MONACO–NICE PREVIEW WITH JOE DOMBROWSKI | RIDING THE TOUR DE FRANCE 2024’S FINAL RACE OF TRUTH
On 20 July 2024, the pro peloton elite of the Tour de France will descend on the Côte d’Azur, and on 21 July there will be a historic race finale in Nice – the first time the Tour has ever finished outside Paris. We asked our friend, the recently retired World Tour Pro Joe Dombrowski, to ride the final stage, a hilly 33.7km race against the clock starting in Monaco, to give his opinion on the course and share some insights into what life as a pro on the Côte d’Azur is like. For the first time ever the Tour de France is not finishing in Paris. Instead, the 33.7km race of truth starts in Monaco and climbs through La Turbie to Col d’Èze before descending to the Promenade des Anglais and a finish on Nice’s Place Masséna. American rider Joe Dombrowski may have retired from the World Tour before the 2024 season, but after a decade of riding on the Côte d’Azur he knows the roads like the back of his hand. Still a Nice native, the Tour-riding, Giro-stage-winning friend of Café du Cycliste took time out to ride the Tour de France’s final-day time trial for us ahead of the race itself. He casts his eye on the key difficulties of the challenging, hilly course, and shares some insights into the life of a pro – and how those pro riders who live on the Côte d’Azur might be feeling, as they race home at the end of an epic three weeks’ riding from Florence to Nice.
