Tour de France Betting Previews 2017
Coming soon!
Montgeron to Paris
Sunday 23rd July, 105kms
The final act, the final sprint. The British and Germans have dominated on the Champs Élysées in recent years, with Gert Steegmans, the Belgian, the last man to strike a blow for the rest of the world in 2008.
Marseille to Marseille
Saturday 22nd July, 23kms
A time trial one stage from the finish, it could have been the decider of the race, but that's unlikely now given the lead Froome holds over inferior time triallists. It's not too long, or too short but it could still shake up some of the top 10 placings.
Embrun to Salon de Provence
Friday 21st July, 220kms
A stage that finishes in Salon de Provence, a town where Nostradamus lived towards the end of his life.. With this being the longest stage of the race, starting off hilly but looking perfect for a sprinter at the finish, could he have predicted the winner??
Briançon to Izoard
Thursday 20th July, 178kms
A start and finish that's just 21kms apart, nice and easy for the fans to catch the depart and mozy on over to the finish which will be swinging in around 4 1/2 hours later. In between they loop south and back up again on a 178km stage with a sting in the tail.
La Mure to Serre Chevalier
Wed July 19th, 183kms
A stage with a trilogy of mythical TDF climbs on a tough day that could make or break some challengers hopes, possibly for good with just four stages left. The Croix de Fer, Col du Telegraph and Col de Galibier will produce a spectacular day of action.
Le Puy-en-Velay to Romans-sur-Isère
Tues 18th July, 165kms
A day that could well be suitable for the breakaway men on a rolling course that will be difficult to organise a chase on, but with 56kms of flat roads on the run to the finish, the sprinter's teams might still have their day.
Laissac-Sévérac l'Église to Le Puy-en-Velay
Sunday 16th July, 189.5kms
A rolling transition stage that sees them skirt along the edge of the Massif Central en route to Puy en Velay. Anyone who knows the roads around here will know that this is probably going to be a tougher day than the profile suggests.
Blagnac to Rodez
Sat 15th July, 181kms
Quite possibly the most boring out of quite a few boring looking stages in this year's TDF, a non-descript stage across non-descript farmlands, with a few lumps and bumps along the way.
Saint-Girons to Foix
Fri 14th July, 100kms
Up until now it has seemed that nearly every stage was around the 215km mark, a good long test, but boring to watch for most of it. Not this one.. A coffee-ride distance of 100kms, three cols in 45kms, it's going to be explosive..
Pau to Peyragudes
Thurs 13th July, 214.5kms
The longest stage of the Pyrenéan stay, at 214kms - it's going to be a hard day in the saddle. It starts out sedately enough for the first 100kms, but after that that it gets harder and harder until the summit finish on the runway of the airport at Peyragudes.
Eymet to Pau
Wed 12th July, 202kms
Well the Tour de France wouldn't be the Tour de France without a visit to Pau! The 3rd most visited town in France by the Tour, after Paris and Bordeaux, Pau is seeing the Tour stop by for the 68th time in it's history.
Périgueux to Bergerac
Tuesday 11th July, 178kms
A day back after the rest day in the Dordogne and for those of us watching it's going to be another rest day really... Yet another snoozefest, as they spend 178kms in a loop from Périgieux to Bergerac, with an inevitable sprint finish at the end of it.
Nantua to Chambéry
Sunday 9th July, 181kms
A day spent climbing in the Jura mountains with four big climbs, culminating in a flat run to the finish in Chambery. Lots of double-digit climbing along the way and it could well see a strong breakaway rider solo to the finish.
Dole to Station des Rousses
Saturday 8th July, 187kms
This looks like a stage that a lot of the breakaway riders will have marked with a big red X on their roadbooks, it looks tailor-made for a break to fight out the victory on a lumpy day that will be hard for the chase to control.
Troyes to Nuit Saint Georges
Friday 7th July, 214kms
A pretty flat transition stage that takes them over 214kms from Troyes in to the vineyards of the Burgundy region. It looks like a stage that will probably come down to a bunch gallop, but is going to have the bottle to take the win?
Thursday 6th July, 216kms
So a day after the first mountain battle of the race we head back on to the flatlands for another of those 200km, flat, boring stages that should end in a sprint finish in the picturesque town of Troyes.
Vittel to La Planche des Belle Filles
Wed. 5th July, 160.5kms
The climb to La Planche des Belle Filles has only been used twice before now in the Tour, but it has established itself as one of the most difficult and important stages in the race. And I don't think it will be any different this year.
Mondorf Les Bains to Vittel
Tues 4th July, 207.5kms
A trip down through the north-eastern corner of France on another of those boring 200km stages that will inevitably end in a sprint finish in the spa town of Vittel. But who's going to have the bottle for the sprint? It'll all become clear around 4.30pm.
Verviers to Longwy
Monday 3rd July, 212.5kms
The second of many stages over 200kms, you'd think the ASO have not watched any racing themselves in recent months, where we have seen that the shorter, punchier stages have brought some of the best racing.
A selection of other markets
No other race is given half as much attention by the bookies in the year, where sometimes we have to make do with a winners' market and not much else, sometimes nothing at all! So for three weeks in a year we're like kids in a candy shop..
Who will be the top team?
The Team Classification was a very tight competition last year, with Movistar just taking the honours, beating Sky by just 8 minutes in the end. BMC were a further 40 mins back in 3rd with AG2R the only other team within an hour of Movistar.
The main contenders
We have not had a betting market for the winner of the Tour like this in a long time, with basically two favourites. The closest we have had in recent years, I think, was in 2014, when Froome was Evens and Contador was 6/4..
Can anyone stop the top 3?
I have covered the Favourites to win the 2017 Tour de France in this other preview already, now let's take a look at the best of the rest to try to find someone who could pull off the shock of the year and land the big prize.
The Tour de France King of the Mountains polka dots jersey is one of the most keenly fought competitions in cycling outside of the overall GC. It's the second oldest classification awarded in the TDF, first introduced in 1933.
Like the KOM jersey, this jersey was also introduced in 1975, and this competition has had various criteria over the years as to who were eligible to win it, but it has now settled down to be just anyone who is under 26 years of age.
Dusseldorf (Ger)
Saturday July 1st, 13km ITT
The 2017 Tour de France starts with a short 13km TT around the streets of Dusseldorf, Germany in a significant move for the countries relationship with pro-cycling and the Tour de France.
Dusseldorf (Ger) to Liege (Bel)
Sunday July 2nd, 203.5km
The first road stage of the 2017 Tour de France spends most of the day in Germany, but crosses in to Belgium with 144kms of the stage gone, and we should get the first sprint of the race in the town of Liege.
On your marks, get set....
I thought it would be unlikely that we would ever see anything that could top Chris Froome running up a mountain in a Grand Tour, but then Tom Dumoulin stopped to take a dump in the bushes in the Giro d'Italia and still won the race..!
The battle for the other jerseys in the Tour de France are as keenly fought as the battle for the yellow jersey, with the sprinters jersey and the KOM jersey two of the most famous and iconic in all of cycling.
