Tour de France 2023 - Stage 17: Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc - Courchevel | 165,7 Kilometres
The roof of the 2023 Tour de France is coming up and with it possibly the day of decision. At the end of the very mountainous stage, the Col de la Loze awaits the riders - 2304 m high, 28 km long (6% gradient on average).
The climb is divided into three sections. The first 14 kilometres are not particularly steep, reaching 8.7% gradient at the top. In the middle section, the mountain flattens out briefly, even going downhill for a few meters. The second half of the climb is steeper, but especially the last five kilometres have it all. Over two kilometres, the average gradient is 10.9 percent, briefly reaching 24 percent at the top. Will the duelists Pogacar and Vingegaard attack each other here?
Downhill race plus sprint
The finish, however, is not at the summit. A six-kilometer descent follows, interrupted by a short intermediate climb, before it ends uphill for about 300 m and extremely steep (18%) to the Courchevel airfield. Should the leaders come wheel to wheel over the Col de la Loze, as so often before, the stage for the overall classification will end with the combination of a downhill race plus an uphill sprint.
Who has the better material at the start for the emerging scenarios? Jonas Vingegaard will certainly choose the Cervelo R5 again, his lightweight bike, which is presumably a bit lighter than Tadej Pocacar’s Colnago V4Rs (weighed by TOUR on site: 7.42 kg). Tadej Pogacar, unlike Jonas Vingegaard, has so far always chosen higher (and faster) wheels, even in the high mountains. Aerodynamically, this gives Pogacar an advantage, even though the Colnago frame is not particularly aerodynamic. Vingegaard’s R5 is aerodynamically worse in any case.
Tour de France 2023: Which strategy will Jonas Vingegaard choose for stage 17?
If Pogacar attacks shortly before the Col de la Loze and can tear a hole, he has a material advantage in the descent. If Vingegaard jumps right on his wheel, as he did on the 14th stage to Morzine, he can neutralize this advantage. On the descent to Morzine, however, he hung so close to Pogacar that he struggled several times and didn’t always hit the ideal line; that looked risky at times. The strategy of sticking to his opponent’s wheel worked out for Vingegaard in the end.
Will it come to the uphill sprint to Courchevel? Then Vingegaard’s setup is faster - between a few hundredths and three tenths of a second. The lower weight shows through on the extreme incline. The goal for the teams should therefore be to bring the bike down to the minimum weight allowed (6.8 kg).
Number of the day: 52 seconds
For the entire final climb of stage 17 of the Tour de France 2023, the riding time for the front is around 1:10 hours. 52 seconds faster is the fastest bike in our list than the slowest. In total, aerodynamic differences make more of a difference than slight weight differences. The fastest bike in the final climb is the Giant Propel with a mix of low weight, close to the UCI weight limit, and good aero performance.
*) The calculations are based on the bikes tested by TOUR in the laboratory and wind tunnel. The bikes at the Tour de France may differ in details. Of course, we have not yet been able to examine last-minute prototypes either.
Our Expert
Robert Kühnen studied mechanical engineering, writes for TOUR about technology and training topics and develops testing methods. Robert has been refining the simulation calculations for years, they are also used by professional teams.
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