Criterium du Dauphine 2024 – Stage 7 Preview

The first mountain stage ended with some clear answers. Especially regarding the riders that was badly hit by the crash including Tao G. Plus Sepp Kuss was underwhelming, the Visma-LAB squad for the Tour de France in three weeks looks woobly.

Route

Tomorrow is the toughest day. We could see it become extremely difficult to control the breakaway on Col des Saisies. Near the end, Col de la Ramaz and Samoëns 1600 will define the outcome.

The riders head north tomorrow. Halfway through Col de la Ramaz, they turn around and heads south.

I think we will see plenty of teams who are now willing to join the morning breakaway. It is up to Bora-Hansgrohe to control the stage and I don’t think they want to blow up Hindley and Vlasov too early.

Following that, I think we will see the peloton take it easy until Col de la Ramaz. It starts with 52 km left. It has a tough section in the middle of the climb. The rest of it isn’t very difficult. The descent down is on new tarmac and fairly wide.

The valley between the two climbs is not something that suits the breakaway. And the last climb is difficult. It starts steep but eases off.

Here you can see the comparision between the last climb on stage 6 and stage 7. They are almost equally tough. Do bear in mind the fact that the stage tomorrow overall is much tougher.

Weather

Expect rain. The wind will not play a role and the temperature stays above 15 degrees C.

How will the stage unfold?

I think a few teams now only have the option to join the breakaway. QuickStep, INEOS and Visma-LAB will not. I think UAE should look to put Soler up the road, AG2R have Berthet and so the list goes on. I think Bora-Hansgrohe have a great team but do they want top lay up Haller, Denz and Jungels early on? I doubt it. It surely gives the breakaway a fair chance.

Still, you’d expect INEOS and QuickStep to try and set something up. Especially INEOS, who sits 6th and 7th. I wouldn’t be too happy with that. Evenepoel looked better than expected, perhaps he thought he was worse off than he actually was. As people know, Roglic rides to win everything he can and with Vlasov at his disposal, they can put everyone under pressure.

I will go for a GC day.

Contenders

Roglic – simply the best. As expected. I think he will hold on to yellow tomorrow, he had a lot more in the tank than the rest today.

Ciccone – with Tao G out of the GC, Ciccone is their best placed rider. At 11th. He will move up tomorrow, I would expect larger time gaps tomorrow. A top-5 seems reasonable.

Evenepoel – you can only assume he will get better and better. Still, tomorrow is the day I would expect the least from him, as it is a very demanding mountain-marathon. He is a coinflip tomorrow, it can go both ways.

Rodriguez – he didn’t have it today. He usually needs a few race days to get going and therefore I’d expect im to challenge for the podium again tomorrow.

Jorgensen – a tough day for him again tomorrow. It looked odd seeing him stay on De Plus’ wheel when he dropped back for Rodriguez. That was right after he closed the move by Roglic. Poor timing. He should be right up there, and I think he can defend his third.

Gee – he was not an evergreen. I think he is hoping to get on the podium, he could be very interesting to have as an underdog in the Tour de France for ISPT. He rides smart, always in his own tempo. The other riders did monitor him today, meaning he will not get a free win, if that is what he is after.

Soler – breakaway hope #1

Berthet – breakaway hope #2

Sepp Kuss – breakaway hope #3

Who will win?

Another one for Roglic.