The Italian will target the Tour de Frꦬance, and so clash with Chris Froome (Team Sky) in July. 𒉰He spent Thursday morning riding on the pavé with teammates Jakob Fuglsang, Lieuwe Westra, Tanel Kangert and Andrei Grivko, who are likely to protect him during the stage, and garnered some expert advice from former Classics winner Peter van Petegem. He also studied and tested various tyre pressures with staff from Specialized's Racing department.
"It's going to be a very difficult stage of the Tour de France," Nibali told l'Equipe after studying several ✃of the nine sectors of pav&eacut💃e; that will feature in the finale of stage five from Ypres to Arenberg.
"When it comes to the material and experience, it's about being a specialist. It's something new for me to ride on sectors of pavé like that. It'll be important to have the right bike set-up, learn thing about the pave and hope tha🍌t everything goes okay…"
"For sure that you can lose💟 the Tour de France here. All♐ it takes is a crash or a mechanical problem and you can rapidly lose 30 seconds or a minute."
Astana directeur sportiဣf Giuseppe Martinelli follo꧒wed Nibali in a team car.
"We know that you can't becoꦜme a pavé specialist in a day but it's about getting a feel for it," he explained.
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"It'll be a day of stress for him, perhaps even m🐬ore than for the others at the Tour de France. We'll try to learn as much as we can and train for a second time on the pavé tomorrow (Friday)."
Stephen is one of the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
