The route of next year’s Tour de France suits Dan Martin as much as the French Grand Tour’s route is ever going to.
Dan Martin had focussed on the Tour de France during recent seasons, taking 6th and 8th overall into Paris this year and last.
And while time to improve those results is at a premium for the now 32-year-old, he will still feel he can make the podium.
All the stars will need to align for Dan Martin to make the Paris podium. And, crucially, he will need to avoid the crashes of the last two years in France in July.
He is the only Irish rider who will be riding the general classification to achieve a personal result next year. And the route should suit him.
Advertisement
Next year’s route is very hilly and the number of time trial kilometres is relatively limited; good news for non-tester Martin.
The only individual TT in the race is a hilly one; a major advantage for Dan Martin as he usually cedes time to his rivals racing against the clock on flatter courses.
There are 30 categorised climbs and five mountain summit finishes. And the fact several of the hilly stages are short ones can suit Dan Martin’s racing style. He is a rider willing to race all-out.
The Col du Tourmalet stage 14 is 117km. Stage 19 to Tignes is just 123km and stage 20 to the Val Thorens summit finish is 131km, including 33.4km up the 2,365 metre mountain.
It is often difficult to pick out with certainty where the key stages are. Very often the racing can explode on non-descript stages because of rain, crashes or crosswinds.
And when the Tour route is unveiled each year, it is often not until the teams begin to reccie stage finishes – especially those featuring climbs new to the current generation of riders – that the true nature of the route becomes clear.
One thing is certain though; there is a lot of climbing at very high altitude this time. And there are some really brutal back to back stages.
Given Dan Martin’s noted climbing prowess and his powers of recovery, those characteristics of the route can suit him.
Related News
The five mountain finish stages include three that will finish at an altitude of more than 2,000 metres: on the Giant of the Pyrenees (2,115 m), then in Tignes (2,113 m) on a stage that will culminate at the Col de l’Iseran pass (2,770 m) and finally in Val Thorens (2,365 m), the day before the finish in Paris.
But before those, the first banana skin Martin needs to handle well is the stage 2 TTT; some 27km from Bruxelles Palais Royal to Brussel Atomium.
This has not been a great event for Dan Martin down the years or for his UAE Team Emirates line-up.
After that, stage 6 is 157km from Mulhouse to La Planche Des Belles Filles; ending on a 10km climb that steepens at the top.
While all the stages are crucial, the next really big one for the GC contenders will be the 27km TT in Pau on stage 13.
It’s almost all uphill on the first section out of Pau with a descending, though still undulating, return leg.
Then on stage 15 comes 185km from Limoux to Foix. It includes the Col de Montsegur, Port de Lers and Mur de Péguère before the fourth 11km climb up to the summit finish.
Final days are crucial
The race will then be won and lost on stages 18, 19 and 20 in the Alps. If Dan Martin is in contention at this point of the race, he will really relish these three stages.
Stage 18 features the Col d'Izoard and Col du Galibier. Stage 19 takes the riders 123km from Saint-Jean-De-Maurienne to Tignes.
It features two hard climbs in the back end of the day; the 12km Col d'Iseran and 9km Montee de Tignes up to the finish.
The next day, stage 20, is 131km from Albertville to Val Thorens with three big climbs including the summit finish climb of 33km.
There then remains the final day into Paris. It is a Tour with limted TT racing and even the one individual TT stage is largely uphill.
This, combined with a number of short climbing stages and a very hard block of stages at the end, when everyone is on their hands and knees, are all in Dan Martin's favour.
Topics
