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Published on Thursday, 06 July 2017 22:00

TDF Stage 7

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?

The second of two similar stages one after the other, the organisers really didn't do much in the imagination room for the planning of this year's race. So far we have had Kittel win 2, Démare win 1 and Sagan take the uphill sprint in stage 3, will we have a new winner here, or will Kittel and Démare be fighting it out again?  Not a lot to say about this stage either, the break might fancy their chances if the peloton decide to snooze through it and save energy for Saturday's stage instead. 

Stage 6 Review

A good day that was one or two places away from being a hell of a lot better. Kittel was immense, he's just on a different level to all these other guys, he just cruised up the middle of the road while the others were all bumping in to each other on the barriers. Démare was best of the rest again, and Greipel rounded out the podium. But Bouhanni to me was in a fantastic position, was moving as well as any of them and seemed to have the speed to do better. But he rode with his head up his ass and gave himself no chance to get out and get a clean line. He seems to have lost his agression and win-at-all-costs attitude and just gave up a top 3 placing once again. 

Kristoff is sprinting better than I expected to take 4th, busting the matchbet by one place with Bouhanni, but the Kittel bet won and the other two matchbets won, including the nice 2/1 shot on Aru over Froome. So all in, a +5.6pts day which almost gets us back to flat. Hopefully we can kick on from here, I feel we have been desperately unlucky not to be ahead in this Tour so far. 

The Route

The first 130kms of the stage are spent climbing at a very gentle gradient for 135kms, on what will be a snoozefest for the peloton, and definitely probably a stage where there won't be too many complaints that it's not being shown from start to finish. With 145kms gone they tackle the only categorised climb of the day, the Cat 4 Cote d'Urcy, which is barely but a speedbump at 2.5kms, with a 4.2% average gradient.

After Gevrey Chambertin after 163kms it's then flat all the way to the finish for the last 50kms. The road does change direction for the last 25kms, looping around to the right and heading north-west through the vineyards to the finish in Nuits Saint Georges. 

It can get quite windy down around here sometimes and possibly the only thing that will prevent this from being a totally boring stage with an exciting last 5kms is if the cross-winds whip up and some teams start to try to blow it apart when they change direction.

The last 5kms as they enter Nuits Saint George are almost dead straight with just a few little slight turns in the road. That is not to say it's not without issues though as between the 4km and 2km to go point there are central reservations that they have to go either side of and they could cause problems. The road rises up gently through the village on the outskirts of Nuits Saint George and then descends down from about the 2.5kms to go point, either side of these divides that you can see below.. the pace is going to be furious at this stage, let's hope they all keep it upright. 

Contenders and Favourites

Same old story again I think, I don't think there is much point in wasting your time or mine going through the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate, we know all we need to know about them at this stage I think! Instead I'm going to do a quick synopsis of how I think it's going to go. 

The break could make it. The Taylor Phinney break almost made it on stage 2, they came within 1.5kms of victory, today's break got to within 5kms or so. The peloton could snooze through this as I say, they're probably getting bored of these long sprint stages too, and the Station des Rousses could be on their minds for the next day. Then you have the winds that could whip up, but it looks like it's going to be reasonably calm Friday. But the most likely outcome is a bunch sprint again, and another battle between just 5 or 6 guys out of 195.. 

Marcel Kittel should win again and I hit the 5/6 Paddy Power were offering just after the stage. Once again today I was really stressing over his chances as he seemed to loiter a long way back and was seemingly in a bad position with even 500m left. But his acceleration between 500-300m to go to come up the outside and get in to a winnable position was incredibly impressive. I cannot see how the others can beat him for speed or power, it will take a racing incident to stop him

Arnaud Démare was best of the rest again, I think it will be the same tomorrow. Very good at positioning, a good leadout and great speed will have him challenging again. André Greipel is plugging away behind as well, but he doesn't look capable of winning one of these sprints to me, he just doesn't have the speed, which I warned about before we started. 

Nacer Bouhanni was an idiot today as far as I was concerned, but of course I'll say that as I'm talking out of my pocket with our e/w bets on him. But I genuinely believe he can do a lot better and I'm sure his DS will be giving him a bollicking tonight for not trying to get out from the pocket he was stuck in. Surely he is due a good run soon and I think this tricky finish might actually suit him more than others.

Alexander Kristoff is suddenly sprinting better than I expected, he now has 3rd and 4th in successive sprints. I backed him today at 5/6 to finish 4th to 9th, he just landed that one, I think I'll be doing the same tomorrow as I can't see him in the top 3. Dylan Groenewegen likewise, I backed him at 10/11 in play, will do the same tomorrow, he's a second division sprinter still. Michael Matthews was close enough today in 7th, but I think looking at him again, 5th to 10th is his spot in the results sheet, I don't think he will get closer, although the 40/1 is again tempting me. Sonny Colbrelli was way down today, something must have happened with him, I can't trust him anymore either, he seems to have gone off the boil. 

So, it looks straightforward, but we know nothing is straightforward when it comes to the Tour de France, just ask Sagan or Cavendish. But I'm going to play up some winning on Kittel tomorrow and give Bouhanni one more chance. 

Recommendations

4pts win on Marcel Kittel at 4/5 with Paddy Power

0.5pts each-way on Nacer Bouhanni at 18/1 with various

added in play on Twitter - 3pts on Groenewegen to finish 4th to 9th at 8/11 with Bet365

Matchbets

Kittel to beat Demare, Greipel to beat Groenewegen and Matthews to beat McLay - 2pts on the treble at 1.92 with Bet365   (Sorry guys had made a mistake in the original, the Greipel V Groenewegen bet was not with Will Hill.. This is what it should have been..)

Add Kittel to beat Kristoff to make it a four-fold - 2pts at 2.42/1 with Will Hill

This one above was also wrong, this is what it should be - don't know what happened there guys.. 

Kittel to beat Kristoff, Matthews to beat McLay, Degenkolb to beat Swift and Demare to beat Bouhanni - 2pts at 9/4 with Will Hill.