Albertville - Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc, 146 km
The big star of the last week of the Tour de France is Western Europe’s highest peak: the Mont Blanc culminates at an altitude of 4808.73m. It’s been seen from the Grand Colombier on Sunday, from Finhaut-Emosson on Tuesday, from Megève on Wednesday but the closest place to the giant is Le Bettex, just above the town of Saint-Gervais. That’s where, back in 1990, Ronan Pensec took the yellow jersey the day he turned 27. More recently, that’s where Chris Froome won the second last stage of the 2015 Critérium du Dauphiné and prepared for his overall success. The ascent to Le Bettex is preceded by a little known but grueling climb: the côte des Amérands. A few hills on the course are unprecedented at the Tour de France, starting with the collet du Tamié, which is not a categorized climb even though it’s 50 metres higher than the often featured col du Tamié, two Forclaz – the Forclaz de Montmin and the Forclaz de Queige after the col de la Forclaz in Switzerland on Wednesday – and the Montée de Bisanne, classified hors category by the organizers. After taking his second stage victory in the uphill time trial from Sallanches to Megève, which came after his unexpected downhill victory at Bagnères-de-Luchon in the Pyrenees, Froome is yet to win uphill as he did in his previous campaigns for the yellow jersey. But he made it clear that he’s just happy to stay where he is in the overall ranking so he won’t chase breakaways down and the biggest fights to come are between the protagonists for second and third places on the podium, namely Bauke Mollema, Adam Yates, Nairo Quintana, Romain Bardet, Richie Porte and Fabio Aru.