Steven de Jongh (Lidl-Trek) explored first 11 stages of Tour de France and shares his findings with us

De Jongh is a sports director who prefers to leave nothing to chance, especially at a Tour de France. As such, he has spent much of the past few months in his car scouting the route. Living in Andorra, De Jongh has already seen the first eleven (!) stages of the Tour de France up close.

Right from the start, these are important days for his team. With Milan and his sprint train, consisting of Edward Theuns, Jasper Stuyven, and Simone Consonni, there is a golden opportunity for the team to take yellow straight away in Lille.

No one doubts that we’ll get a bunch sprint on Saturday, but what’s the key to that first stage? “The key is in the final straight. As a sprint train, you really need to have the horsepower there, because the last stretch is about one and a half kilometers straight to the finish.”

“You really need your guys there to drop off a rider like Milan,” said De Jongh, who kept that in mind when forming Lidl-Trek’s selection. “For Jonathan, it’s an ideal finish, but also for Tim Merlier. Though in a different way, because he’s the king of timing.”

For the rest of the first Tour week, the peloton will head into the Dunkirk region and then Normandy and Brittany. Not exactly roads known for being safe for a peloton of cyclists. “What will it look like? French countryside, haha! No, actually it’s not too bad,” said De Jongh about the route, which some other teams have labeled as dangerous.

“There isn’t much street furniture and the roads aren’t that narrow either, but – how many teams do we have now? – 23 teams want to be up front, and that always makes it dangerous in the first days of the Tour de France,” De Jongh said from experience. “23 teams fighting for victory – then it doesn’t matter how wide or narrow the road is.”

Also central to this Tour de France: the many hilly stages in the first part. “Only Netherlands is flat, that’s just a fact. We always say: between 2,000 and 2,500 meters of climbing is basically a flat stage,” said the Dutchman, who shared his expectations for the first eleven days of this Tour.

“Stages 1, 3, 8, and 9 are made for sprinters. 2, 4, 6, and 7 are for the punchy guys – think Liège–Bastogne–Liège type terrain. For riders like Thibau Nys, but also Mathieu van der Poel. Stage 5 is a time trial, stage 11 in Toulouse could go to either a reduced bunch sprint or puncheurs, and stage 10 is simply a tough mountain stage in my opinion.”

With Mattias Skjelmose, Lidl-Trek selected a GC rider who feels at home in these hectic conditions: the Dane said back in January that he’d love to ride the Flemish Classics someday. Whether these stages are a real chance to gain time on rivals, De Jongh isn’t sure. “A lot will depend on the weather. In the first four stages, it’s often quite open, so in terms of wind, those are the more dangerous stages. Later in the Tour, there’s a lot of vegetation along the roads and also plenty of sound barriers, so then there’s less chance of echelons forming.”

In addition to the names already mentioned, Lidl-Trek selected American champion Quinn Simmons as their designated workhorse, at the expense of riders like Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier and Otto Vergaerde. Toms Skujins is also included as an all-round domestique and a man for the medium mountains, which meant Lennard Kämna, Tao Geoghegan Hart, and Julien Bernard were left out of the selection.