Tour de France 2017: Stage 15 preview
By Cycling News
Laissac-Sévérac l'Église to Le Puy-en-Velay, 189.5km
One of the oddest-looking profiles of the whole Tour de France makes this stage a tough one to predict. Rolling roads all day, plus two first-category climbs almost bookending the stage, mean there are a variety of possibilities. One for the puncheurs? A day for the break? A GC ambush before the rest day?
The start town of Laissac-Sévérac l’Église (two villages which merged last year) already has a link to cycling, having hosted the UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships last year. A race - the Roc Laissaglais - is held there every year too, part of the UCI Marathon Series. Jean-Christophe Péraud, second in the 2014 Tour (and with worse memories of yesterday’s stage in Rodez in which he crashed badly in 2015), won that race five times in his mountain-biking days.
But a test of a different nature will await the peloton today, with a lot of climbing on the menu and a good portion of this jaunt through the Massif Central spent above 1,000 metres’ altitude. However, this isn’t, at first glance, one for the flyweight climbers.
The Col de Peyra Taillade, a Tour debutant, comes 31km from the finish and could play to the benefit of a team looking to cause some chaos. On double-digit gradients and a narrow road, it could only take a moment of inattentiveness to find riders chasing on the mostly downhill run to the finish line.
Closer to the finish, the similarly tight Côte de Saint-Vidal looks almost perfectly designed to provide a launchpad for a solo attack from a breakaway. T-Mobile’s Giuseppe Guerini will be the model on which to base a late move, as the Italian took his second Tour stage win the last time the race visited Le-Puy-en-Velay in 2005, escaping from his rivals with 1.5km to go.
To subscribe to Procycling click here.
Route profile
Route map
Latest on Cyclingnews
-
Quarterman in hospital after crashing into a team car at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
'I'm in a bit of pain but relieved that it’s not worse' says Trek-Segafredo rider who suffered a concussion -
Elisa Longo Borghini: Team unlucky in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad battle for front
‘It has been a good race for us and I’m just sorry that I missed a good result’ says Trek-Segafredo rider -
Skjelmose impresses at UAE Tour at the age of 20
Trek-Segafredo to develop young Dane into Grand Tour rider -
Greg Van Avermaet: Results don’t show our strong performances at Opening Weekend
'We were always quite good and in the front’ says AG2R Citroën's top classics contender
Sign up to the Cyclingnews Newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how to do this, and how we hold your data, please see our privacy policy
Thank you for signing up to Cycling News. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.