Tour de France 2016

What's the total elevation for the stage?

http://cyclingtips.com/2016/07/preview-everything-you-need-to-know-about-stage-19-of-2016-tour-de-france/

Start: Albertville (Two-time host city, population 19,300)
Finish: Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc (Two-time host city, population 5,800)
Distance: 146km (90.7mi)
Elevation Gain: 4,030m (13,221ft)
Weather forecast: The morning sky will be cloudy with rain showers. Strong rain expected with storms on the afternoon. 23°C (73°F) at the start, 15°C (59°F) at the top of the climb of Bisanne. The wind will be weak.
Stage notes: This is the first time the Tour de France will climb the Montée de Bisanne, an Hors-Catégorie summit (8,2% on 12,4km).

Thats making me feel sick just looking at it.

I've never ridden more than 3000m in a single day. That's insane!

It's absolutely insane. I couldn't do it in a day even without the racing bit.

Half of it... sure. But I just don't have the legs for all of that. It's not the distance, it's just those climbs and the severity of the big ones.

When you see these profiles, no wonder Cavendish and Cancellara have left.
This stage would have broken Cav, and it's better for his reputation to choose to leave, than be timed out.

Is this the hardest stage of the tour, or was that the stage going into Andorra?

The Time-Megeve Mont Blanc sportive covers a lot of the same roads. 140 kms and 4800 metres of climbing. It goes down the Bisanne though, rather than up it.

You should do it, it's a good day out.

Cavendish has ridden tougher stages than this before. He quit because there was nothing to be gained, in terms of performance, in the last week for his Rio preparations. Cancellara has left for similar reasons.

Cav's done harder stages and I don't think he has actually ever been timed out in a GT. I think there's been a couple of times he theoretically could have been but has been in a big enough grupetto to know he wouldn't.

So predictions are froome gives porte the stage to get him on the podium and mollemo and yates both have bad days . Astana as people have said to "charge" for the last 2 mountain stages.

I've not been watching cycling for that long (~5y), but do big names regularly get timed out? I thought the organisers bend the rules a bit.

How do Tom the Windmill's socks comply with the UCI mid-calf rule? They're very elegant, but they're definitely higher than that.

Looks like they're extra-long overshoes:

http://cyclingtips.com/2016/07/photo-gallery-2016-tour-de-france-stage-18/

Not sure what the UCI say about shoe cover length though...

he looks like he has quite short calves

The UCI rule is actually that socks must be no higher than the mid-point between the ankle and the knee: I'd say the Windmill's socks/overshoes end exactly there, no?

he also gets stung by wasps quite often in hard mountain stages, so all the more kudos to him for always making the time cut ;-)

cycling fans, yuck.

https://twitter.com/bartvangils73/status/756410283480997888

They're not socks though?

If they were alone(ish) and a long way outside the cut they'd be chopped regardless of name afaik.

In a big grupetto it doesn't happen as the race would look a bit sh!t in Paris if half the field had been timed out in the Alps.

Bisanne looks almost as tough as Emosson the other day. Lovely steep gradients to burn your legs out halfway through a stage.
Did Bettex last week; it's also a bit of a bugger. They've routed it up from Vervex instead of where the actual km markers start - and that makes it a LOT harder. It's a narrow road, and it's steep. Way steeper than I was expecting - quickly gets up to 10%, then for the next km or two steadily ramps up to about 16% I think. There's a few steep sections dotted about further up the mountain too, but there are occasional flattenings out to around 6%, so I guess there's a bit of respite. The last bit to the top has got to be about 10%+ again.
I don't recommend doing it when it's 36 degrees in the valley.

coverage is live on itv4 now

These phone interviews are always atrocious audio quality.

I feel like this Werner Herzog quote is relevant to today's stage

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^hah.

What are Astana up to?!

EDIT kicking off the racing. Goody goody.

Anyone else having issues with ES? Stuttering like crazy today. Unbearable.

It's incredibly smooth for me.