Le Tour 2018 - pics of plateau des Glières

[tristanspeed]

Hello all - Wanted to share a few photos of 'La montée du plateau des Glières', the gravel section in Stage 10 of next year's Tour de France.

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Edited by tristanspeed on Thursday 19th October 09:39

[anonymous-user]

Nice pics

Is the intention that it remains as a gravel section? Or is it to be resurfaced for the race?

[towser44]

JPJPJP said:

Nice pics

Is the intention that it remains as a gravel section? Or is it to be resurfaced for the race?

Its remaining as gravel :-)

[anonymous-user]

2km of it according to

http://www.letour.fr/en/news/2018/stage-10/c-prudh...

Worth a bike swap at each end? Is the bike that the riders would want to use to tackle the later climbs Col de Romme and la Colombière the same one that they want to use on the rough bit?

[towser44]

JPJPJP said:

2km of it according to

http://www.letour.fr/en/news/2018/stage-10/c-prudh...

Worth a bike swap at each end? Is the bike that the riders would want to use to tackle the later climbs Col de Romme and la Colombière the same one that they want to use on the rough bit?

Can't see they would be able to swap bikes. As they will have just done the climb (and I think it's a narrow road?), the team cars will be miles away from the riders at the front of the peleton and the time loss would be too great.

[z4RRSchris]

i suspect you will just seem teams running 28's

[CooperS]

What you may see teams who use trek etc using the more versatile frames using 28's.... Watching GCN it appears the industry seems to be moving away from having soo many niche frames that do one displine extremely well.

[TwistingMyMelon]

Pretty similar condition to Paris Roubaix once you look close at some of the sections there

Cant seem them swapping bikes, high end road bike with tough tyres will be fine, even more so when its not your bike!

[tristanspeed]

Do the pros ride tubeless these days?

I've ridden and walked on lots of those kinds of tracks and they're very dry, the real risk would be snakebite punctures from the sharp stones hit at high speed. It would be very, very entertaining (or dangerous, depending on your point of view) if they had to tackle it downhill.

[towser44]

tristanspeed said:

Do the pros ride tubeless these days?

I've ridden and walked on lots of those kinds of tracks and they're very dry, the real risk would be snakebite punctures from the sharp stones hit at high speed. It would be very, very entertaining (or dangerous, depending on your point of view) if they had to tackle it downhill.

Tubulars most, if not all, of them. Interesting if someone at front punctures as the team cars will be miles away, so any GC contenders will be swapping bikes with their domestiques to get going again. But then, it will be the same on the Roubaix stage and there's 21kms of cobbles in that one.

[murray]

That's part of the Etape stage.

[yellowjack]

Now those pictures look great!

Nothing I'd be worried about riding my Trek Emonda on, anyway. I'd happily ride that sort of terrain, and have done quite a bit with 25mm Conti GP4000 SIIs on. But that's solo stuff, where you can flit from side to side to pick out the best lines, avoiding large stones etc. I wouldn't fancy riding it as part of a bloody peloton with no real chance of seeing where you're going to be putting your front wheel.

As someone else pointed out, pinch flats will be a risk, but the surely there's less risk of pinch flats with tubular tyres anyway? I copped a double snakebite (front and rear) and a half-mile "walk of shame" after a KOM-chasing blast along a local gravel road, but that was running innertubes. Oh, and most gravel roads I ride on are either flat or the hills are shallow or very short blasts. Not sure how I'd fare getting up an alpine climb on a gravel road...

[z4RRSchris]

i rode some st like that in tuscany and switzerland this summer. on 23mm 4000's

not pleasant.

[Gren]

towser44 said:

tristanspeed said:

Do the pros ride tubeless these days?

I've ridden and walked on lots of those kinds of tracks and they're very dry, the real risk would be snakebite punctures from the sharp stones hit at high speed. It would be very, very entertaining (or dangerous, depending on your point of view) if they had to tackle it downhill.

Tubulars most, if not all, of them. Interesting if someone at front punctures as the team cars will be miles away, so any GC contenders will be swapping bikes with their domestiques to get going again. But then, it will be the same on the Roubaix stage and there's 21kms of cobbles in that one.

I'd imagine they'd have a few spare wheels at the side of the road at the end of this section just like in P-R

[anonymous-user]

Looks no worse than strade bianche? Not sure it's worth all the fuss imho,it's 2 klicks, hardly enough to change the race bar a puncture or a mechanical and no doubt they will be soigneurs around and the GC guys will just borrow a domestiques bike if they puncture.