The first important stage race of the year (and its random weather conditions) shall start on Sunday the 8th in France, one day before Tirreno-Adriatico.
This year, the course completely avoids the Massif Central, but pays a brief visit into Morvan.
Despite the avoidance of the Massif Central, looking at profiles, there seems to be only 1 stage guaranteed for pure sprinters (the 2nd). The first one may smile upon sprinters-punchers, but even the stage going down the Rhône valley ends with climbs for punchers or punchers-climbers.
We may keep an eye on (among others):
- Vingegaard🇩🇰 from Visma, for his first race since his withdrawal from the European Championship last year;
Almeida🇵🇹 from UAE, a little bit sluggish so far;- Ayuso🇪🇸
& Skjelmose🇩🇰from Lidl-Trek; - Onley🇬🇧 & Vauquelin🇫🇷 from Ineos;
- Gaudu🇫🇷 & Costiou🇫🇷 from FDJ, if you are French and masochist, or if they raise the level they showed lately;
- L. Martinez🇫🇷 from Barhein.
Stages profiles
stage 1 (Sunday the 8th): 
stage 2: 
stage 3 (Team Time Trial): 
stage 4: 
stage 5: 
stage 6: 
stage 7: 
stage 8 (Sunday the 15th): 
The chase was strange. Between -60 and -50 km, the peloton was speeding like maniacs; I remember a downhill false flat, were they were spinning pedals like crazy, the camera motorbike at the front was suffering, hitting 30 km/h speed bumps at an actual speed of perhaps 80 km/h… It was at that moment very different from a few past editions, where crashes would happen because the peloton would go very slowly for hours (close to 35 km/h) and the riders would lose their concentration.
Then there were times were they gave up 40 seconds for free. Climb were ridden on alternative current, sometimes the breakaway would go faster, sometimes slower.
Yes, after the gap had been oscillating around 1mn – 1mn15 for 40 km, it looked like the breakaway had done the hardest part, and yet that’s when they really started to lose time.
From what I could check on PCS, it seems that it was the fastest first stage of Paris-Nice ever.
(To define ‘ever’, I only checked a bit more than 10 years and assume earlier ones would be slower…)