Tour de France 2015, Stage 14: Route, TV schedule and more

The Tour de France is still moseying over to the Alps after three days in the Pyrenees, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Mountain stages are typically the main attraction on the Tour, but with Chris Froome holding steady at 2:52 over Tejay Van Garderen, it’s hard to get too excited about the climbs. Froome has looked that good.

The green jersey competition, however, remains extent, making the transition stages through the most lush parts of France that much more interesting. Peter Sagan is the points leader with a rather healthy 24-point lead, but he’s struggling to actually win anything, whether intermediate sprints or stages. On Friday, he tried to take Rodez off the back wheel of Greg Van Avermaet, and couldn’t quite surge ahead. Can he finish the job Saturday? If not, will Greipel be in position to capitalize?

Stage 14, going 178 kilometers between Rodez and Mende, features an interesting profile. It’s not nearly as up-and-down as Stage 13, but it does have a steep uphill climb before the finish that could keep a lot of the pure sprinters at bay. That’s too bad, because just before the finish there’s a kilometer of flat land that they would otherwise drool over.

That nasty incline, Côte de La Croix Neuve, averages a 10.1-percent gradient (thankfully, over a relatively short 3 kilometers), which is the steepest of any categorized climb in the Tour. That could keep even a relatively good all-around sprinter like Sagan from even getting in position to score points at the finish. More likely, the winner will be a climbing-friendly classics specialist. Joaquim Rodriguez (winner of two 2015 stages including a similar summit finish over Mur de Huy) and Alejandro Valverde (fourth on general classification at +3:58) are both good bets.

For scenery, get ready for more rolling hills and long stretches along the Tarn. The stage goes through Millau just after the intermediate sprint, and under the Viaduc de Millau, the tallest bridge in the world with a mast that stands 1,125 feet about the base. The finish town, Mende, was the site of one of two stage wins by French rider Laurent Jalabert on Bastille Day, giving him a special place in the country’s heart.