3 Fast Takeaways: Excursion de France 2024 Direction Disclose: The recently-released 2024 Excursion path teases a showdown between the game’s highest GC riders, whilst additionally probably making a race the place the highest contenders lay in wait till the general week. Spencer Martin provides us his 2024 Excursion de France breakdown and takeaways.
– This text is an excerpt from the Past the Peloton publication. Enroll right here for complete get entry to. –
The path of the Excursion de France 2024
The Excursion de France organizers, ASO, published the path for the 2024 Excursion de France the day past in Paris at a shiny tournament with probably the most game’s greatest stars in attendance. Primary highlights just like the inclusion of a overseas get started in Italy, a vital quantity of gravel on Level 9 (condolences to Jumbo-Visma GM Richard Plugge), the Col du Galibier on Level 4, and a big departure from custom by means of completing the race with a mountainous time trial between Monaco and Great as an alternative of the standard dash degree at the Champs-Élysées in Paris have many enthusiasts pundits humming and pouring over each to be had element to be able to forecast how the race will play out. Alternatively, one thing to bear in mind is simply how little the path unearths to us about how the race will in truth spread at the street come July. The path is a brilliant information, however since issues hardly play out as anticipated, apparently benign phases can explode the race, and extremely expected Queen phases can become action-less stalemates, you will need to rigidity that it’s the riders and prerequisites, no longer the path, that makes the race.
2024 Excursion de France map
2024 Excursion de France Direction Assessment:
As discussed above, the highlights for 2024 are the overseas get started in Florence, Italy, an early Alpine day with the peloton tackling the brutal Col du Galibier on Level 4 at the street again to France, a gravel problem on Level 9, the tough 3rd week and the end with a particularly tricky time trial in Great as an alternative of the standard procession in Paris (because of the 2024 Olympics taking on town). Significantly, the areas within the Northwest of the rustic, just like the cycling-mad Brittany, were totally excluded for the 3rd consecutive yr.
Complete Level Record:
Level 1: Florence > Rimini (205km)-hills
Level 2: Cesenatico > Bologna (200km)-hills
Level 3: Piacenza > Turin (225km)-flat
Level 4: Pinerolo > Valloire (138km)-mountains
Level 5: Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne > Saint Vulbas (177km)-flat
Level 6: Mâcon > Dijon (163km)-flat
Level 7: Nuits-Saint-Georges > Gevrey-Chambertin (25km)-ITT
Level 8: Semur-en-Auxois > Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises (176km)-flat
Level 9: Troyes > Troyes (199km)-Gravel
July ninth: Leisure Day #1
Level 10: Orléans > Saint-Amand-Montrond (187km)-flat
Level 11: Évaux-les-Bains > Le Lioran (211km)-mountains w/summit end
Level 12: Aurillac > Villeneuve-sur-Lot (204 km)-flat
Level 13: Agen > Pau (171km)-flat
Level 14: Pau > Saint-Lary-Soulan Pla d’Adet (152km)-mountains w/summit end
Level 15: Loudenvielle > Plateau de Beille (198km)-mountains w/summit end
July fifteenth: Leisure Day #2
Level 16: Gruissan > Nîmes (187km)-flat
Level 17: Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux > Superdévoluy (178km)-hills
Level 18: Hole > Barcelonnette (179km)-hills
Level 19: Embrun > Isola 2000 (145km)-mountains w/summit end
Level 20: Great > Col de l. a. Couillole (133km)-mountains w/summit end
Level 21: Monaco > Great (34km)-ITT (mountainous)
Breakdown by means of Level Kind:
- 7 mountain phases
- 8 flat(ish) phases
- 4 hilly phases
- 2 time trials
Emilia-Romagna Grand Départ – TourdeFrance 2024
3 Preliminary Takeaways
1) In this floor, this can be a balanced path, however dig a little bit deeper, and primary eccentricities emerge
- Some of the primary headlines popping out of Wednesday’s expose used to be how a lot this path has discovered a stability between person time trial and mountain climbing.
- As an example, the 59 kilometers of person time trialing is probably the most since 2013, and smartly above the 2010-2013 reasonable of 46.4kms.
- And, at the turn facet, the estimated 53,095 of vertical meters received is not up to final yr, which takes the BTP Problem Score (general vertical meters received over general TT kilometers) down from 2023’s insane 25.4 to a extra affordable 9.0.
- Whilst this may occasionally make the route seem balanced, if we glance deeper, the hole weekend in Italy, which options 3 phases over 200 kilometers, together with a vital quantity of mountain climbing, and the passage of the Col du Galibier en path to France on Level 4, are extraordinarily extraordinary and can create a hard opening few days of racing.
- For reference, all the 2023 Excursion de France handiest featured two phases over 200 kilometers, whilst the 2024 will function that within the first two phases, and finish with a complete of 5 200+km phases.
- Along with a considerable amount of gravel on Level 9, those lengthy, tough phases within the opening week virtually definitely received’t be exhausting sufficient to create vital sunlight between the key GC contenders however might be tricky sufficient to weed out any person no longer at the stage vital to compete for the win, complicate the race for the highest contenders, and in the end, have them racing extremely conservatively (See: Takeaway 3).
The White Roads on degree 9 – TourdeFrance 2024
2) Curiously, those route main points will most likely have little impact at the eventual winner
- The open secret in regards to the Excursion de France is that it doesn’t matter what the route seems like and what number of time trial kilometers and vertical mountain climbing meters, the race performs out extremely in a similar fashion, and the winners are virtually at all times the similar form of rider.
- As an example, since 2015, in spite of all kinds of issue rankings, all however two editions were received by means of the rider who’s each a particularly robust time trialist and climber who, for loss of deeper evaluation, is solely the most powerful rider throughout each form of terrain.
Previous Winner Record, Forte & Path Problem Score:
2010: Alberto Contador, climber, 8.32
2011: Cadel Evans, hybrid climber/time trialist, 11.98
2012: Bradley Wiggins, time trialist, 5.03
2013: Chris Froome, hybrid climber/time trialist, 7.8
2014: Vincenzo Nibali, climber, 9.41
2015: Chris Froome, hybrid climber/time trialist, 34.7
2016: Chris Froome, hybrid climber/time trialist, 9.88
2017: Chris Froome, hybrid climber/time trialist, 13.27
2018: Geraint Thomas, hybrid climber/time trialist, 15.48
2019: Egan Bernal, climber, 19.36
2020: Tadej Pogačar, hybrid climber/time trialist, 16.36
2021: Tadej Pogačar, hybrid climber/time trialist, 8.90
2022: Jonas Vingegaard, hybrid climber/time trialist, 9.22
2023: Jonas Vingegaard, hybrid climber/time trialist 25.4
2024: ?, 9.0 - This predictability of racing taste and winner kind is because of the extraordinarily prime stakes of even minor effects on the Excursion developing an all-out form of racing that neutralizes street phases by means of proscribing the time gaps on even the toughest phases and puts a big emphasis on time trials, even though the uncooked quantity is very small, since TTs are one of the crucial handiest items of the route the place the most powerful rider can pull transparent of the others.
Maillot Jaune LCL – TourdeFrance 2024
3) The back-loaded nature of this route may just, sadly, make the racing extra harking back to the slogs of new Giros than the early motion of new Excursions
- With one much less summit end and not more total mountain climbing than the 2023 Excursion, the 2024 version might seem to function a milder route, however the truth that it’s so weighted against dash phases within the first two weeks, and so loaded with mountains within the ultimate one, together with the general time trial, will create a hard race that may most likely produce extremely cagey and conservative racing till the general few phases.
- As an example, seven of the 8 possible dash phases happen within the first two weeks, and 4 of the 5 summit finishes happen within the ultimate week, with out a vital uphill end prior to degree 11.
- It’ll be a terrifying prospect for any person who carefully watched the 2023 Giro d’Italia, however this path has the possible to replicate the near-absurd loss of GC motion during the first 3/4ths of race as all of the major contenders understand that Primož Roglič’s tactic at that race of sitting tight for just about all the race prior to banking the whole thing at the ultimate few uphill finishes and the general time trial is the most efficient trail to successful this Excursion.
The Excursion’23 podium
# Spencer Martin is the creator of the cycling-analysis publication Past the Peloton that breaks down the nuances of every race and solutions large image questions surrounding workforce and rider efficiency. Enroll now to get complete get entry to to all of the to be had content material and race breakdowns. #
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