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| Just look at all of those hills, it's a virtual roller-coaster in yellow. Today features seven peaks for the riders to pull themselves over in a 200 km long course. It's getting serious now. |
Here's your general description of the stage:
There are no less than seven categorized climbs on the 200km long stage 8 from Mâcon to Saint-Etienne. It should be more animated than on the previous day with just Yoann Offredo and Stéphane Rossetto opening the road before the peloton. It’s actually a perfect stage for attackers like Alessandro De Marchi (CCC) who is one of the riders looking the Grand Tour trilogy following the path of Elia Viviani on stage 4 to Nancy. The last climb is the côte de la Jaillère 12.5km before the finish in Saint-Etienne near the famous football stadium Geoffroy-Guichard. It features a bonus sprint that means 8’’, 5’’ and 2’’ to the top 3 riders there. It could inspire Julian Alaphilippe for getting the yellow jersey back as he’s only 6’’ down on Giulio Ciccone. But that would mean asking a lot to his Deceuninck-Quick Step team the day after they invested many resources in gearing up for a bunch sprint with Elia Viviani who was hampered by a puncture in his final effort and there are two weeks left with some ambitions on GC with Enric Mas. However, the duel is open between the Frenchman and the Italian for the yellow jersey.
Today (Saturday) will start to see greater and greater gaps as the boys are challenged with seven separate peaks, five of them Cat 2, two of them Cat 3. We're not into the true mountains yet, but we're getting closer and closer. A disappointment for me is that Tejay Van Garderen (EF Education First) has been forced to leave the Tour because of an accident early in Stage 7 causing a broken thumb. The doctors declared him unfit to ride, so he's the third rider to abandon this year.
Let me see if I can get a good in-depth detail map for the next few days and put that up here.
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| Here's a detail map for most of the rest of this year's race. Today we're at the blue mark in the upper center, heading to the first rec below, which continues tomorrow to the second red. |
So we're entering the Massif Central of France now, and that's lots of hills and peaks and valleys. We're heading towards the Pyrenees, but there's a lot of time before we're actually near Pau and the individual time trial. You got a look at Stage 8 above, and I'll show you Stage 9 for Sunday below. The route goes from Saint-Etienne to Brioude, and is once again considered "hilly".
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| Stage 9, Sunday, continues the route South-Southwest. Here the peaks are less, but the climbing is more intense, starting with a steep Cat 1 to pull the boys into the larger terrain. |
As we move into next week, the Pyrenees loom ahead and also, The Open will be going on next weekend. I'll have four days of Le Tour and premium golf to watch, which will help make up for the fact that Chickie will be on vacation and I'll be working a 6-day week.
Shifting back to today - Saturday, and looking at the general rankings, Geraint Thomas is still in 5th place, positioned very well to take some serious time over the next few days. The total number bunched into the first minute of time gap, though, has decreased to seven riders.
So, on that note, please have a wonderful weekend. I'll be trying to figure out the best way for me to get the "impact" exercise I'm supposed to, without going too much overboard, I'll also be working to get my tempo trainer (originally purchased to help me in the pool), shifted over for a fast walking cadence. I'll get it nailed during the next week. Enjoy your weekend and I'll be back on Monday for Stage 10.
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