Tour de France 2018: Stage 9 time, TV schedule, and live stream info

What has been a relatively calm, excitement-free 2018 Tour de France is about to go haywire. On Sunday, Stage 9 will tackle the cobblestones of Northern France, traipsing sectors of the famed and brutal Paris-Roubaix course, and reshaping the yellow jersey competition in the process.

Unlike most decisive stages of the Tour de France, Sunday’s profile is relatively flat. What makes it stand out are the 21.7 kilometers of roads pocked with jagged, unkempt cobblestones that will inflict untold hell on riders’ legs, and put them in imminent danger of punctures and crashes.

SB Nation’s own Chris Fontecchio explains in a love letter to pavé.

The pressure starts with the mechanics of riding on cobblestones. To counteract the effect of their wheels bounding every which way, riders need to push an ungodly amount of wattage into their pedals, because every bounce off a stone (roughly one per 0.005 seconds) translates into arrested momentum. If you don’t have any rough cobbles in your neighborhood, try pedaling in sand. It feels about the same ...

The main skill for riding here at the ridiculous speeds of the pro peloton is fearlessness, followed by incredible bike handling, followed by more fearlessness. These are traits you can develop with enough practice, but the Tour de France mountain men have often not practiced nearly enough.

Sunday’s stage will begin at 6:35 a.m. ET (12:35 p.m. local time). NBCSN will broadcast the stage beginning at 6:30 a.m., as will the NBC Sports app. Commercial-free coverage for NBC Sports Gold subscribers will begin at 6:20 a.m. Those with subscriptions to FuboTV can also access coverage.

Sunday will have been circled on the calendar for a few riders in particular. The Quick-Step Floors team has several riders seemingly well suited for the course, including Niki Terpstra, Fernando Gaviria, Julian Alaphilippe, and Philippe Gilbert. Peter Sagan, of course, would have been a contender even before he outright won Paris-Roubaix in April. And then there’s yellow jersey-bearer Greg Van Avermaet, who would be salivating at this opportunity if not for the fact that his team, BMC Racing, will be inclined to protect team leader Richie Porte.

That’s where Sunday gets really interesting. The riders who are most likely to wear the yellow jersey in Paris are also the sort of tiny, lightweight riders who are the most ill-suited for bumpy roads. The likes of Porte, Chris Froome, Nairo Quintana, and Romain Bardet will have to hold on for dear life not to a) crash, and b) lose gobs of time to their rivals. In particular, Tom Dumoulin, Vincenzo Nibali, Dan Martin (if he is feeling better after a hard crash on Saturday), and Alejandro Valverde have proven their cobbles bona fides in the past, and could use Sunday to leave their opponents behind in a figurative AND literal cloud of dust.

Strange roads, beautiful scenery, chaos, and carnage — Sunday will almost certainly be one of the most memorable days of the 2018 Tour.

TV schedule: NBCSN, beginning at 6:30 a.m. ET. Also available on FuboTV.

Streaming: NBC Sports app (free, with commercials) beginning at 6:30 a.m. ET., and NBC Sports Gold (paid, no commercials) beginning at 6:20 a.m.

Image courtesy of the Tour’s official site.