Tour de France 2020 Favourites stage 17: Two monster climbs for mountain goats

The riders set off from Grenoble to pedal through the valley of the Isère en then the Arc River to Notre-Dame-du-Cruet. That’s where the Col de la Madeleine kicks in hard with 4 kilometres at 10%. Thereafter the inclination levels out a bit, but it never becomes easy. Far from it. The Madeleine is 17.1 kilometres long and the average gradient sits at 8.4%.

The riders descend back to the valley of the Isère to tackle the Col de la Loze in Brides-les-Bains. One could argue that the Loze is the mirror image of the Madeleine. The average gradient mostly hovers around 7 and 8%, but the last 4.5 kilometres go up at 10%

With these giant ascents in the last part of the race a GC battle for stage win is on the cards. Most breakaway specialists find this kind terrain simply too hard. Unless a GC contender who has seen his yellow ambitions turn sour is on board in the front group. More or less like Barguil who won three mountain stages and the polka dot jersey in the Tour de France of 2017.

Obviously, how the race unfolds depends on the GC, so we’ll update this article during the Tour de France.

Favourites 17th stage 2020 Tour de France

*** Egan Bernal, Thibaut Pinot, Mikel Landa
** Steven Kruijswijk, Miguel Ángel López
* Enric Mas, Wout Poels, Romain Bardet

Take a look at the route of the 17th stage on the Tour de France.