Just a nice quiet sprint stage to let riders get into the groove. Oh wait, it's in the Netherlands, and in the most windy part of it. Expect crosswinds, echelons, frantic scrambling by contenders and their teammates, plus riders trying to win the stage.
It's building up to almost peak anticipation, as the Tour is almost underway! The only individual time-trial of the entire race is a short one on the first day, not a prologue like Tours in the past have done, but slightly longer. Utrecht will host it's first Grand Depart in history, and Tom Dumoulin will be the big home-town favourite trying to go for victory here.
The main contenders arrive at this year's Tour largely on equal pegging, with very little to split the top 4 at the moment. Nibali goes in as the defending champion, but he did so in a year where Froome and Contador crashed out, and Quintana opted to skip the Tour. All three are back to challenge Nibali this year, and I've thrown Valverde and Porte into the mix here as well, because they are riders that have the ability to win, even if their current level of form is dubious at the moment.
I'm holding over the riders that I think that can actually win the Tour for the next post, so here is everyone else that I think could show up in the top 10. And it really is everyone else, I am fairly confident that there won't be any interlopers in the actual top 10, then again, it is cycling.
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AuthorI'm Jamie Finch-Penninger, better known as Fishy, the best DS to ever sit a couch. Anything which I don't cover for a bigger site will be up here. Archives
October 2015
CategoriesCome here for the previews of all the World Tour races this season, plus any Pro Continental/NRS/tricycle races that take my fancy. Along as it's pro cycling I'll have some sort of opinion on it. I'm Australian, so be prepared for a healthy Orica-Greenedge bias. Please feel free to request any changes or previews, and stay up to date on Twitter and Facebook.
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