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Published on Monday, 13 July 2015 21:50

TDF Stage 10

Tarbes to La Pierre-Saint-Martin

Tuesday 14th July, 167kms 

So the rest day is over, the Team Time Trial is done, now it's time for the mountains! It's been a fascinating first week with so much happening on a daily basis. There have been so many incidents and talking points and the race is teed up nicely going in to the second week. Chris Froome has held on to his leaders jersey, inherited from Tony Martin and goes in to the mountains with a healthy lead over his key rivals. 

So how do we score the leading contenders so far and how are all the markets looking after the dramatic opening 9 stages?

Chris Froome looks in great shape and has come through this first week in a commanding position. Some were thinking that we might not even see Froome in the race at the end of the first week, what with the cobbles, crashes and wild n' windy opening stages. Instead, Froome has been imperious - strong on the cobbles, ably marshalled by an excellent team including Geraint Thomas and Nico Roche. He has been well protected, has looked strong and has looked in control - he has even been physical and has taken no crap from anyone, getting the elbows out and fighting his corner, even storming on to Nibali’s bus to confront him after he chucked a bottle at him.

He goes in to the second week well ahead of his closest of the Fab Four rivals, with Alberto the closest at 1'03" back and has shortened up to a best price 4/6 as a result. It does look now like it's going to take an extraordinary effort to take the Tour away from him, he has a healthy lead, a strong team and rivals who don't look 100% up to the task in hand.

Nairo Quintana remains his closest rival and although he had a rough day in the winds at the start of the race he came through the cobbles with flying colours and looked comfortable on the climb of the Mur de Bretagne. He was reportedly suffering from allergies at the start of the race but seems to be over them, he certainly looked to be one of the strongest in the Team Time Trial on Sunday, causing a split mid-way through the stage with a hard pull at the front. His strong team performance though has given him a little time back on some of his big rivals, and a shot of confidence, he was all smiles and declared himself very pleased with the result after the stage.

He may be 1'59" behind Froome, but the bookies still see him as the Sky man’s biggest danger - he is as short as 2/1 but is available at 11/4 on Betfair still, the same price he was before the race started! That's an interesting point, in that even with a two minute handicap he is seen as having the same chance of winning as before the race started. I guess oddsmakers expected him to lose around two minutes on the cobbles, so even though it happened in a different way he is about where they expected him to be.

I still think that he is going to be a huge danger to Froome in the mountains, but Froome made the point during the week in a press conference that it'll be harder for him to attack from far out as he has in the past as he will be marked so closely. And he will need to start attacking from far out to start clawing back two minutes. Froome says Nairo doesn't have the explosive power to get away and pull away from a bunch of big GC men, but I think he is worried about him and is trying the mind games! I am looking forward to seeing what he does in the coming weeks, it's going to be a fantastic duel with Froome. I said at the start to wait a week and maybe half some more on Quintana then, well I’m happy to go in again at 3.8 on Betfair for another 2 points.

Alberto Contador has lost a little bit of time here and there, he didn't do a great TT to start with and lost some more time in the windy stage 2. He starts the first mountain stage of the race just over a minute back on Froome, but almost a minute ahead of Quintana. I'm not sure he's 100% though, we didn't see him attack the Murs very hard and was only really able to follow wheels. I think he will struggle to follow Froome and Quintana when they go, but I could be very wrong, he is a superb climber after all. I just think that maybe the effects of the Giro might be just catching up with him a little. There is no doubt though that Tinkoff-Saxo will be on the offensive and will look to shake things up with attacks when least expected, like on the descent ahead of the Pra-Loup climb for example, but he might have to be on the attack before then.

His challenge was dealt a devastating blow on Monday though, when during the press conference Ivan Basso announced that he was abandoning the Tour as doctors had discovered he had testicular cancer in the left testicle. Say what you want about him being an unrepentant ex-doper, but you wouldn’t wish that on any one and he genuinely seems to be one of the most popular and nicest guys in the peloton. I know that when we met him a few years back at the Tour of Britain he was about to disappear in to a bus and my son ran after him for an autograph, he happily stopped and with a big smile gave him his prized signature.

You can’t help but think that this is going to have a massive effect on the team – Contador was beside him at the press conference today and was reportedly in tears when he announced it. That sort of news will put a dampener on the whole squad, as well as strip Contador of an able lieutenant in the mountains. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Contador slip away down the GC now in an attempt for one big blast at a stage win to dedicate to Ivan..

Vincenzo Nibali looks in the biggest amount of trouble, he has lost plenty of time, another 34" to Froome in the TTT Sunday. But most significant this week was the way he fell away on the Mur de Bretagne, in only a 1km climb he dropped away and lost a cheap 10". All the other GC men were at the front, Nibali was sliding off the back. If that form is carried in to a climb like La Pierre Saint Martin or Plateau de Beille he could lose minutes. He also looks stressed and tetchy, his petulant and mis-placed bottle chucking incident with Froome highlighted that. It looks like he knows he doesn’t have the legs, and neither do his team-mates and he could find himself in a lot of trouble in the Pyrenees. Of course I could be wrong, he could be one of the strongest climbers like last year, he might come out and surprise us, but I’d be surprised if he did to say the least. I layed him for a small bet at 4/5 to finish in the top 3 about a week ago, that looks like a pretty safe bet right now.

But Tejay Van Garderen has been superb so far and I'm pretty pleased with my 64/1 on him on Betfair, I could have laid off at less than 20/1 this week but I'll hold on to it for now. I don’t understand why he went from 20 to 28 on Betfair after the time trial, perhaps some expected him to put more time in to Froome and take the Yellow, but to me he’s still in a great place and I can’t believe he is still 28s. He has been strong, confident, assured and well looked after by a very strong team. Of course, the real test is still to come on the big mountains, will he be able to live with Quintana and Froome when they do their thing, or will he be left behind? He has a nice lead on some of his rivals though, he's only 12" behind Froome, but 51" ahead of Contador and 1'47" ahead of Quintana. That's quite a nice buffer to have and there's a possibility that if he can hang in there on the Pyrenéean climbs he could go in to the final week with a fantastic chance of a podium place, or at least give us a good trading position on our winner and top 3 bets, he's already trading at 7/4 from the 7/1 we backed him at pre-race. 

Sagan looks like he is a shoe-in for the Green jersey, I said he'd be trading at 2/5 after the first week, he's 1/4.. The KOM competition has yet to take off, but Quintana has shortened up to 3/1 from 5/1 pre-race, I guess people have seen he is going well and if Froome runs away with it he might switch his attention to the KOM Jersey, something I said he might do beforehand.

So on to stage 10 then, the day after the rest day. It's always a strange day, to see who has come out of the rest day well or who has not recovered well. It was a particularly hard stage for those at the head of affairs, Sky, BMC, Movistar, Tinkoff-Saxo and Astana all went really hard, whereas other teams rolled around at a more sedate pace. 

The Route

It's the first time up the climb of La Pierre Saint Martin in the Tour, so the riders will not be familiar with it. The small town of LPSM has only 1000 inhabitants but will be beseiged by the throngs of Tour fans this Tuesday. 

It looks on paper like 140kms of nothing, an almost flat road from a distance. But the road is not exactly flat with three Cat 4 climbs to get over along the way and several more uncategorised hills. 

None of the three Cat 4 climbs are very difficult, just a little like the final climb to Plumelec on stage 9 - less than 2 kilometres and averages around 6%. They head in a U shape, heading north-west first up to the Cote de Bougarber, then start heading south-west over the Cote de Vielleségure after 90kms. They then head south through the Intermediate sprint at Trois-Villes which is quickly followed by the Cote de Montory. 

9kms later they head through Arette, which marks the start of the final climb up to LPSM. This climb is going to be tough - it rises like a wall on the profile and no doubt it will feel like it rises like a wall to the riders as they approach it. It's a long climb at 15.3kms and it's a steep climb at 7.4%. It starts hard and stays close to 10% for the first 9kms, hitting a max of over 10% around the 9km mark. The climb is actually made up of three separate sections you could say, although they all run in to each other. 

After 162kms, 10kms in to the climb they go over the Col de Labays, after which the road eases back a bit for the next 4kms, where it averages closer to 5%. They then crest the Col de Soudet, after 166kms, with only 1km left to run to the summit at LPSM. The last kilometre steepens up again to 7% for about 920m, with the finishing straight of 80m being almost flat. 

Contenders and Favourites

Chris Froome is the favourite for the stage at 5/2 with Ladbrokes, he was trading at only 9/4 with Betfair at the time of writing so the 5/2 looked attractive from that point of view. There are a number of reasons why Froome is trading as favourite for this race though and it's easy to see why he is being backed too. Froome looks in great form and looks like he wants to maybe put this race to bed as soon as he can, he has tried on a few occassions to shake things up. There are unconfirmed rumours that Froome put the hammer down on the Mur de Bretagne as he had got word in his ear that Nibali was struglling, a case of '"Who's throwing bottles now bitch?"

He likes to try to lay down a marker on early key mountain stages of the Tour also - he did it in 2012 with his powerful ride up the Plateau de Beille and he did it in 2013 with his win on Ax 3 Domaines. His team have looked pretty good up until now - barring the last kilometre of the TTT they looked very strong indeed and could have won the stage. Porte, Riche, Kennaugh, Konig, Poels, Stannard, Rowe - they will give their all to first, get him safely to the bottom of the climb, and secondly to string things out and put the others under pressure until the last few kilometres.

When he's in great form like this and he senses that the opposition is not quite at 100% race fitness yet he goes for the jugular. And there's third reason as to why he is favourite for the stage - there are signs that all is not well with some of the opposition - Nibali in particular and maybe to a lesser extent Contador who couldn't go with him on the Mur de Huy. He still has Tejay and Nairo to contend with and he may want to try to crush their spirits by putting more time in to them. He opened at 5/2 with Ladbrokes while already 9/4 to lay on Betfair so I had a couple of points at that price Sunday night.

Nairo Quintana is playing the role of the silent, smiling assassin right now.. lurking in the shadows nearly 2 minutes back from Froome, most mere mortals would be out of the GC contention with that deficit to someone like Froome. But if anyone can put it up to Froome, it looks like it will be Nairo Quintana - he's the reason Froome isn't 1/5 or something like that already for the Tour. He has looked very good to me and was very pleased with their TTT Sunday, and why wouldn't he be, they lost just 3" to Froome and made back 24" on Contador.

The team look fit and strong and they should work hard like Sky to make sure that Nairo is in the right place at the right time - when Froome goes, Nairo needs to be on his wheel to go after him. Or maybe it will he be doing the attacking? Maybe he feels strong enough to strike the first blow? I'm not so sure about that, I'm not so sure the profile of the last 5kms or so are suited to a big Nairo attack - the steeper gradients are in the first part of the climb and that's probably too far out to kick off proceedings, although, knowing Nairo Quintana he might just try it. The area around where he should possibly try an attack, with 3 or 4kms to go is not the steepest, so not perfect to really try to put the opposition under real pressure. Unless of course the first part of the climb had been ridden at a blistering pace and they are all on the limit. 

There is one scenario that could see him win the stage though, Froome could hit the afterburners in the easier (but still hard) parts with 3 or 4 kms to go, Quintana is the only one able to go with him and then jumps away from him again on the 7% ramp inside the final kilometre. 

Joaquim Rodriguez would have a chance if he is still in there when they reach the last kilokmetre, if he attacks like he did on the Mur de Bretagne, then he might just get away and stay away. My worry is that the likes of Froome, Contador, Valverde all know this and they'll do doing their best to get rid of him ahead of that. I think he might find the pace a but hot but it's a dangerous one to rule Purito out. 

Alberto Contador has a big test today - will the alarm bells that I have in my head about his form turn in to full-blown klaxons? He has looked a little out of sorts and troubled at times to me, but luckily, like the other GC men, he has stayed upright and uninjured in the first week. It was the way he fell away on the Mur though that's troubling me, he should be able to go with Froome and Rodriguez on a slope like that, but he hit a wall and went backwards. Also his team were caught sleeping a little with the splits on stage 2 and was off the pace in the TTT - many had them as strong chances for the win, or at least a podium, I didn't and went against them. They of course lost 28" to TVG, 27" to Froome and 24" to Nairo.

I think he might struggle if they go full gas in the last 6-7kms, but it's hard to know who will go well and not on the first big climb of the Tour and the day after a rest-day also. Contador says that he feels like he is missing the 'spark' that the others have at the moment but that he knows the secret to winning a Grand Tour is consistency and solid results for the entire three weeks and that's where he should be ok. I think he is missing the spark too and am not backing him tomorrow, even at 12/1

Thibaut Pinot has had a torrid first week, with crashes, mechanical, tantrums and considerable time losses - his Tour is over more or less before they even hit the first climbs. After losing a minute and a half on stage 2 in the cross-wind he has lost a further six and a half minutes in incidents and a poor TTT to now sit over eight minutes back on Froome. His team have looked soft and have left him exposed and they also did a poor time trial which hasn’t helped him with his deficit. It means though that he is probably now in full stage hunting mode and this is the kind of climb that he could like.

I don’t think he will go in the break of the day, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he jumped early on the climb. He is a grinder who seems to get better the further in to a long climb it goes, see his stage win in the Tour de Suisse for that, he was off the back, struggling, got back on but looked like was still struggling, then went to the front and rode away from the group to land a great stage win. He might be still thinking that he can claw back time bit by bit and get himself back in the top 10, it’s not beyond him if he can stay with the very top guys on all the mountain stages, or get in a break that steals a minute here and there. I think he might be happy to just try sitting in tomorrow though and gauging his effort to see if a break later in the race might be more rewarding, there could be a GC battle royale on this first mountain stage. The last thing you want is to bust your balls getting away only for Froome and Quintana to come zooming past you and leave you with nothing!

Tejay Van Garderen I think will watch and follow wheels. I think he’ll be happy to sit on Froome and Contador and maybe pull further away from other podium threats if they can’t follow. He looked good in the Dauphiné doing it to Froome, until the very last climb, but he looks fitter and stronger now and hopefully should be able to follow on slopes like these. He’s not averse to seizing opportunities and winning stages though, as we saw in Catalunya when he jumped away from Porte and Contador to take a fine stage victory.

Alejandro Valverde may have to work for Quintana and may work his socks off for him, thus putting him out of contention at the finish – I say May, as you can never know with Alejandro. If the pace is really hot, then he probably won’t make it to the finish with the likes of Froome and Quintana. If the pace isn’t so hard and the GC men look at each other a little and just play cat and mouse to the finish, that plays in to Valverde’s hands, as we saw Saturday, he will probably win a small bunch sprint finish.

Dan Martin was going ok in the Dauphiné but on the last stage was just unable to match Froome’s acceleration and was left behind. He was still recovering from broken ribs at the Dauphiné though and said that he was pleased with his form considering. He is certainly looking a lot sharper now, judging by his excellent, if a little mis-timed, attack out of the pack on the Mur de Bretagne. Will he be able to hang in there with the GC men when they start firing rockets? It’s possible – but with GC chances all but gone now, it’s stage hunting from now on for him. Whether this stage is perfectly suited to his style is another question, I think he will maybe be eyeing up other stages later in the race to make up for missing out on stage 8.

Romain Bardet could be a dark horse for AG2R here, but I think it will depend on whether the GC men look at him going and decide that he is no danger and they are in the midst of a GC stalling match. He might struggle to stay with Froome if the big accelerations come, but if he can get a gap with a small, decent group he could stay away. Julian Arredondo was being backed like it was going out of fashion for the KOM, but we haven’t seen much from him so far. Ok, it’s not exactly been mountainous up to now, but he didn’t make a move on the two Mur’s something a lot of people expected. With Cancellara out of the race and Mollema just outside the top 10, I think Arredondo will be asked to look after Mollema until it no longer looks possible for Mollema can get a good GC result. Therefore, he doesn’t interest me for this stage.

Adam Yates and Simon Yates could be two guys that very much go under the radar here, and with the OGE squad decimated they will be free to ride their own race. Interestingly OGE rode the slowest team time trial you are likely to ever see and I think they were saving themselves ahead of the mountain stages to come. OGE have big hopes for the Yates boys and they could slip away unnoticed – either in the break of the day (one could go) or a later attack on the climb (the other could go). They are a big price, but the problem is working out which one is most likely to try the late attack as I think that has more chance of succeeding! Simon revealed though in his blog that he is suffering from a sore throat and missed out on the training ride yesterday, I’m staying away from him today. 

Steven Kruiswijk was excellent in the Giro, almost winning the KOM jersey, being very aggressive and also very persistent in the mountains stages. The level is lifted a notch here at the Tour though and it will be interesting to see how he goes on this first mountain stage. Will the Giro still be in his legs? Will he go looking for KOM points? It may be the wrong day to do that and may be better off saving energy for days with multiple big climbs where there will be far more points on offer. If he can sit in with the leaders though and there is a bit of a stall with a few kilometres left, he could jump up the road. He interested me a little at 80/1.

Pierre Rolland could be one for the long breakaway, I don’t think he is capable of getting away from this lot. Rigo Uran is being ignored by almost every commentator, analyst and tipster, he’s 100/1 for the stage and 12/1 to even finish in the top 3 of the Tour, despite sitting in 6th place on the GC. Etixx have a big loss in Tony Martin to look after him on the lead-in to climbs, but he will be pretty isolated once the road goes upwards as the team was built around trying to win stages in the opening week with Cav, Martin and Stybar. He might surprise and hang in there tomorrow, but the likelihood is we will see him being tailed off with 4 or 5 kilometres to go.

Alexis Vuillermoz was our hero on Saturday, but it was worth noting what he said when asked about whether he could do something on the big mountains too - he said "I don't think I'll be able to do as well in the big mountains, everyone has their 'thing' and the Mur de Bretagne was my kind of thing as I am more of a puncheur". It probably means he will be working for Bardet and Peraud and I think he can be taken on in matchbets with Dan Martin. 

And there are lots of others who could go in the break of the day with hopes - too many to even conisder, but the likes of Voeckler, Ladagnous, Roy, or any one of the Cofidis, Europcar, FDJ, Bretagne Seche squads on Bastille day. One Frenchman to look out for who seems to be going really well is Warren Barguil, the young Frenchman for Giant-Alpecin sits in 14th place, but would still be regarded as not being a threat, so if there is a lull with 2-3kms to go and a group of 20 or so together, he might just be able to slip off and take the stage on Bastille Day. 

But overall, despite saying that he is not going to attack on the climb, I think Froome will not be able to resist it and will look to lay down another marker on this first mountain stage. The 5/2 was backable, there's still 2/1 out there and 9/4 on Betfair. I thought Tejay looked too big at 28/1, if he sits in with Froome and Quintana he could be dragged on to a podium place. Steven Kruiswijk and Warren Barguil could give us a bit of excitement at a big price. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on Chris Froome at 5/2 on Ladbrokes (take the 9/4 on Betfair or the 2/1 on PP, I wouldn't go lower than that)

0.5pts each-way on Tejay Van Garderen at 28/1 with Ladbrokes. (take the 28/1 with Betfair sportsbook or 25/1 with PP)

0.25pts each-way on Steven Kruiswijk at 80/1 with various

0.25pts each-way on Warren Barguil at 50/1 with Bet365 

Matchbets

Dan Martin to beat Alexis Vuillermoz - 2.5pts at 8/11 with PP

Haimar Zubeldia to beat Alexis Vuillermoz - 1pt at 9/4 with Bet365

Pinot to beat Rolland - 2pts at 10/11 with Bet365