Tour de France Stage 16 Returns To The Mountains

It’s 218km with a lot of climbing after a Rest Day on Monday.


Whit Yost |

For the second time this Tour de France, the riders come out of a Rest Day to face a long stage in the mountains. In fact, Stage 16 has a lot in common with Stage 10: it’s the first of three days in one of the Tour’s major mountain ranges, it’s back-loaded with Category 1 summits, and it ends after a descent from the top of the day’s final climb.

The first of three days in the Pyrenees, Stage 16 starts gradually with two Category 4 climbs. But after the day’s Intermediate Sprint in Saint-Girons, things get much more difficult, with the Col de Portet d’Aspet, Col de Menté, and Col de Portillon all jammed into the final third of the stage. None of these climbs are that difficult, but at this point in the Tour, nothing is easy – especially after a Rest Day.

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This is a long stage at 218km, and with harder days still to come, expect a breakaway to stay away and contest the stage win while the Tour’s remaining GC contenders watch one another a bit further back. And as we saw on Stage 10, don’t be surprised if a few GC contenders struggle coming out of the Rest Day and lose a bit of time.

Riders to Watch

For the stage win, look for out-of-contention GC riders such as BORA-Hansgrohe’s Rafal Majka, Trek-Segafredo’s Bauke Mollema, and Mitchelton-Scott’s Adam Yates to go for the stage win. Frenchmen Warren Barguil (Fortuneo) and Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) are fighting for the polka dot jersey as the Tour’s King of the Mountains and should be out front as well, with Alaphilippe a particular favourite given the fact that he won Stage 10 on a similar kind of finish.

As for the GC battle, Team Sky will most likely ride defensively – unless they sense one of their rivals is having a bad day. Should that be the case, it will be interesting to see whether Geraint Thomas or Chris Froome attacks first, as that could indicate which rider the team thinks has the best chance to win the Tour.

Of Sky’s rivals, LottoNL-Jumbo is the team they should fear the most, with both Primoz Roglic and Steven Kruijswijk (fourth- and seventh-overall, respectively) proving unafraid to attack the British super team. If they continue to ride aggressively, they could do some damage – especially to riders struggling to regain their rhythm after the Rest Day. And if AG2R’s Romain Bardet and Movistar’s Mikel Landa and Nairo Quintana want to pull themselves back into contention, they have to start now.

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