Tour de France 2015, Stage 12: Route, TV schedule and more

And so we come to the last day in the Pyrenees. The days are dwindling fast on the Tour de France, and so are the opportunities to cut into Chris Froome’s nearly three-minute grasp on the yellow jersey. Stage 12 is as fine a stage to eat into his time gap as any, but at this point no one has looked as strong.

The day will be hard, however, so there’s a chance Froome stumbles on his own accord. Among all of the climbing stages, Thursday’s is perhaps the climbiest. It features four of Podium Cafe’s 13 hardest climbs, adding up to 3,245 meters of ascension. The last climb up to the finish at Plateau de Beille is rated Hors catégorie as one of seven in the Tour that are so bad they’re apparently beyond classification. If that weren’t enough, the temperature is going to be hot -- nearly 90 degrees when riders are approaching the final summit in the late sun of Southern France.

The only relative relief to riders will be the valleys between each of the major climbs. Even those won’t be easy going if anyone even remotely close to Froome on the standings tries to get away from him. He and Team Sky have been aggressive towards anyone who may dare step out of line. A non-general classification contender may be allowed to breakaway, however, so we may still get some heroics like we saw Wednesday from Dan Martin and Rafal Majka.

If Froome does get into trouble, Tejay Van Garderen (+2:52) and Nairo Quintana (+3:09) are in the best position to capitalize, with Alberto Contador (+4:04) not too far behind. They have everything to overcome -- from the weather to the topography to the supervillain in first place -- but time is of the essence. Somebody has to try something desperate soon.