The 2020 Tour de France watchability guide ... this course is mean as hell
From Monday: The Tour de France is taking place in 2020, against all sense
From Tuesday: Your 2020 Tour de France rooting guide
Programming note: Tomorrow I'll have my Tour predictions and Stage 1 preview. If you're subscribed to this newsletter for free, you have five more days of content before this newsletter becomes mostly premium only. If you'd like a paid subscription but $25 feels like a lot right now, email me.
This is a list of Tour de France stages ranked by "watchability," but the exercise may be academic for this race in the year of the Lord 2020.
Here's the short version of this newsletter: EVERY stage is maximally watchable, because any of them could be the last. If Covid-19 rips through the peloton, organizers would be forced to pull the plug mid-race, turning the yellow jersey competition into a game of inverse Hot Potato: Whoever holds it last, wins. Fevered dreams of Peter Sagan, Tour winner, may come true.
The pandemic's looming presence could also wreak havoc on tactics. Will teams meter their efforts assuming that a monster third week will still take place? Or will they focus more on keeping their GC contender's nose in front, no matter the cost? Will a rider go off script if he senses his opportunities are numbered? The Tour has never wanted for drama, but the day-to-day stakes are higher this year than ever in my memory.
So there you go: Watch every stage end to end, all approximately 120 hours of racing.
What's that? You have a job/a child/several children/an evolutionary necessity to sleep? That sucks, but I suppose I'll help. Below are all 21 stages of the Tour de France, ranked by me, your friend, from most skippable to most essential.
(Note: The official Tour website also does a nice job breaking down every stage. I strongly recommend giving it a peruse. It's also where the stage profile images below come from.)
The Flats
All of these stages are designed to finish in bunch sprints. One or two could impact the general classification; first week flat stages, in particular, tend to feature bad pile-up crashes due to nervous energy in the peloton. But for the most part, they will be long saddle days in which most of the action takes place in the final five minutes.
No. 21: Stage 19, Sept. 18 -- 166.5 km from Bourg-en-Bresse to Champagnole. Sandwiched between a HOLY CRAP mountain stage and a time trial finale, you can bet the GC riders won't be doing squat, so neither should you.
No. 20: Stage 5, Sept. 2 -- 183 km from Gap to Privas. A long stage with a net elevation drop just after a mountain top finish should relegate the fireworks to the sprint. By now in the Tour, pre-race jitters should be working their way out of riders' legs, too. Provence will be pretty, though. Enjoy some olive trees.
No. 19: Stage 11, Sept. 9 -- 167.5 km from Châtelaillon-Plage to Poitiers. After what could be a chaotic day of crosswinds, the Tour moves inland from the Atlantic Ocean. Expect the peloton to relax and let the sprinters have their fun.
No. 18: Stage 7, Sept. 4 -- 168 km from Millau to Lavaur. Hey, it's the Aveyron! Land of valleys, rivers and a significant number of my ancestors. The first 124 kilometers will feature plenty of up-and-down, but the flat last 40 kilometers towards Toulouse should neutralize the breakaway. With the Tour entering the Pyrenees the next day, don't expect any decisive action.
No. 17: Stage 3, Aug. 31 -- 198 km from Nice to Sisteron. A flat stage with some meat on it. It should end in a bunch sprint, but consider: 1) there are three Category 3 climbs and a Category 4, which could soften up the sprinters enough let a breakaway go the distance, especially because 2) it's sandwiched between two true mountain stages, meaning that general classification riders won't be particularly interested in giving chase. Tune in an hour-and-a-half before the finish — 11:30 a.m. ET, roughly — and check out the time gap with roughly 60 kilometers to go. If the break has an advantage of five minutes or upwards, it could be a thrilling finale.
The One-Offs
There's a good chance at least one of these stages becomes consequential in the general classification. But even if they don't, they still have entertainment value for those who like pure cycling goodness.
No. 16: Stage 9, Sept. 6 -- 153 km from Pau to Lauruns. With a flat run-in to the finish after the day's climbs, I don't think any GC contenders will attempt a decisive move, especially not on the last stage before the first rest day. But it's a fine time for a third tier French rider to have some fun in the break. (Also note: this stage has two Category 1 climbs at nearly 9 percent gradient. This is a fun profile, and the fact that it's so low on this list should tell you something.)
No. 15: Stage 14, Sept. 12 -- 194km from Clermont-Ferrand to Lyon. Bumpy! But the hard stuff gets out of the way early. After two tough stages, this looks to be a breakaway vs. sprinters battle while the GC contenders sit up.
No. 14: Stage 21, Sept. 20 -- 122km from Mantes-la-Jolie to Paris. Hey, it's the Paris stage! If you've never watched the Tour's pompous processional final stage and momentarily competitive sprint finish, you'll have a blast. The smiles and champagne are always endearing. But once you've seen one, you've mostly seen them all. The most interesting bit arguably comes after the racing is over, when the champion stands atop the podium on the Champs-Élysées and addresses the gathered throng. Geraint Thomas' stunned speech from two years ago is one of my favorites.
No. 13: Stage 16, Sept. 15 -- 164 km from La Tour-du-Pin to Villard-de-Lans. Look, another fun stage. The third week kicks off with a profile suspiciously suited for French swashbuckler Julian Alaphilippe. A Category 1 climb 30 kilometers from the finish should start the show. A long run-in to a Category 3 finish is a nice setpiece for heroics.
No. 12: Stage 12, Sept. 10 -- 218 km from Chauvigny to Sarran Corrèze. With the profile of a one-day classic, riders of every style will be gunning to win Stage 12, from sprinters to puncheurs to the feistier climbers. No, it shouldn't matter much to the yellow jersey, but the last two hours could be wall-to-wall action.
The Seriously Fun Stuff
Everyone in the peloton will be nervous about all of these stages. This course ... I like it a lot.
No. 11: Stage 4, Sept. 1 -- 160.5 km from Sisteron to Orcières-Merlette. The first mountain top finish of the Tour comes just four days in. The Category 1 climb up to the Orcières-Merlette is steady and not drastically long, so don't expect the yellow jersey to be decided. But it is an opportunity for a contender to crack. This year's atypically early climbs are particularly devious in a year when training regimens have been disrupted. Riders who normally rely on a few flat, lazy days in the first week to work on their fitness are going to have a real bad time.
No. 10: Stage 10, Sept. 8 -- 168.5 km from Île d'Oléron to Île de Ré. This is a high spot for a dead flat stage, but it takes place entirely along the Atlantic, from one island to another. That means crosswinds, and those mean echelons and peloton splits that can be the difference between a podium and holding on for a top 10 finish. Last year's Stage 10 was a prime example of how quickly a seemingly innocuous day in the middle of the Tour can be blown to bits.
No. 9: Stage 6, Sept. 3 -- 191km from Le Teil to Mont Aigoual. This is maybe the most Julian Alaphilippe profile imaginable. A long stage that's completely flat until the last 35 kilometers, when proceedings become REALLY animated with categorized climbs stacked on each other and an upward finish that favors a savvy puncheur. The winner may gain significant time here, too. This stage should be a blockbuster for the last hour and a half.
No. 8: Stage 2, Aug. 30 -- 186km from Nice Haut Pays to Nice. The race won't be decided this early — the two Category 1 climbs are over before the halfway point of the stage — but the peloton could be riled up and strung out after those uncharacteristically big Week 1 climbs. A GC contender could certainly lose the Tour if their jitters get the best of them. Somehow, Prudhomme designed the meanest pandemic-year course possible before he even knew it was a pandemic year.
No. 7: Stage 1, Aug. 29 -- 156km from Nice Moyen Pays to Nice. A flat that's not flat flat, which should facilitate some breakaway fun. More importantly it's the first stage in a trying year. I imagine the nervousness and excitement in Nice will be very different from a typical prologue. And knowing that the Tour could end at any moment means you should savor this start. We shouldn't be here, watching 176 riders line up along the glittering Cote d'Azur. Yet we are.
No. 6: Stage 13, Sept. 11 -- 191.5km from Châtel-Guyon to Puy Mary Cantal. Whew buddy, this is a stage. It features seven categorized climbs, including a Category 1 finish, and the most elevation gain of any stage in the Tour. Riders will be either ascending or descending almost from the gun, creating all sorts of opportunities to animate the race. None of the climbs are particularly long either, which means the puncheurs should remain in the mix with the pure climbers, adding to the unpredictability. It could be six straight hours of mayhem. I … honestly have no idea how this will go.
The profile looks like my house key.
The Sadistic Sh**
What the sign says.
No. 5: Stage 20, Sept. 19 -- 36.2km individual time trial from Lure to La Planche des Belles Filles. Time trials are hard to place in a watchability list. They're pivotally important, but often (in my opinion) ghastly dull to watch. But when the finish is on a Category 1 climb on the last day of real racing of what could be a wide open Tour … well, you watch. The final climb up Planche des Belles Filles is just minutes from Thibaut Pinot's home of Mélisey. There'd be nothing sweeter than seeing the first French Tour champion in 35 years crowned in front of his family and neighbors.
No. 4: Stage 8, Sept. 5 -- 141km from Cazères-sur-Garonne to Loudenville. The first Pyrennean stage may also be our first good indicator of how the final podium will look. There is little respite after the Hors Categorie Port de Balès, with the Category 1 Col de Peyresourde and descent finish coming soon after. Anyone brave enough to attempt a breakaway on Balès could do massive damage to their rivals.
No. 3: Stage 18, Sept. 17 -- 175km from Méribel to La Roche-sur-Foron. A sadistically bumpy stage at the end of several hard days of climbing. This stage is designed to sap the last shreds of will out of straggling GC hopefuls. This could also be the day that one rider takes an insurmountable lead in the yellow jersey. And if the podium contenders are still within a couple minutes of one another at the finish, it will set up an epic Stage 20 time trial.
No. 2: Stage 15, Sept. 13 -- 174.5km from Lyon to Grand Colombier. Queen Stage candidate No. 1. Just before the second arest day, riders will take on two Category 1 climbs in quick succession, and then ascend towards a mountaintop finish on the HC Grand Colombier, which checks in at 17.4 kilometers at an average gradient of 7.1 percent. The yellow jersey could be won here.
No. 1: Stage 17, Sept. 16 -- 170km from Grenoble to Méribel Col de la Loze. Aaaaand Queen Stage candidate No. 2. This is an overwrought Michael Bay action sequence of a stage. Only about 15 kilometers of flat reprieve separates the climbs up the HC Col de la Madeleine and the HC mountaintop finish up Col de la Loze. That last climb is 21.5 kilometers (!) at an average of 7.8 percent (!!), of which the last 4.5 kilometers average roughly 10 percent (!!!).
It's the meanest stage of a mean-as-hell Tour.