The climbs of the 11th stage are Montée de Bisanne (12.4 kilometres at 8.2%), Col du Pré (12.6 kilometres at 7.7%), Cormet de Roselend (5.7 kilometres at 6.5%), and the final haul up to La Rosière (17.6 kilometres at 5.8%). So that’s almost 50 kilometres of uphill racing – slightly less than half the route’s distance.
Presumably, GC-ambitions will be lost on these slopes. But who is most likely to strike a blow when it comes to winning the stage? Last year’s Tour de France featured a similar short and explosive climb stage, which came down to a Quintana/Contador/Landa/Barguil clash, all riders who had seen their overall ambitions turn sour. Barguil won the four-up sprint – although, that race’s finale was on descent.
A similar scenario is conceivable. GC-riders holding each other in a stifling grip, thus giving other good climbers out of GC-contention the opportunity to battle it out for the day honours.
The 6th stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné was played out on the same parcours. Breakaway boy Pello Bilbao took the win, while overall leader Geraint Thomas attacked in the last kilometre to put time into his GC-opponents Daniel Martin, Romain Bardet and Adam Yates.
Favourites 11th stage 2018 Tour de France
*** Thomas De Gendt, Adam Yates, Mikel Landa, Serge Pauwels
** Alejandro Valverde, Romain Bardet, Chris Froome, Rafal Majka
* Daniel Martin, Ilnur Zakarin, Tom Dumoulin, Vincenzo Nibali
Tour de France 2018 stage 11: Route maps, height profiles, and more
Click on the images to zoom
Climb details Montée de Bisanne
Climb details Col du Pré and Cormet de Roselend
Climb details La Rosière
Route final kilometres
I find misguided the short lived or nonexistent attention given to Nibali in this tour. He has spent no energy never fell and there are only mountains and climbs coming. The tv commentators even refuse to say if he has arrived or not just total silence on him. I fear you all will be soon forced to change your attention to him.