Cologne - Frankfurt am Main   

There are ways of cycling from Cologne to Frankfurt that are fairly flat but the 4th stage of Germany tour certainly isn’t. The riders’ route will head through Limburg and they will certainly find some hills to climb, in contrast with the fairly flat tour that we have seen so far and as a taster of the climbing that will come later in the tour.

The riders will leave Cologne, the 4th largest city in Germany and arr...

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There are ways of cycling from Cologne to Frankfurt that are fairly flat but the 4th stage of Germany tour certainly isn’t. The riders’ route will head through Limburg and they will certainly find some hills to climb, in contrast with the fairly flat tour that we have seen so far and as a taster of the climbing that will come later in the tour.

The riders will leave Cologne, the 4th largest city in Germany and arrive in Frankfurt, the 5th largest. Frankfurt is an important educational as well as cultural centre and as the full name indicates is on the river Main. It has a sizeable immigrant population, which is particularly marked amongst the younger generation, many of whom will come out to see which riders can make an impression on the tough finishing climb.

Unlike some of the important climbing stages that come later in the tour that reward pure climbers, this stage is well suited to good all-round climbers and is a particularly favourite of strong hill climbers. This will be the first real test for the general classification teams and though the time gaps on the more mountainous stages to come may be more decisive, any riders distanced by the leaders on this stage will face an uphill struggle. Previous winners of this stage including Marcus Bøgh, Patryck Drozdowski and Farruco Alonso have all gone on to win the overall tour classification following a victory here, so the winner of this stage will be in fine company and a rider to watch as the tour progresses.