After a thrilling finish on Stage 12 that saw Froome give up the Yellow Jersey to Aru in the final extremely steep 300 meters, Stage 13 again heads through the Pyrenees. At only 101 km Stage 13 is the shortest (non TT) in the Tour, but with 3 major Category 1 climbs it will feel much longer for the riders. The course starts in Saint-Girons and heads southeast towards the first climb up Col de Latrape before heading north up the Col d'Agnes and finally the very steep Mur de Péguére at just over 74 km into the race. The final descent is not overly technical but there could be some cross winds and riders will be hitting very high speeds often over 70km/h all the way to the finish in Foix.
| Stage Type | Mountain |
|---|---|
| Stage Distance | 101 km |
| Estimated Time | 02:43:27 |
| Avg. Peloton Speed | 37.07 km/h |
| Avg. Pulling Power | 335.88 watts |
| Avg. Pulling Yaw | 4.86 ° |
We have been saying all tour that Froome can be vulnerable in sections where the road gradient gets over 14%. The very steep finish to Stage 12 (and Stage 5) showed that attacks at very steep sections could open up gaps. With the downhill finish it will take a strong sustained attack at the steepest sections of the final climb around the 3.5 km to go mark and a good push to the top to open a gap. The last 26 km is a descent to the finish so any any GC move on the climb will require full gas on the descent as well.
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 13 Race Plan: https://www.bestbikesplit.com/client/72415