I'm out all day tomorrow
(and won't be around next weekend 
bc we're escaping to Bermuda for a few days of wifi free living)
Stage 15 preview (FloBikes)
Tour de France 2023 STAGE 15 PREVIEW › Final SUMMIT FINISH of the Week for VINGEGAARD AND POGACAR (Cycling Dane Extra)
Weather
no wind, possible rain, 20°C
Stage Breakdown
That was fun today huh? Well I guess it will be the same tomorrow. We start in Les Gets, known for its mountain bike track, with a start in a climb follwoed directly by a descent, all that in less than 10 km. Could be a mess, could be nothing. If it ends up being nothing, it will leave us with a 20 km flat part where everyone and their grandma will try to get in the break. Considering what we saw today, and in general this tour, big doubt the break will be gone by then, but even if it is, it won't be for long enough, and others will counter in the Col des Fleuries, a serious uncategorized climb (8.2 kms at 4.7%.) After that the sawtooth never stops, very much like today, with another 5 categorized climbs. This stage is longer, has more vertical climbing, and a harder stage profile than Stage 14 (but mercifully no Hors Catégorie mountains.) This may be the best designed stages at the tour in quite a while.
The serious stuff will start after 110 km, Col de la Croix Fry, Col des Aravis, that long flatish section to Megève, y'all know it as this is a Tour and Dauphiné classic. Then the descent towards Domancy, taking the famous climb of what is recognized as the hardest Worlds of all time in 1980. The Cote de Domancy in descent is a nasty thing, Bauke Mollema is probably traumatized by it, and one of our fallen of the day, Bardet, adores it - it's where he pulled off the greatest move of his career and succeeded in winning a stage with the exact same finale in 2016. The Bettex is a killer climb, and it's really 2 successive climbs that follow each other, making it 10 kms of hard ascent.
With that in mind here are our predictions:
★★★ Who knows at this point
★★ Pogacar, Vingegaard
★ who ever they let go while they play altitude track racing
This Tour breaks all logic so far. While some of the things that happened were slowly happening in the past few years at the tour, this year pushed it to a whole new level. With that, you can't guess anything. A break could win, if Jumbo and UAE are in the mood, TJV desperately want the win (whatever they the consensus will be it was questionable.) UAE could work, Pogi does seem slightly stronger than Vingegaard - but only just. Honestly anyone could win this stage, it's a weird race, confusing, and superb entertainment. Bes TdF in a long, long time, that's for sure
