{"id":7933,"date":"2025-07-19T11:37:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T11:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/7933\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T11:37:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T11:37:05","slug":"stage-14-preview-pyrenean-pain-train-rolls-through-iconic-climbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/7933\/","title":{"rendered":"Stage 14 preview: Pyrenean pain train rolls through iconic climbs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Tour de France hits the heart of the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es on Saturday, July 19, with one of the race\u2019s most grueling mountain stages. Spanning 182.6 km from Pau to Luchon-Superbagn\u00e8res, Stage 14 features four major climbs\u2014two of them ranked Hors Cat\u00e9gorie\u2014and offers little respite from start to finish.<\/p>\n<p>Even the so-called \u201cflat\u201d opening section is a steady uphill grind as the peloton makes its way towards the legendary Col du Tourmalet (19 km at 7.4 per cent), the most visited climb in Tour history. From there, it\u2019s a relentless sequence of ascents: the Col d\u2019Aspin (5 km at 7.6 per cent), the Col de Peyresourde (7.1 km at 7.8 per cent), and finally a summit finish at Luchon-Superbagn\u00e8res, a punishing 12.4 km climb averaging 7.3 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>Tired riders and a brutal finish<\/p>\n<p>The finish line sits at 1,804 m above sea level, capping off what is expected to be over five hours of suffering for the winner alone. Riders will arrive on heavy legs, too\u2014Stage 14 comes just one day after a short but intense uphill time trial.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2025_sanluca_17_14.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-125825\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2025_sanluca_17_14.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1400\" height=\"700\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With more than 4,000 m of vertical gain and a profile that barely allows for recovery, this is a stage where the GC contenders must come out swinging\u2014or risk losing it all in the mountains.<\/p>\n<p>The return of Vingegaard?<\/p>\n<p>Stage 13 saw UAE Team Emirates\u2019 Tadej Poga\u010dar take another win\u2014but also showed some encouraging signs from Jonas Vingegaard of Visma\u2013Lease a Bike. The Dane finished just 36 seconds behind the world road champion and was quite pleased with his ride.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m happy that I managed to recover,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/jonas-vingegaard-post-tt-i-am-back-at-my-old-level\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he told Danish outlet TV2 after finishing his time trial<\/a>. That followed a tough but disappointing ride up the Hautacam, when he couldn\u2019t follow Pogi\u2019s wheel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I don\u2019t have the answer to that, to be honest. I felt pretty good until the last climb, but then it went out late. I didn\u2019t reach my usual level yesterday. Yes, it was my second bad day of the Tour\u2014I don\u2019t know how that\u2019s possible. Normally I don\u2019t have one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During the TT, however, he said he was feeling like his old self. So instead of a one-man show on Saturday, might we see an epic Pogi\u2013Vingo battle? The Slovenian still holds a massive gap over Vingegaard\u2014more than four minutes\u2014but one bad day could flip the script.<\/p>\n<p>You can catch all the action on <a href=\"https:\/\/flosports.sjv.io\/c\/6129470\/2005798\/24751?utm_campaign=generalaffiliate&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flobikes.com%2Fsignup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FloBikes.com<\/a>. And as always, check back with Canadian Cycling Magazine for a full report with photos after the stage. All aboard the pain train!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tour de France hits the heart of the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es on Saturday, July 19, with one of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-7933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}