Tour de France 2015, Stage 15: Route, TV schedule and more

We’re getting so close to the start of the Alps and all the intrigue therein. Those stages are mandatory viewing for anyone who follows the Tour de France religiously. Plenty of words will be spilled about those peaks so let’s say a quick word about the last two transition days: It’s been fun.

Stage 13 featured a perfectly timed move by Greg Van Avermaet to hold off a hard-charging Peter Sagan. Stage 14 had three fascinating plot lines occurring simultaneously -- Bardet v. Pinot, Froome v. Everyone five minutes back, and Stephen Cummings somehow sneaking up to steal a stage win. The finishes have arguably been better than those in the Pyrenees, where grand strokes by general classification contenders amounted to little.

Stage 15 will be the last taste of this transition-stage goodness before Chris Froome quite possibly turns the final mountain stages into a procession, so enjoy it. The 193-kilometer ride should go quickly -- it’s almost all downhill except for a climb soon after the start and the Col de l’Escrinet 126.5 kilometers into the stage.

The conditions are ripe for a breakaway. Can a French rider finally stop toying with the country’s nerves and just win another stage already? Does Sagan put his foot down and get the stage win to complete his inevitable green jersey campaign? Stage 15 could go 100 different ways, making this perhaps the last truly wide open stage of the 2015 Tour.