Tour de France 2017: Stage 3
by Katie Haskins
Stage type: Road Race – hilly
Length: 242.5 km/132 miles
Route: Verviers, Belgium to Longwy, France
Weather: Clear
We finally get to France after a nice ride through Belgium and Luxembourg.
I would classify the stage today as hilly. Three Category 4s and 2 Category 3s. Nothing too hard compared to what is to come. The stage finished on a Category 3. Cote des Religieuses is 1.6km in length with an average gradient of 5.8% and a max of 11%.
The day started with a breakaway of six riders. Nate Brown took advantage and captured the most mountain points on the day, putting him in the polka dot jersey at the end of the day. At around 57 km/35.6 miles, three riders split from the peloton and joined the original breakaway. This created an interesting dynamic at the front until it was finally only the new riders ahead of the rest. The final rider was caught with 10 km/6 miles left.
While this was going on, I saw nice video of cows, horses and beautiful architecture interspersed through the broadcast. One castle was even built in the 5th century.
The climb proved interesting as one of the favorites, Richie Port, took an early lead up the climb, but was soon passed by Peter Sagan. Sagan ended up winning the stage in 5:07:19, but not before losing a pedal with about 200 meters to go.
At the end of the day the top of the leaderboard looked like this:
- Geraint Thomas
- Chris Froome :12 behind
- Michael Matthews :12 behind
- Peter Sagan :13 behind
What’s a peloton?
By Katie Haskins
What is a peloton? It’s a word used a lot in cycling. So much that it’s the name of a high-end indoor bike. But what exactly is it?
The dictionary definition is as follows:
noun
1.(cycle racing) the main field of riders in a road race
Word Origin
C20: French, literally: pack
So, the biggest group on the road is the peloton. Easy enough right?
