Tour de France 2020 route presentation is today. Use this topic to put there your impression on the route

I wonder who will be at TdF, with Tokyo just one week later... (for sure not Dumoulin in think :p)

Again a route with many climbing kilometres (too many for my liking) and way too little TT kilometres. I doubt if Dumoulin will want go with the Olympics in the back of his mind

Bad route. Few TT Kms, too many short stage. La Roche sur Foron is the only good mountain stage but only 160 Km and would've been perfect with Bisanne.

It gives too much riders a chance, even riders that doesn't deserve to win a GT. It takes out all the riders that emerges after 220Km putting no difference between a Nibali and an Aru - for example.

emmea90 wrote: ↑15/10/2019, 15:00 Bad route. Few TT Kms, too many short stage. La Roche sur Foron is the only good mountain stage but only 160 Km and would've been perfect with Bisanne.

It gives too much riders a chance, even riders that doesn't deserve to win a GT. It takes out all the riders that emerges after 220Km putting no difference between a Nibali and an Aru - for example.

Exactly. The ASO created a general hate against long stages by doing their best to create the most boring long flat stages and the result we get is this.

There are some interesting Mid Mountain stages and they added some interesting climbs, such as the return to the Alpes Maritimes, Col de la Lusette and the finish in Pas de Peyrol in the Massif Central and Col de la Hourcere in the Pyrennes. However the latter is placed on the first part of an underwhelming stage (too much flat between Hourcere+Soudet and Ichere+Marie Blanque) Overall there's too much climbing, not enough TT and too few flat stages. Looking at it it looks like there's only 4 clear sprinting stages (3, 10, 11 and 21 lol). It's clearly not a balanced Tour. And i wanted to see a stage with Madeleine, Lose and finish back in Meribel-les-Allues (halfway through the Lose). Lose can be compared to Gavia and Stelvio, and climbs like that are better used as a mountain pass and something like that can also be said of Grand Colombier, however ASO seems to be on a trend of making mountain passes a MTF and i think it's a waste. And i don't mind shorter stages, but i don't like that all of them are short. Why not have both the short explosive stages and the long grueling marathons? xD This can easily backfire if they go further down this path in the next editions and make half of the peloton more interesting in riding the Giro (which i wouldn't mind since i prefer it anyways ahah)

Problem of Loze is last 4 Kms are hard. Nobody will attack on Madeleine or there, they all will wait that spot.

Here are some of my views:
-I like the Grand Depart, mountainous stage 2 is different but nice (pun intended).
-The first week feels made for Alaphillippe, with the GC being 3 descent finishes and then 2 medium mountains.
-The Pyrenees seem underused to me, would have preferred to see 3 (even if 1 was 'soft') stages there and at least 1 summit finish.
-The next section of the race seems odd and messy and against the usual structure of a Tour (new climbs to learn), I feel it is a shame to finish the mountainous road stages on a breakaway/lack of GC day and as early as Stage 18.
-I'm not a fan of the use of La Planche Des Belles Filles for Stage 20, mainly because that would make it used twice in a row as a MTF. Since 3 times is excessive, I'd rather it be saved for 2021 where it meets the route more naturally as a close to the opening week.
-Personal preference, but I don't like the last GC stage being a Time Trial.
-To little TT kilometres in the races, and all in 1 go. A bad stage there means disaster.

Using Nice as the Grand Depart set in place, I'd prefer something like this:
1-2) Grand Depart
3) Flat
4) Individual Time Trial - approx 20km
5) Hilly, Reduced Sprint
6) Flat
7-9) Pyrenees, Stage 9 a MTF.
10) Fly North for a Flat stage
11) Hilly
12) Flat
13) Hilly Individual Time Trial - approx 25km
14) Medium Mountain or 'Large' Hills
15) Mountainous stage, probably MTF
16) Flat
17) Hilly
18-20) Alps, 18 and 20 MTF with 20 Alpe D'Huez.
21) Paris Flat stage

I feel like this offers a nice mix: The opening week will see a GC shake-up but unlikely to see uncloseable gaps. The trio of mountainous but not MTF stages will probably see a couple of riders at most gain a few seconds on others, so the short-ish ITT and summit finish will provide the main differences.

Week Two sees the flatist week with a mix of stages for sprinters and the break. It culminates with the second MTF and also includes the second and final ITT, and these will see the biggest time gaps.

Week Three is where the race will be decided, with a pair of MTFs before the traditional finish in Paris.

So...7 flat stages, 4 hilly stages, 8 mountain stages and 2 individual time trials, with 4 MTFs and 6-9 stages for the GC race.