Key events
Preamble
Today’s stage begins in the Netherlands and finishes in Belgium, taking in some famous one-day Classics territory on the way. The area around Limburg and Valkenburg includes those rare things – significant hills within the Dutch border – before the race rolls south and into the northern reaches of Belgium.
There are eight categorised climbs on a very up-and-down route, 122km in length, with one intermediate sprint coming at Pepinster after 67.5km of racing. Three cat-fours, three cat-threes and two cat-twos are included in the day’s climbs and there will be plenty of riders hoping to get in a breakaway.
More on that to follow shortly, but for now, here is Jeremy Whittle’s report of Tuesday’s stages two and three, a road race and time trial combo in which the reigning champion, Demi Vollering, took a step towards back-to-back Tour de France Femmes titles:
