Saint- Dié- des- Vosges Colmar
The race heads into the Vosges, though the first climbs of the 2019 Tour are unlikely to shake the GC riders
According to Graham Robb, in his book The Discovery ofFrance, the fastest way of getting around the Vosges, until the middle of the 20th century at least, was on foot. “A horse and carriage was slower than a mule, which was slower than a human being,” he wrote. This was especially true for the downhills: “In the forests of the Vosges, walkers in the woods occasionally caught sight of a forestdweller running stiffly though the trees, braced against a towering 2.5ton pile of logs… The sledges on which the logs were piled were known as schlitte.” The schlitteurs’ leg power, Robb adds, was the only braking mechanism.
For the riders of the Tour de France, leg power is still the primary method of propulsion, and at least their bikes have much better brakes than the schlittes. These days, however, a peloton of Tour riders would easily beat horses and carriages and mules alike in any race across the Vosges. Not that ASO are making it easy for them, though. From Saint-Dié-desVosges to Colmar as the crow flies, it’s about 30km. The shortest distance by road, according to Michelin, is 57km. However, the distance of stage 6 of the 2019 Tour, which links the two towns, is
175.5km. The route loops north, then south again along the eastern escarpment of the Massif des Vosges, overshooting Colmar to the south before crossing two climbs, then finally heading into the city.
With two cat-2s and two cat-3 climbs, this stage is the hardest of the 2019 Tour so far (narrator: “wait and see what’s coming tomorrow”), but it’s not quite a day for the general classification riders, even if the terrain looks rugged enough for ambushes. That being said, stage
5 is also not for the sprinters, nor for Sagan-style classics riders, nor really for the climbers either. With a longish descent coming off the final climb before a flat run-in to the finish line, maybe it will come down to which rider can best channel their inner schlitteur and resist the temptation to brake.