So yeah, the Grand Boucle is upon us again, in a weeks time. Take it were all excited yeah?
Teams dripping through now. How much time will Movistar lose time in Brittany and the North of France and will the 3 leaders race without attacking each other? Will Bardet do anything other than climb well enough for a podium? Will Porte avoid a jour sans? Will Froome be fresh enough from his Giro exertions? Dimension Data all in for Cavendish, so no space for stage hunter extraordinaire, Steve Cummings. Will Wanty Groupe Goubert actually do something? Intrigue
Predictions
Podium: 1) Porte, 2) Quintana, 3) Landa for me. Bardet top 5, Froome, Thomas, Mollema and Martin in top 10. Valverde in yellow early on but finishing somewhere in the top 20.
Sprint stages divided pretty equally between Cav, Kittel and Gaviria. No luck for Kristoff.
Sagan grabs an uphill sprint stage and takes green. Majka takes his obligatory polka dot jersey.
Route
Think it looks great - I expect some surprisingly big time gaps in the first 9 days and, hopefully, attacking riding in the mountains (mainly from Movistar, who on paper seem to be very weak on the cobbles and TTT).
In defence of Wanty
Guillaume Van Keirsbulckâs 190km solo breakaway was a highlight of last year - nothing like watching the TDF chase a bloke on a weekend spin.
In other news, massive spat at Cofidis between Bouhanni and the team after he went against team orders at the Tour dâOccitanie and sprinted against Laporte instead of leading him out
The stages on the right, especially 6 and 9, look great. Deserves to be a better race than it is. That and the Tour of Austria cracking little races that should be higher on the calendar.
Speaking of maligned races, Paris tours is getting the gravel treatment too.