Tour de France 2017: Stage 5

Tour de France 2017: Stage 5

by Katie Haskins

Stage type: Road Race – hilltop finish

Length: 160.5 km/99.7 miles

Route: Vittal to La Planche des Belles Filles (The plank of the beautiful women)

Today is the first hilltop finish of the race and the first Category 1 climb we’ll see this Tour.

There is also a Category 3 climb about 2/3 through the stage. Just to give you a comparison between the two climbs:

The Cat 3 is 1.9km, tops out at 1,880 ft, avg. gradient of 7.4% and a max gradient of 7.5%.

The Cat 1 is 5.9km, tops out at 3,396 ft, avg. gradient of 8.5% and a max gradient of 20%.

The day started with an eight rider breakaway. They continued through the Cat 3, after which it became a 6 rider breakaway. There was an attack at 12.2km which split the front group into 2 – 1 – 3 riders. Eventually they were caught with 4 km/2.4 miles left.

Team Sky was in control at the front of the race as the final climb started. At 2.3 km/ 1.4 miles Fabio Aru attacked and no one went with him. At 1.6 km/ 1 mile to go Chris Froome finally attacked and was joined by Dan Martin and Richie Porte. But by this time Aru was clear and would go on to win the stage in 3:44:06. Martin came in 2^nd, Froome 3^rd, and Porte 4^th.

The top of the overall leader board looked like this after the stage.