Belkin DS Merijn Zeeman has been to Yorkshire to recon the opening few stages of the Tour de France and has tipped Peter Sagan to win stage 2.

 

“I really like the route,” he said. “The scenery is beautiful and the roads are both really nice and very challenging. The final part of the second day will be very hard. The climbs come very quick and there are some very steep parts, so it should be a very explosive finale. The pace will be high and a lot of riders will be dropped on the way into Sheffield. I would expect there to be 20 or 30 guys to be in the front, and I would think a guy like Peter Sagan would be the main favourite.”

 

Other men who have characteristics to contend on stage 2 are Michal Kwiatkowski, Michael Matthews, Simon Gerrans and Philippe Gilbert. If they ride the Tour, Katusha duo Daniel Moreno and Joaquim Rodriguez and Daniel Martin could also challenge.

 

The final climb is called Jenkin Road. It sound innocuous and it is through a housing estate but it reaches a gradient of 30% and is absolutely vicious.

 

“The final climb is very difficult,” Zeeman added. “There will be an explosion in what is left of the peloton on that climb, but there is still 5km to the finish and it is too short for the favourites to drop each other. Even if there are small gaps, I would expect a group of 30 guys to come together in a small-bunch finish.”

 

Stage 1 is geared more to sprinters like Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel, Andre Greipel and Matt Goss but Zeeman doesn’t see it as a certainty that all of those men will get over the climbs.

 

“The first stage is going to be nervous on those roads, so I wouldn’t say it is going to be quiet,” he added. “It looks most likely that it will be a bunch sprint, but it will not be an easy day for the sprinters.”

 

Zeeman hopes the crowd in Yorkshire will be able to match those shown in Ireland last week in the Giro.

 

“It was a great atmosphere in Ireland and very nice to see that the people really like cycling, and I expect it to be the same in England. The fact that everyone in the UK is so enthusiastic about pro cycling is a really welcome addition to the sport.”