Voila, here’s the Tour de France most original of the new millennium. Start today from Bilbao the 110th edition of the Big loop: 3405 km to go to arrive on July 23 on the Champs Elysees. It’s a experimental path: goodbye to the big climbs over 2 thousand meters (there will be just two), goodbye to the big mountain stages concentrated in the last week, goodbye to the long time trials. The Tour 2023 reshuffle the cards and try to design a new way of living, of running, to understand cycling. Short stages, some very short. Just one time trial 22 km. Trappoloni from the first day, real climbs in the first week. All a lot chaoticbut it will be on this route that the great rematch between the 2022 Tour champion will take place Jonas Vingegaard and the brightest star of modern cycling, Tadej Pogacar. If it works, if it will showthis way of drawing the ride will become the future of the Grand Tours, the future of cycling. Like it or not.
The 2023 Tour which starts in the Spanish city of Bilbao is a surprise day after day. Already the first fraction presents very side in the last 40 km, the last of 2 thousand meters al 10% sloping, it goes downhill 10 km from the finish. Officially it’s a hilly stage, but who knows what will happen with riders like Wout van Aert, Mathieu Van der Poel, Tom Pidcock e Julian Alaphilippe. If one of these goes off, what will Pogacar and Vingegaard do? In short, ready away and no one can stay calm. Also because the next day you get to San Sebastián walking along some stretches of the classic basca: another fraction from a question mark. And the first week of Tour gives away more pearls: stage 5 is already the first in the mountains (Pau Laruns), the next day the first uphill finish a Cauterets-Cambasquewith the Col d’Aspin and the Tourmalet in the middle. It’s not over yet: before the rest day there is also the arrival at the top of the volcano Puy de Domeheritage of Unesco and of French cycling.
The first great oddity of this Tour lies precisely in the design of this first week, which could already give by itself 4-5 twists. Warning: they are almost never there impossible slopes eh Pyrenees they practically come snubbedwith the passage on the Tourmalet which is placed almost 50 km from the finish before a final climb of 16 km to the 5,4%. In short, the border between unpredictability e girl it is very thin. However, there is another aspect to evaluate, a constant of this one Grande Loop and another sign of experimentation: the length of the stages. The first two fractions in the mountains barely measure 162,7 e 144,9 km. In practice, they are to be done at all from the first meter. And this is one direction chiara and decided that the French organizers have taken: even without considering the time trial, the other 20 stages have an average length of 169,2 km. The last Giro d’Italia, if we exclude the three time trials, had stages of an average length of 189.7 km. There are 20,000 meters a day difference.
The emblem of this trend and of a Tour that overturns the traditional criteria of a Grand Tour is the 20th stage, the decisive one before the grand finale in Paris. As soon as 133,5 km: a shot that crosses i Vosges con 6 mountain grand prix – none Hors Catégorie – and without a meter of plain. All short or very short climbs, reaching a maximum of 1,200 metres. It looks like a miniature classic, impossible to decipher and from read tactically. That’s why it’s designed for modern cycling, in which it is no longer heresy try to break the bank even when there are 80 or 50 km to go. Where the teams are decisivebut then the captains challenge each other in an infinite head-to-head, as it was a year ago between Pogacar and Vingegaard. And so the path also serves to prepare for battle everytime: in the second week, for example, a triptych alpine. On July 14, which in France can never be trivial, the arrival on Large Dovecote after just 137,8 km. Then another 151 km with three first category Gpm and one Hors Catégorie. And again: the climb to the Mont Blancin one of the few stages that recalls tradition.
That’s all so paradoxical to make the last week almost the most boring, with two arrivals for sprinters in addition to the Champs Elysées. It opens with the stopwatch Passy Combloux of 22.4 km: May in the new millennium the future yellow jersey will have covered just a few meters against the clock. The day after another spectacular stage: we arrive at Courchevel after climbing the Col de la Loze (abundantly above 2 thousand meters). Finally, the last gasp will be the aforementioned Belfort-Le Markstein, Saturday 22 July. The ending of a journey which – almost by a twist of fate – is diametrically opposed to the last one Giro of Italydrawn following all the trappings from the tradition: the flat time trials in the first two weeks, some uphill finishes scattered here and there, the really hard part of the course concentrated between the end of the second week and the big alpine caps of the third. It’s a pity that there was no showexcept in the last time trial he gave to Primoz Roglic the Pink Jersey.
This Tour de France instead on paper it has 8 stages for sprinters, only 4 arrivals uphill and just two hills above 2,000 metres. It seems a soft routebut is designed to attempt to exalt the characteristics of new cyclists and today’s needs. Such short stages are also televised more effective. As well as mediatically everyone will want to watch the duel again between Vingegaard e Pogacar. It is no coincidence that among other favorites for the yellow jersey – in addition to the already known HindleyMr. Gaudu, Simon Yates – has also been entered Mattias Shkjelmosewhich has yet to do 23 years. The experimentation of the Tour intersects with the new generations and it’s a pity that Italy is not of the game: the only one Julius Ciccone could have his say among the 7 Italians at the start (May so few in the lasts 40 years). The level is very high and the race is made by cyclists: almost everyone will be at the Tour best. Probably a Pogacar would have also given a show to the Giro, even on that path. But since history is not made with “with“, this Grande Boucle will define the road to the future.