Stage 12 of the Tour de France comes on Bastille Day and will be starting in Montpellier then travel northeast on fairly flat to rolling roads for nearly 112 km before the climbs start. The first being Côte de Gordes at 4 km long and an average of 4.8% grade and then Col de Croix Termes which is shorter at 2.5km, but almost twice as steep at 7.5%. These are just warm ups for the shortened finish on Mt. Ventoux, a 9.5 km climb with an average grade of nearly 9%. The course was shortened due to the strong wind the riders will face up the climb.
| Stage Type | Mountain |
|---|---|
| Stage Distance | 177.52 km |
| Estimated Time | 04:34:17 |
| Avg. Peloton Speed | 38.83 km/h |
| Avg. Pulling Power | 350.40 watts |
| Avg. Pulling Yaw | 11.71 ° |
It's going to be a windy day for riders across the whole course. It will be primarily a huge cross wind for the first 130 km of the course. As riders turn north to the Côte de Gordes the cross wind will become an incredibly stiff headwind. Any breaks will have a hard time sticking on the way to Mount Ventoux. Riders will face strong gale force winds throughout the climb which has caused race organizers to shorten the course for riders safety.
Most of the stage will be building up for the last climb up Mount Ventoux. Any early breaks made with the strong cross wind will likely be caught well before the start of the HC climb. The real fireworks will start in the last 9.5 km, where the grade kicks up to an average just under 9 percent. The model estimate has a possible time of around 30 minutes for the shortened portion of the climb. The quality of climbers in GC contention has never been higher, so multiple attacks could come at any time pushing the pace and power throughout the climb. Froome will be forced to respond after really pushing power in the cross-wind inspired break during stage 11. The one thing that could slow riders a bit is that there is a difficult individual time trial on the next stage. The TT course sets up on paper very well for Froome over GC rivals, so power used pushing the pace hard on Ventoux to try for a couple of seconds over Quintana may be better used in the TT to gain more time. Using the TA tool try changing rider weight and power to get the same finishing time to see the difference between a climber like Quintana at 58 kg versus a rider like Froome at 67.5 kg.
Analysis was performed by modeling the peloton as a single rider using front of the pack drag characteristics and pulling power targets. Take a look at the entire race plan that was used for this analysis, which includes additional features, metrics and downloadable files.
Stage 12 Race Plan: https://www.bestbikesplit.com/client/44207