For the second time in a row, the sprinters get the chance to go for glory on the opening day of the Tour de France but narrow roads and wind will make the journey between Leeds and Harrogate tougher than many expect. Narrow roads and a nervous peloton is almost guaranteed to cause crashes but it should all come down to the first big battle between Marcel Kittel, André Greipel and Mark Cavendish who dreams about taking his first maillot jaune in the city where he mother grew up.

 

The course

While Jean-Marie Leblanc was still in charge of the Tour de France, the race usually a lot more time trialling than it has done in recent years, and the event always kicked off with a time trial. When Christian Prudhomme took over the responsibility, he not only reduced the number of TT kilometres, he also deviated from the pattern of hosting a race against the clock on the opening day.

 

In 2008 the race opened with a traditional road stage for the first time in several years, with Alejandro Valverde winning an uphill sprint in Plumelec. In 2011, the time triallists again missed the chance to go for glory on the opening day when another uphill sprint on the Mont des Alouettes saw Philippe Gilbert take the first yellow jersey of the race.

 

Since the bonus seconds were skipped in 2008, the sprinters have had no chance to overcome their early deficits to ride into yellow, and until last year the last bunch kick expert to wear the coveted leader's jersey was Tom Boonen in 2006 (if you omit Thor Hushovd's stint in yellow in 2011 which was not due to his ability as a sprinter). In 2013, Prudhomme not only kicked off the race with a road stage. As it was completely flat, he gave the sprinters what at the time seemed to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take yellow on the opening day of the race. Marcel Kittel made the most of it when he won a very confusing opening sprint that saw riders like Mark Cavendish, André Greipel and Peter Sagan being held up by crashes.

 

The sprinters get another opportunity to take yellow much earlier than expected as the 2014 edition of the race kicks off with another mostly flat stage. For some time, the race has started outside its home country every two years and the organizers continue to follow that formula. After the 2012 start in Liege, Yorkshire won the battle for the Grand Depart and for the second time in the race’s history – the 2007 edition started in London – the riders will take off on British soil.

 

The city of Leeds will host the Grand Depart and from there the riders will tackle a 190.5km loop that sends them into the hills on the northwestern outskirts of the city before they return to a finish in Harrogate close to the starting city. After a flat start, things get a lot more undulating in the middle section as the riders go up the Cote de Gray (category 4, 1.6km, 7.1%), Cote de Buttertubs (category 3, 4.5km, 6.8%) and Cote de Griton Moor (category 3, 3km, 6.6%) whose tops are located at the 68km, 103.5km and 129.5km marks respectively. The intermediate sprint comes at the 77km mark just after the first of those ascents and will be contested on flat roads.

 

The final 61km of the stage are almost completely flat as the riders travel back to Harrogate. The finale is uncomplicated as the riders follow a long straight road for several kilometres and the riders won’t face any technical challenges in the finale. The only obstacles are a few roundabouts but the final one comes 2km from the line. The roads are slightly ascending though. When the riders pass the 2km to go banner, it’s uphill all the way to the 800m to go mark where a short descent leads to the final 600m that are again uphill. The final kilometre has an average gradient of 2% but with a descent along the way, it’s a bit steeper most of the time.

 

The weather

The riders will be travelling along narrow, hilly roads at the midpoint of the race which will make the peloton extremely nervous. A start in England also offers the added risk of rain and wind whose presence will complicate things even further.

 

The riders and team manager will have nervously studied the weather forecasts and may have been a bit worried as it has been raining all day in Harrogate. However, the weather gods have shown a bit of mercy towards the peloton as the final rain is expected to fall during the night and by the time the riders wake up, it should be dry. As the day goes on, the sun will make its presence felt and most of the race should take place under beautiful sunshine.

 

There will be a moderate wind from a westerly direction which means that the riders will first have a headwind but after the passage of Skipton they will mainly have a crosswind for the rest of the day. In the second half, they will even have to tackle the feared cross-tailwind before turning into a crosswind for the final 22km of the stage. Those will be the conditions all the way to the finish but with 3km to go, the riders turn slightly into more of a cross-tailwind.

 

The favourites

Ever since it was announced that the 2014 Tour de France will start with a mostly flat road stage in Yorkshire, the sprinters have been licking their lips in anticipation. Originally, they thought that last year’s opening day in Corsica could potentially be their only chance to ever wear the yellow jersey but in January 2013 they learnt that they would get a chance to get revenge 12 months later. However, they have to make the most of their opportunity this time as next year’s race will start with a 13.7km time trial in Utrecht.

 

Looking at the profile, it seems that the stage is destined to end in a bunch sprint but several teams have been pretty surprised by the nature of the middle part of the stage. In addition to the three categorized climbs, there are several ups and downs but the real test will be the narrow, twisting roads. Most have the impression that the stage could be tougher than expected and Marcel Kittel has even said that it won’t necessarily end up in a big bunch sprint.

 

However, it will be a huge surprise if the stage is not won by a sprinter. Several teams have the sprints as one of their main objectives and for Giant-Shimano, Lotto Belisol and especially Mark Cavendish, this stage is one of their biggest goals of the entire race. There is no chance that they will take any unnecessary risks and while they will be battling fiercely in the final kilometres, those three teams will be allies throughout the race.

 

With a mountains jersey up for grabs, one would expect a hard fight to get into the early break but for some reason, the escape has gone clear almost straight from the gun in the opening road stages of the last few editions. Everybody knows that the stage will be tightly controlled by the sprinters and nowadays very few teams are willing to spend energy by joining fruitless attacks. Everybody knows that it is all about saving energy for the days that really count. Furthermore, there are a lot more KOM points on offer in stage 2 and the rider who wears polka-dots on stage 3 could even keep the jersey for several days. Hence, most riders will be keen to save their energy for what is expected to a very uncontrollable second leg of the race.

 

We expect a small group with riders to go clear pretty early and it will be no surprise to see teams like Bretagne, Europcar, Cofidis and NetApp-Endura in the move. However, they are unlikely to get too much leeway as the tricky middle section means that the sprint teams will take no risks and we can expect riders like Cheng Ji (Giant-Shimano), Dries Devenyns (Giant-Shimano), Michal Golas (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Jan Bakelants (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Lars Bak (Lotto Belisol) and Bart De Clercq (Lotto Belisol) hit the front pretty early to control the situation.

 

The intermediate sprint comes pretty early and will offer some action as the sprinters can allow themselves to contest it. They won’t go full gas but we should see a small sprint that makes sure that all the main contenders pick up a few points to stay within striking distance of the green jersey.

 

The dominating theme, however, will be the nervousness. The narrow roads, the climbs and the crosswind mean that everybody wants to stay in front and that will cause a huge battle for position. The wind is probably not strong enough to split things but nobody wants to take any risks and this will make the atmosphere tense and the pace pretty fast.

 

Last year the opening stage in Corsica was expected to create chaos but there seemed to be some kind of agreement between the riders to take things a bit easier. There may be a similar understanding this time around, especially as the tricky part comes pretty early in the race, and hopefully we will avoid any big crashes.

 

In the finale, however, chaos will rule. Luckily the final 30km take place on bigger roads and are a lot more straightforward which should take away a bit of the pressure. Nonetheless, everybody wants to stay near the front and it would be somewhat of a surprise if no one hits the deck. Those crashes can create carnage as riders may be held up behind the fallen riders and we could see time gaps open up already on the opening day – just recall how Alberto Contador lost time when the race opened with a road stage in 2011.

 

In any case, the stage should come down to a sprint and hopefully all the big names will have avoided the carnage and be ready to fight it out against each other on the slightly uphill finishing straight in Harrogate.

 

Two factors will influence the battle for the stage win. First of all the ascending roads will have a significant impact as they are a bit steeper than they look at a first glance. In that kind of sprint, timing is crucial as it is very easy to start too early. Secondly, the long finishing straight means that it will be a real power sprint where acceleration and positioning is less important.

 

Last year Marcel Kittel won the opening sprint after a dramatic stage that saw the Orica-GreenEDGE bus create chaos. Back then André Greipel and Mark Cavendish had both been taken out of contention by crashes and it was pretty easy for Kittel to beat his rivals on the flat finishing straight in Bastia.

 

Even if all the sprinters had been there, however, Kittel would have been the favourite. The sprint suited him perfectly but this year the organizers have designed a finish that is not exactly tailor-made for him.

 

In last year’s Tour, Kittel finally proved what we have claimed for a few years: that the German is the fastest bike rider in the world. This year he has confirmed his status by doing some really convincing sprints and even though he hasn’t really sprinted against Greipel since the Tour Down Under (they never really got the chance in the Ster ZLM Toer a few weeks ago) and hasn’t faced Cavendish since the Dubai Tour (Kittel never got the chance to sprint in Tirreno-Adriatico), the German has been so dominant that it is hard not to admire his impressive top speed. He won Scheldeprijs for the third year in a row in dominant fashion but his impressive performance came at the Giro when he won two stages in a row. On both days, his Giant-Shimano train failed in their lead-outs but Kittel did some incredible sprints to come from very far behind and easily pass some of the fastest riders in the world. Cavendish and Greipel were not there but the performances created headlines all over the world.

 

The long finishing straight suits Kittel perfectly as he is a real power sprint with an incredible top speed. On the other hand, the uphill sprint is definitely not in favour of the big German and on paper both Cavendish and Greipel are more suited to an ascending finish. However, Kittel has proved that he can handle uphill sprints pretty well and last year he won a pretty tough one in Paris-Nice. Furthermore, he has improved his climbing a lot and in the Driedaagse van de Panne, Dubai Tour and the German championships he proved that he is no longer one of the first to get dropped when the road ramps upwards.

 

Kittel has a formidable lead-out train to support him. They may have failed completely in the opening stages of the Giro but in this race they have lined up their A team. The combination De Kort-Degenkolb-Veelers-Kittel is a winning one and even though they are not dominate the finales in the way Lotto Belisol does, they usually manage to bring Kittel in a decent position. In this kind of finish, he cannot allow himself to start to far back but he should be the superior sprinter in the race. If his team manages to drop him off within shouting distance of his main rivals for the last 150 metres, he will be very hard to beat and he is out clear favourite to make it two yellow jerseys in a row.

 

His biggest rival will of course be Mark Cavendish. It was a dream come true for the Brit that the opening stage of the Tour de France will finish in the city where his mother grew up and all year this single stage has been his big objective. He even skipped the Giro d’Italia to stay fresh for this race as he felt that the big racing burden had left him fatigued in last year’s race.

 

However, there are definitely causes for concern in the Omega Pharma-Quick Step camp. Cavendish may have won a lot of races but he has definitely not been sprinting as well as he did in the past. He won four stages in the Tour of Turkey but the results were more due to a strong team than his own sprinting prowess. In fact Elia Viviani beat him twice. In the Tour of California, John Degenkolb was clearly the fastest sprinter but Cavendish again benefited from his team to beat the German in both their battles.

 

After last year’s disappointment, Cavendish now has a formidable lead-out train to support him. On paper, the combination Terpstra-Martin-Trentin-Petacchi-Renshaw-Cavendish has more firepower than anyone else but so far things haven’t worked perfectly for the train. They may have dominated the sprints in California and Turkey but when they have been up against the best trains, they have failed. Most recently, they didn’t really impress in the Tour de Suisse where they lost each other in the finales and even though Cavendish won a stage, there must have been some worried faces in the team bus. In that race, Petacchi wasn’t there and the Italian will certainly have bolstered the team.

 

Cavendish is much smaller than both Greipel and Kittel and is generally pretty strong in uphill sprints. When he won the world championships in 2011, the finishing straight was even steeper. That will give him an advantage over Kittel but in a direct battle we doubt that he is strong enough to beat the German. To win the stage, he will have to rely on his lead-out train which needs to bring him into the perfect position.

 

André Greipel may not be as fast as Kittel and Cavendish but the German is not far off the mark. However, his main asset is his fabulous lead-out train. Time after time Lotto Belisol have proved that they dominate the sprints when they are not set back by bad luck. Last year the formation Hansen-Sieberg-Roelandts-Henderson-Greipel ruled in most of the sprint finishes and that allowed Greipel to win the stage to Montpellier.

 

The long, uphill finishing straight suits Greipel perfectly and in this year he seems to have been stronger in the uphill sprints than in the flat ones. Nonetheless, he needs to get a head start to beat Kittel but with the strongest team at his side, he may actually get one. If Lotto Belisol can time everything perfectly, Greipel could take the yellow jersey.

 

Arnaud Demare is probably the fourth fastest rider in this race and he will be keen to show off his new French champion’s jersey right from the beginning of his debut Tour de France. The Frenchman excels in uphill sprints as he proved when he won the U23 world championships and a much harder stage in last year’s Eneco Tour. Having recently taken convincing wins in the French championships and the Halle-Ingooigem, he is obviously in great condition.

 

Demare has his trusted lead-out men William Bonnet and Mickael Delage at his side but the Frenchman is usually poorly positioned for the sprints. Against the bigger teams, it will be hard for FDJ to prevail and there is a big risk that he will again have to start his sprint from too far back. If he gets a clear run to the line, however, Demare could create a surprise.

 

Usually, Peter Sagan has no chance against the pure sprinters in the real sprints but with a pretty steep finishing straight, he has a chance. The Slovakian is by far the best climber among the sprinters and he excels in uphill sprints. While a lot of riders struggle in the fight for position, Sagan handles that aspect perfectly and his great consistency always allows him to finish in the top 5. Sagan knows that he has a big chance to take yellow in stage 2 and may be more concerned about riding conservatively to score points and keep his yellow jersey prospects open than going for the win. In this kind of finish, however, he cannot be ruled out.

 

Sacha Modolo has had a fabulous season so far and most recently he won a stage of the Tour de Suisse. The formation Cimolai-Richeze-Modolo proved to be a winning one right from the beginning of the season and after a small injury setback, Modolo is in great condition. The Italian climbs really well and is no pure sprinter which means that he should benefit from the hard finishing straight. He handles the battle for position pretty well and is formidably supported by Richeze. It will be hard for him to win the stage but he should be up there.

 

Last year Alexander Kristoff made his debut but back then he was on his own in the finales. This year he has much better support and the sprints are a key goal for Katusha. Kristoff is not as fast as the pure sprinters but he is extremely consistent as he always positions himself well. To excel, he would need a longer and harder race but in an uphill sprint he is usually pretty strong. It would be a surprise if he wins the stage but he is almost guaranteed to finish in the top 5.

 

Finally, we will select our joker. Bryan Coquard is making his Tour debut and it’s a massive task for him to go up against the big teams. On other hand, he is extremely fast and as a tiny, he should benefit from the uphill sprint. Unfortunately, he is very poor at positioning and way too often he finishes outside the top 10. In fact, we expect him to do so again tomorrow but if he gets a clear run to the line, he has the speed to be up there.

 

CyclingQuotes’ stage winner pick: Marcel Kittel

Other winner candidates: Mark Cavendish, André Greipel

Outsiders: Arnaud Demare, Peter Sagan, Sacha Modolo, Alexander Kristoff

Joker: Bryan Coquard