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.
Route profile
Route map
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