Stage 6 of the TDF (Thursday, September 3) is likely to highlight top GC contenders Most of Thursday’s route is mildly hilly, but it really gets interesting with a category 1 climb late What is the best bet when choosing a Stage 6 winner? On Wednesday, the riders bunched in the peloton and relaxed for most of the day before a sprint finish. Tour de France winner odds. For most cyclists and fans alike, Tour de France is the highlight of the year and the biggest cycling event in the world. The 21 stages of the race follow the same format every year throughout its, roughly, 2.200 miles trail.

1. Tour De France Stage 6 Winner Odds
2. Tour De France 2020 Stage 6 Odds

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Stage 6: Le Teil to Mont Aigoual – 191km – Thursday, September 3

Apologies to Admiral Ackbar, but the second uphill stage finish of the Tour de France is nothing like Tuesday’s stage was. It’s a perfect day for a long breakaway…to get caught in the final 30-odd kilometers of climbing by a late-race counterattack from the pack. It’s a perfect day for said late-race move to get swept up in the general classification battle. And it’s a perfect day for anyone to get caught out either by bad legs or being over-bold.

Almost all the climbing in this 191km stage comes right at the end, but it’s far from straightforward. After 160km of flat to rolling terrain, the race starts heading inexorably uphill, with the Category 3 Col de Mourièzes followed quickly by the Category 1 Col de la Lusette, then a short downhill and flat section before roughly 8km of draggy uphill to the finish at Mont Aigoual.

There’s opportunity to be had, but you’ve got to get the move just right. We’ll likely see an early break go clear, helped by the flat terrain and the likely gentle tailwind for much of the race. But they’ll need a healthy time gap to maintain distance to the pack once they reach the Mourièzes. The lead will likely drop significantly on the Lusette, particularly a 2km-long section near the top where the gradient averages 11 percent.

That’s an ideal launching pad for an aggressive, late-race move. But that carries its own risks. Riders may get a gap there, but they’re still 15km from the finish, and have to make sure there’s enough left in the tank for the 8km of grinding-but-less-steep climb to the finish. To make matters more complicated, the route is unknown to most racers; the last time the race visited this section was 33 years ago, before most of today’s peloton was even born. All that means there’s a serious risk that a too-aggressive move will only result in blowing yourself up.

Unless things go very pear-shaped, expect the stage winner to come from a breakaway of some kind. For the GC candidates, Thursday will likely be a day to play defense but watch for opportunities to catch out a rival. Anyone dropped on the Lusette has very little time to re-catch the main contenders group on the short descent and flat section afterward. If they can’t, they may lose a minute or more at the finish, and it’s possible one or more GC aspirants may see their overall hopes evaporate.

Riders to Watch

The early breakaway should be a moderate but manageable size: maybe 5-10 riders, from a mix of WorldTour and wild-card teams. Lotto-Soudal’s Thomas de Gendt has been saving energy for several days now; this is a perfect stage for his patented long-range moves. Coconspirators could include riders like CCC’s Alessandro de Marchi. Depending on the mix and how the pack feels, if they have a big gap at the start of the Lusette that could discourage counterattacks.

If not (say it’s under four minutes), then it’s all fair game. Riders to watch include climbers who are not threats for the overall, like Jesús Herrada of Cofidis or Israel Start-Up Nation’s Ben Hermans. Spare a thought for Julian Alaphilippe, though. The Deceunick-Quick Step rider finished safely in the top 20 in Stage 5 but lost the yellow jersey after commissaires penalized him 20 seconds for accepting a water bottle from a team staffer late in the race, when feeds are illegal. That will undoubtedly tick him off, and Thursday’s profile is perfectly suited to the kind of bold move for which he’s known. It’s not at all out of consideration that he could try to retake the race lead.

When to Watch

This is a day to catch the last hour or so. By the fastest timetable, the riders will crest the Mourièzes right around 10 a.m. EDT. Tune in then to catch the climb of the Lusette and the chess match to the finish at Mont Aigoual.

How to Watch

With 19 kilometres to go on stage 6 of the Tour de France, Alexey Lutsenko accelerated at the front of the five-rider breakaway just as the group were about to hit the steepest section of the Col de la Lusette. Out of the back dropped Jesús Herrada.

The Spaniard’s head went down, and then down again, as he watched the road open up and the group disappear away from him. It’s been 12 years since his Cofidis team have won a stage at the Tour, and yet again it looked like another chance, a really decent one at that, for a win was drifting away.

Herrada had been in the breakaway since it formed in the early stages of the day, ahead of the summit finish on Mont Aigoual. The peloton and GC contenders seemed content to let the group stay away, with the gap exceeding five minutes at its peak, and coming up the Col de la Lusette, the riders still had a three-minute buffer: the win was coming from this group of five. For a climber such as Herrada, who won a stage at the Vuelta a España last year from a similar breakaway (also on stage 6), the odds looked good.

Tour De France Stage 6 Winner Odds

Cofidis’s raison d‘etre is their home Grand Tour. As well as being one of the longest-running teams in the peloton, the French squad is also one with a long history of success here; they have 10 stage wins out of 23 race starts, as well as a King of the Mountains title courtesy of Christophe Rinero in 1998. But the last time the team won a Tour stage was in 2008, when Sylvain Chavanel won from a two-rider sprint into Montluçon on stage 8.

In the years since, Cofidis’s Tour take-home has been empty. They’ve finished 72 times in the top 10 on stages, without any victories. There were four in 2019. Six in 2018, including a second for Christophe Laporte on stage 7. Eight in 2017. A high of 11 in 2016. And on it goes. Close, but never close enough.

In Tim Krabbe’s book ‘The Rider’, the tale of a fictional race set on the same Mont Aigoual climb as the stage 6 finish, Krabbe invents his own phrase, ‘battoowoo greekgreek’, a random and meaningless word that’s gone down in cycling folklore to convey the feeling of emptying one’s mind and thinking about nothing; to focus on the pain and just keep going. It’s a phrase that fitted, watching Herrada, as he started to claw his way back to the riders ahead of him.

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With 18km to go, the 30-year-old was at the point of reaching Nicolas Roche’s back wheel, when Neilson Powless, the young American climber at EF Pro Cycling, accelerated as the gradient hit 11 per cent. The gap opened back up again, and this time Herrada was cut adrift with the Irishman.

Still Herrada kept plugging on. He dropped Roche, and began grinding his way up to Greg Van Avermaet, the next rider up the road, another victim of the steep slopes. Another kilometre later and he’d caught the Olympic champion. Powless, since dropped by Alexey Lutsenko who now led the way, was next in Herrada’s sight. With 16.6km to go, he passed him. Now there was only Lutsenko between him and the line.

As the gradient eased, Herrada got into his rhythm. Having once looked totally out of the hunt, now just 20 seconds separated him and Lutsenko. Could we be about to see one of the best Tour comebacks?

With 15km to go, mouth gaping open, gasping for air, he chugged down a gel from his back pocket, a last-ditch attempt to find a few more ounces of energy. But the gap wouldn’t close, no matter how hard he stamped on the pedals. And as has become the pattern for Cofidis, the road was too long. He crossed the line in second place, 55 seconds down on Lutsenko. It was an impressive, valiant ride, but another chance at a stage win had gone missing.

Cofidis now have three top-10 finishes in the first six stages of this year’s Tour. On stage 1, Elia Viviani finished sixth in the sprint in Nice. Then Guillaume Martin finished third on Orcierès-Merlette on stage 4, after a spirited ride that saw him attack first out of the group of GC favourites. Now Herrada has a runner-up spot.

Since Cedric Vasseur took over as team manager in 2017 he’s been slowly transforming the squad with the aim of getting them back to the top, and winning, in races such as the Tour. This year they moved up to the WorldTour - and spent money on star signings such as Martin and Viviani - where the scrutiny is even more intense. Performances from the likes of Herrada and Martin, the latter a canny signing this year just as the Frenchman looks to be coming into his peak years, will surely provide confidence boosts. But neither has resulted in the long sought-after stage win. Cofidis’s hunt goes on another day.

Tour De France 2020 Stage 6 Odds

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