Date: Friday, July 18
Distance: 10.9km
Start location: Loudenvielle
Finish location: Peyragudes
Start time: 13:10 CEST
Finish time: 17:31 CEST
To navigate the final kilometre of the road that takes them to the airport at the summit of the Peyragudes ski resort — a spot scenic and dramatic enough to stand in for Russia as the filming site for the opening set piece of the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies — the riders must ride up an especially painful ramp averaging 13%. It’s a spectacular stretch of road, that has in its few appearances at the Tour de France caused the kind of drama worthy of a Bond flick.
In 2012, Bradley Wiggins in the yellow jersey continually lost the wheel of his teammate Chris Froome, Froome gesturing to his leader to keep up. Was Froome, as he and the Team Sky PR machine claimed, merely encouraging his leader? Or was he consciously demonstrating his superiority, implicitly communicating that he should be given the freedom to ride for himself? We’ll never know for sure, but Wiggins certainly believed the latter to be true, and their relationship never recovered — so Wiggins might have looked on in some sardonic satisfaction five years later when, now riding as Sky’s leader, this time it was Froome who was unable to keep the wheel of his super-domestique Mikel Landa on those same slopes, losing time to his GC rivals.
Today, the Peyragudes will be ridden up as a mountain time trial, the first of its kind at the Tour since 2004. There have been many time trials featuring hard climbs in that time, which have proven to be especially game-changing stages — Jonas Vingegaard seized control of the 2023 Tour with a stunning win on one that ended with the 6.3km Côte de Domancy, while Tadej Pogačar famously snatched the yellow jersey from his compatriot Primož Roglič on the 6km Planche des Belles Filles at the end of a penultimate stage time trial in 2020. But this differs in that it is a pure mountain time trial, with only 3km of flat preceding the 8km climb of Peyragudes.
While the impact of this stage will be limited by the lack of a lengthy initial flat section (by comparison, the total length of the 2023 time trial was 22.4km, and the 2020 one 36.2km), the Peyragudes climb is difficult enough to cause significant time differences. Even before that horrible final kilometre it climbs at just under 8% for 7km. That's neither as steep nor as long as Alpe d’Huez, where the last mountain time trial took place in 2004, and so we shouldn’t expect gaps quite as big as the minute Lance Armstrong put into runner-up Jan Ullrich that day. But unlike the last time the Peyragudes was climbed in 2022, when there was nothing to separate Pogačar and Vingegaard at the summit, this being a time trial means there will be gaps between the yellow jersey contenders.
Contenders
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is the heavy favourite after his dominating display on stage 12 to the Hautacam and reclaiming the yellow jersey, putting into his main rival Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), who is the second pick for the stage.
Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) rode strongly on the first mountain top finish and looks to set to challenge the stage five time trial winner, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quickstep) for third place on the Tour podium. Evenepoel himself will be looking to pace himself well on the mountain TT to Peyragudes and is likely to finish in the top five.
Lipowitz's teammate Primož Roglič will use all of his experience to put in a good performance against the clock.
Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) and Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) will hope to continue their consistent performances and stay in the top 10. While riders like Matteo Jorgenson (Visma), Carlos Rodríguez (Inoes Grenadiers) and Enric Mas (Movistar Team) will want to make amends after losing time in recent stages.
The Scot Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL) continues to impress at his second Tour. As does Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) who moved back into the top five after stage 12 having shown excellent form in the first week.
Riders not in the GC but keen to continue picking up polka dot jersey points include Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) and Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling).
Prediction
We think Tadej Pogačar will win his fourth stage of this Tour.
