Stage 17 of the 2018 Tour de France is the strangest I’ve ever seen. Frankly, if you asked me before the Tour which stage you should absolutely watch, I would have said this one, and that was before knowing that we’d also be getting a three-way battle for yellow.
Tour de France 2018: Stage 17 time, TV schedule, and live stream info
At just 65 kilometers ignited by an F1-style start, we may never see a day like Stage 17 of the 2018 Tour de France again for a long time. Enjoy it.
Two things set Stage 17 apart:
- The length. At 65 kilometers, this is not only the shortest non-time trial stage of the 2018 Tour, but it’s also the shortest in 30 years. And the profile consists of two Category 1 climbs and an Hors Catégorie mountain top finish. Riders will be climbing or descending on practically every meter of the course. That should mean nothing but attacks for the roughly two hours this stage is going to last.
- An F1 start. Riders will begin the stage in an F1-style grid, meaning that the yellow jersey Geraint Thomas will line up in pole position, and his 19 closest competitors will be lined up accordingly behind him. From there, riders will be penned in groups of 20, and each group will start together after the one ahead of it goes off. How will this affect the race? Probably not meaningfully. But it’ll definitely be worth seeing on the high chance that something goes wrong.
Racing on Stage 17 will begin at 9:15 a.m. ET (3:15 p.m. local time). NBCSN will begin broadcasting at 9:30 a.m., as will the NBC Sports app. Commercial-free coverage for NBC Sports Gold subscribers will begin at 8:50 a.m. And if you have a subscription to FuboTV, you can also access coverage.
Here’s the profile:
Every part of the stage is hard, but the last climb to Saint-Lary-Soulan is worth highlighting. Even for a mountain top finish, it’s devilish, rated as the hardest climb of the Tour in Podium Cafe’s 2018 Mountains Preview. It is long at 16 kilometers, steep at an average 8.7 percent gradient, and particularly mean at more than 9.0 percent gradient for the entire last kilometer.
In sum: Stage 17 was designed to make cyclists crack. If some brave soul tries to go solo Wednesday, he’ll wind up a hero or potentially lose minutes to his rivals because the run-in to the finish is about as unforgiving as legally possible.
The rider to keep an eye on — besides anyone with nothing left to lose, like a Romain Bardet or Nairo Quintana — will be Chris Froome. He is sandwiched in the standings between teammate Thomas, who is 1’ 39” ahead of him, and Tom Dumoulin, a better time trialist. Both riders will be fairly happy if they can hold the current time gaps. Froome, on the other hand, needs to use a dwindling number of climbs to his advantage if he still hopes to secure his fifth yellow jersey.
Imagine that: Chris Froome feeling a tinge of desperation in the third week of the Tour de France? It has been many years since it last felt like he didn’t have control of this event. And that his Tour could hinge on such a weird stage sets up a day of racing I don’t think we’ll soon forget.
Tour de France Stage 17 TV schedule and live stream info
65 kilometers from Bagnères-de-Luchon to Saint-Lary-Soulon Col du Portet
Start time: 9:15 a.m. ET/3:15 p.m. local
TV schedule: NBCSN, beginning at 9:30 a.m. ET. Also available on FuboTV.
Streaming: NBC Sports app (free, with commercials) beginning at 9:30 a.m. ET., and NBC Sports Gold (paid, no commercials) beginning at 8:50 a.m.
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