Paris-Tours 2019: a hard groad for hard riders

It's the race too tough for Deceuninck-Quick-Step, the team with Belgian DNA who eat pavé for breakfast. Get ready for some gravel grindin' Monday morning from 12.15am live streaming via SBS On Demand and our site.

Paris-Tours 2018 Source: ASO

Last year, Paris-Tours organisers changed up the route of the 100+ year old race to include around 11kms of gravel secteurs in the final part of the 217km one-day race. Deceuninck-Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere vowed never to return, pessimistically tweeting during the exciting new edition, 'farm tracks' had nothing to do with road racing. 

And he kept his word. But the hard men return, ready to relish 10.7kms of groad through a postcard series of vineyards before the final 10kms to the finish unhindered on tarmac. 

The nine gravel sections of the 2019 Paris-Tours Source: ASO

Niki Terpstra, Oliver Naesen and 2019 Paris-Roubaix runner-up Nils Politt will try to take it to defending champ  Søren Kragh Andersen as the likes of Mark Cavendish, Arnaud Démare, Christophe Laporte and Bryan Coquard will hope to hang on for a bunch sprint.

Fresh from the epic conditions of the elite men's road race, 2019 worlds bronze medallist Stefan Küng will also take to the line. 

“The more demanding it is, the better it suits me," he said. Watch out!

There's one Aussie in the mix, Nathan Haas for one of his final rides for Katusha before making the switch to Cofidis in 2020.   

Still grungry for more? Watch the full highlights from 2018:

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