185km right before the last category 3 climb up Côte de St-Ferréo. If a break group can stick up the climb don't expect a sprint finish unless the gap is really small heading in. This could be a great stage for riders like Sagan or Greg Van Avermaet to get into an early break and go for the win. To perform this analysis we turned on the cumulative effect line by clicking on it in the legend. We then upped power to +15% and looked at the sections after the climb to see how long it took to gain back 120-180 seconds (or the 2-3 min) a break gap might gain over the climb. We also zoomed in on the last climb and descent to see what time gains could be made on the run into to the finish to determine a safe time gap for any break cresting the Côte de St-Ferréol.