Tour De France 2018

Press conference is live now

http://www.letour.fr/en

Teams of 8.

Stage 9 a "mini" L'enfer Du Nord. Can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks perfect for Dumoulin

Stage 17 65km with 38km of 7% climbing and a summit finish. Explosif!

Pretty happy with that.

Looks like a quick weekend in northern France would ensure the necessary live stage fix.

"This is where I will ignore team orders"

Fancy going over to Brittany to catch the stages there

Despite talk in local press of few cobbles... Stage 9 will have 15 pavé sectors, 154km and 21.7km on the cobbles. Finish in roubaix then fly to the alps .

It really doesn’t.

Looks perfect for Dumoulin

Don't think so. Route has the record for the lowest number of TT Km's.
35Km Team Time Trial will probably favour Sky over Sunweb, and the stage 20 TT is rolling with a final climb. Sure Dumoulin monstered Froome in the Worlds on an uphill finish, but that was a very fresh Dumoulin who was targeting it vs a knackered post TdeF/Vuelta double Froome.

Route seems more designed to give Bardet a chance rather than setting up Froome vs Dumoulin

http://inrng.com/2017/10/2018-tour-de-france-route-analysis/

That’ll probably be one of the most decisive stages, especially if it’s wet.

Cobbles, gravel roads, Mur de Bretagne x 2, penultimate day rolling TT and two short stages. Oh my days - all we need now is for Carlton Kirby to get laryngitis on 6 July 2018.

Dumoulin might not even start with that parcours, might go Giro and Vuelta.

nice stuff, first stage finish in my hometown

If they'd created a Tour that favoured him it would have favoured Froome equally/moreso.

Interestingly, Quintana says he will lead Movistar at the the Tour. Was looking forward to seeing Landa v Froome v others.

Quintana can say what he likes now, but I doubt Movistar will decide on GT leaders until they’ve seen the Giro and Vuelta routes too.

It was clear this past season that all is not well in the relationship between Movistar and Quintana, so he might be on his way out. The signing of Landa would seem to support that hypothesis.

With Contador retiring and Valverde getting on a bit (although not slowing down) Spain and Movistar needs a new superstar, wondering if Movistar would prefer to unleash at the Vuelta for home crowds and either the Giro or the Tour. That said with the lack of TTing Landa will fancy the Tour.

Preparation has passed me by until now. Just sorting out my days off and have opted for the Alpe stage as well as Stage 17. Hopefully it's as frenetic as it promises to be.

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Tom Dumoulin will ride, but seemingly doesn't expect to much according to Sunweb's press release:

"My season so far has been focused on the Giro and the team purposely waited to the make the decision about the Tour until after the Giro had finished. After a good Giro we’ve chosen to go to the Tour with a GC focus, to learn without a specific result in mind. Doing two consecutive grand tours for a GC will be a new experience for me and the team, and will give us some valuable insights for the future."

He clearly liked to ride next to Froome, why else? :)

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