Stage Info
Weather
27°C at the start, 22°C at the end, Sunny
Stage Breakdown
Hello everyone and welcome to the Eighteenth stage of the Tour de France.
I am gonna be gonest, this is the stage that pisses me off the most. We start in Voiron, and the riders go South towards the Vercors, Where Lennard Kamna took a win in 2020. The riders then descend back into the Grenoble bassin and head South. This is whre part 1 of my frustration is. This area is rarely tackled by the tour despite being really interesting, as seen in the Alpes Isère Tour that runs every May, and you have plenty of climbs to use in the area such as the Col de la Morte or Col du Parquetout which would have spiced up the course instead of... this. Instead the riders head into a lumpy vally similar to the second part of Today's stage up until the foot of Orcière-Merlette, which is my second issue with the stage. 7.1km at 6.7%, super regular climb, really uninteresting. Last time the peloton went there it was in 2020, stage 4, it ended in a 16 man sprint where Roglic won in front of Pogacar and Martin-Guillonnet.
With that in mind here are our predictions:
★★★ Breakaway
★★
★ Pogacar, Evenepoel, Del Toro
With a weakened Yates and a doube Alpe int he coming days, I do not see UAE go for the stage, but they are hungry so who knows. The break, similar to today, is a safe bet, hell a good Pedersen can win on top. Stage could be fon, who knows, but the design really doesn't give that impression, it's a poor man's version of a Vuelta unipuerto stage, and I loathe those stages.
That's it for us, what is your prediction for the stage?
