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Stage 12 – Chauvigny to Sarran Corrèze – 218km – Thursday, September 10
This long grinder of a stage takes the Tour back toward the Massif Central, and the profile pretty much screams breakaway. We’d expect a large, motivated group of escapees: at least 10. If so, that’ll make for a long day for Jumbo-Visma defending Primoz Roglič’s yellow jersey, as they won’t be able to expect much help from any teams represented in the break, or the sprinters teams.
The race starts with around 100km of flatter terrain, and the intermediate sprint comes at 51km in, so even if the break hasn’t already gone clear, there’s no motivation for the sprinters teams to keep things together after that since it’s not a sprint stage. Weather shouldn’t be a factor, with partly sunny skies and light winds.
Courtesy Tour de France
The climbing starts right around 100km, with four ascents that get progressively longer as the stage goes on. Heaviest is the Suc au May, a Category 2 ascent with a summit 25km out from the finish. The road is narrow, and the 7.7-percent average gradient doesn’t tell the whole story: most of the climbing is packed into 2.5km of the 3.8km total length. Gradients over the shorter section average over 10 percent and reach as much as 16 in spots. It’s an ideal place for a rider to launch a solo move out of the breakaway or lift the pace and drop heavier riders. The last 5km is tricky, too, as it climbs in a series of stair-step ramps interspersed with short flat sections.
Riders to Watch
The route in general, and the finish especially, is ideal for riders who specialize in the hilly one-day classics like Liege-Bastogne-Liege or the Giro di Lombardia. Likely protagonists include Julian Alaphilippe and possibly Bob Jungels (the latter of whom had a brief foray today), BORA-Hansgrohe’s Maximilian Schachmann, Israel Start-Up Nation’s Ben Hermans, and NTT’s Michael Valgren. And of course, we’d be remiss not to point out that everything about Stage 12 is perfect for long breakaway specialist Thomas de Gendt (Lotto-Soudal). He did some work on Stage 11 for Caleb Ewan’s victory, but it would be surprising if de Gendt didn’t at least try to make the inevitable escape on Stage 12.
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When to Watch
This is likely to be a chess match of a stage. For very early risers on the East Coast, it might be interesting to tune in for the start to watch the breakaway take shape. But likely not much will happen after that for some time, as Jumbo-Visma will ride tempo on the front to keep the gap to a manageable one. (The wildcard here is if a rider relatively high on the overall but not really in contention makes the break, such as Alejandro Valverde, or if Peter Sagan tries to infiltrate the move after his relegation cost him valuable points in the green jersey competition; either event might force a more spirited chase.) The break may start to crack up on the Category 3 Cote de la Croix du Pey, which they’ll summit around 10 a.m. EDT. But you can give it another 15 or so minutes and catch most of the Suc au May climb and likely fireworks and the run-in to Sarran.
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Tour de France Stage 12: The Longest Breakaway? - Bicycling
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