I had not expected that Greg van Avermaet should be that strong on yesterday’s mountain stage, and was surprised that he gained 1.29 on Chris Froome and other GC-contenders.
Today’s stage, stage 11, is short and hard. It is “only” 108,5 km. For most of us, 108,5 km is a good day’s ride. But for the TdF-riders it is short. It goes right into a short climb, and then there are some 10 km om moderate ascent to the intermediate sprint. Then it is a HC, down from this, another HC, a little bit down, then a cat 2, down, and a mountain top finish on a cat 1. We can expect a lot of action.
On a stage like this, some riders often get problems finishing within the time limit. Yesterday, Dylan Groenewegen, Mark Cavendish and Marcel Kittel finished with a 28 seconds margin to the time limit. I can be harder today.
When it comes to wine, this is a best a difficult, and I could say dry stage. Yesterday I wrote than none of the vineyards in Savoie are located higher than 500 meters. Todays stage starts at 441 meter, climbs to 646 meter at the intermediate sprint, before the real climbing starts. Then the stage is at no point lower than 700 meters. There is no wine in such terrain.
If we had gone in the opposite direction out of Albertville, we could have found some wines. But this would mean going back to some of the areas that I covered yesterday.
It was a lack of planning on my side that I at least did not save the cheese for today. The stage is after all going through Beaufort. But there is no reason to repeat, just point to what I wrote yesterday.
There are many interesting wines from Savoie. The best I can say is to pick another wine from the areas covered yesterday. Tomorrow it will be even more difficult.
Tour de France 2018
- Stage 1: Noirmoutier-en-l’Île — Fontenay le Comte
- Stage 2: Mouilleron-Saint-Germain — La Roche-sur-Yon
- Stage 3: Cholet — Cholet (team time trial)
- Stage 4: La Baule — Sarzeau
- Stage 5: Lorient — Quimper
- Stage 6: Brest — Mûr de Bretagne Guerlédan
- Stage 7: Fougères — Chartres
- Stage 8: Dreux — Amiens Métropole
- Stage 9: Arras Citadelle — Roubaix
- Stage 10: Annecy — Le Grand-Bornand
- Stage 11: Albertville — La Rosière Espace San Bernardo
- Stage 12: Bourg-Saint-Maurice Les Arcs — Alpe d’Huez
- Stage 13: Bourg d’Oisans — Valence
- Stage 14: Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux — Mende
- Stage 15: Millau — Carcassonne
- Stage 16: Carcassonne — Bagnères-de-Luchon
- Stage 17: Bagnères-de-Luchon — Saint-Lary-Soulan
- Stage 18: Trie-sur-Baïse — Pau
- Stage 19: Lourdes — Laruns
- Stage 20: Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle — Espelette (Individual Time Trial)
- Stage 21: Houilles — Paris Champs-Élysées
Tour de France
Giro d'Italia
