2023-11-10 09:38:31
There is no coincidence and nothing has been done unexpectedly. Sundays are usually the days of maximum television audience In the three-week races and whenever possible, the cycling organizers reserve an attraction so that the Sunday day can maximally captivate the spectators who sit in front of the TV.
The next Tour de France (from June 29 to July 23, 2024) has a date marked in red, Sunday, July 7, and it is neither because it is San Fermín, nor because a tough mountain or a stratospheric time trial begins to mark the destination of the test, but because a gravel stage will be experienced at maximum intensity, which already has the participating teams on their minds and where the innovations of the new cycling modality, in full swing, will have a place in one of the key events of the next French round.
The women’s Tour exam
Among vineyards that grow so that the grapes are the destination of the best champagne, many of them with promotions and descents; gravel, dirt and stones, there are roads along which the tractors and SUVs of the vineyard owners usually pass. In French they are called ‘chemins blancs’ and they were already presented to cycling society a year ago, during the first edition of the Tour Femmes, in a day that, without marking the final destination of the women’s race, served for women cyclists to experience one of the most demanding stages during the race week. And it was something like an exam for the stage to be included in the menu of the 2024 men’s event.
???? Chemin de Polisy in Celles-sur-Ource
????????#TDF2024 pic.twitter.com/PB5y2JdXek
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) October 26, 2023
With departure and arrival at city of Troyes, cyclists will tour the vineyards of the Champagne region, with 199 kilometers that will include 14 dirt sectors, 5 of them uphill. They will travel 32.4 kilometers without asphalt. And this is where the advances of gravel, whose bicycles have the morphology of road bikes, although with wheels similar to those of mountain bikes, enter the Tour scene.
It is not that the runners are going to change bikes, which would be crazy according to the experts consulted, but they will use gravel-specific material that they will adapt to road bikes, just as Primoz Roglic already did in the month of May. He used a chainring and sprockets made for gravel during the final time trial of the Giro, which amounted to Mount Lussariwhere the pink race ended.
“My recommendation would be for the riders to use a single chainring (instead of the usual two chainrings on road bikes) that day. 52 teeth and with the pressures on the wheels typical of the specialty,” argues Alejandro Valverde, who has become one of the best specialists on the planet (he was fourth a month ago in the world championship of the modality), fully captivated by questions from this newspaper. for the new gravel fever.
???? A look at some of the gravel roads of stage 9. Here is the Chemin de Baroville, 2nd sector of the day.
???? A look at some of the white paths on the program for stage 9 of the #TDF2024with here the Chemin de Baroville, 2nd of the 14 sectors of the day. pic.twitter.com/vvIIkwTIw7
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) October 26, 2023
Samuel Sánchez, Olympic champion in Beijing 2008, is another of the ‘crazy’ gravel riders, who has been practicing since his retirement from professional cycling. “For this stage – he comments – many teams will use hybrid material; That is, they will mix gravel elements with those of the road. They will have wider wheels and lower tire pressures. It is no coincidence that many professionals already practice gravel.” The last World Cup winner of this cycling deity was the Slovenian Matej Mohoricfrom the Bahrain team, winner of the Milan-San Remo 2022.
Pello Bilbao’s opinion
Precisely, his teammate Pello Bilbao, sixth in the last Tour and winner of a stage, tells of the changes that will be made in this stage. “I don’t think they dare to break the Tour with the gravel sections to the seventh stage. We will have to analyze the sections, but I will ride it with my usual bike, although with wider tires and lower pressures. It will be necessary to define the pattern of the tires and decide whether to opt for safety and avoiding punctures or greater aggressiveness,” says the Biscayan rider. Safety and lower risk of punctures means including safety material. gravel and more aggressiveness leads to betting on pure and tough road bikes.
“Gravel is one of today’s trends. Normally we have wider tires and a tread similar to the one we use on rainy days. Chainrings and sprockets will be decided after analyzing the hardness of the stage,” explains the Catalan runner. David de la Cruzfrom the Astana team.
The winner of the 2006 Tour was Óscar Pereiro, who today also defines himself as a gravel practitioner. “The first figures will not change bikes, but I am convinced that the brands, for advertising purposes, will show some gravel model at this stage to sell later and will make some transformations. You have to keep in mind that, although the bikes look similar, they are absolutely different.”
Stage 9 / Stage 9 – #TDF2024
???? @VilledeTroyes – @VilledeTroyes ???? 199 km
???? 14 sectors of white roads, 32 km in total onto the gravel and into the dust.
????14 sectors of white paths for a total of 32 km in dust and stones. pic.twitter.com/FDToSSiLIG
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) October 25, 2023
Pedro Horrillo, a former professional cyclist who appears on Skoda’s public relations team in the Tour, has also been seduced by gravel. “In fact, gravel is an evolution of the long-distance bikes used in races such as the Paris-Roubaix and it does not come from cyclocross as some believe. “Everything will depend on the state of the tracks, but the teams have material of this specialty with harder radii that can withstand the torture of the terrain.”
Jose Casla, general director of Giant Ibérica, supplies his bikes to the Jayco team where Simon Yates races. “The team has 32 millimeter wheels that are wider than the usual 25 and 28 to use in this type of stages.” So with eight months in sight, the ‘chemins blancs’ stage is already starting to cause a headache for the Tour teams. Let no one miss it.
#Gravel #arrive #Tour