Yet another fun one-day profile in the midst of the Tour gave yet another brilliant up-and-comer a chance to announce himself on cycling's biggest stage.

24-year-old Lennard Kamna, who finished second in an ultra-slow motion sprint against Daniel Felipe Martinez on Stage 13, made good this time by going solo from Richard Carapaz and Sebastien Reichenbach with about 20 kilometers to go on Stage 16. His winning move came after he twice reeled in Carapaz's attacks on the Category 1 Montée de Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte. Then with 350 meters to summit, he broke free and put distance into Carapaz and Reichenbach all the way to the finish line, ultimately pumping his fist in celebration with a lead of one minute and 27 seconds.

Kamna's only two individual pro wins have come in the last month. He won Stage 4 of the Critérium du Dauphiné on a similar profile and in almost the same way, catching a group of established heavy-hitters off guard and going solo at the base of an ascent finish. At the time, he called the win the biggest of his career. He might like to update that statement.

Meanwhile, back in the GC

Not much of note; the next two days will be MUCH more decisive.

The group of general classification leaders came into the line nearly 17 minutes behind Kamna. Miguel Angel Lopez, currently sitting in fourth place overall, was arguably robbed of one second against his rivals by the Tour's judges. He put in a MEAN acceleration to the line with a little more than 300 meters to go and crossed the line with a small gap ahead of Tadej Pogacar, Primoz Roglic and Richie Porte, who finished in that order and were all given the same time.

No one lost time who hadn't already rode themselves out of contention. Nairo Quintana fell off the back of the yellow jersey group on the Montée de Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte, finishing 17:23 off Kamna and 35 seconds from Roglic and Co.

Egan Bernal was 27:27 off the stage win. He is officially riding just so he enjoy the Champs-Élysées. If his back injury is serious, Ineos may not let him continue much longer.

Everything else that unfolded

This may have been the last pleasantly tepid stage of the Tour. Stages 17 and 18 will be blockbusters, Stages 19 and 21 should be by-the-book bunch sprints (though the latter has champagne) and Stage 20 is a time trial. No more big breakaways scrapping for glory that I can see.

The day began with A LOT of jostling to create a breakaway. Jumbo-Visma led the peloton, and quickly shut down any group of riders it deemed even remotely dangerous to their yellow jersey ambitions.

After 50 kilometers, a strong group of 18 riders finally had a comfortable lead: Carapaz and Andrey Amador of Ineos, Kamna and Daniel Oss of Bora-Hansgrohe, Julian Alaphilippe of Deceuninck-Quick Step, Sébastien Reichenbach of Groupama-FDJ, Alberto Bettiol of Education First, Winner Anacona and Warren Barguil of Arkéa-Samsic, Imanol Erviti and Carlos Verona of Movistar, Matteo Trentin of CCC, Chris Juul Jensen of Mitchelton-Scott, Nicholas Roche, Casper Pedersen and Tiesj Benoot of Sunweb, and Quentin Pacher and Pierre Rolland of B&B Hotels-Vital Concept.

That's a fun group! And by the base of the Category 2 Col de Porte, it seemed likely to produce the stage winner, having gained a lead of 10-plus minutes.

Rolland picked up where he left off Sunday, going solo with 1.2 kilometers to the summit of the Col de Porte to pick up five points towards the polka dot jersey. He went solo with 1.9k left on the Category 2 Côte de Revel to take another five points and put himself in a virtual tie with Benoit Cosnefroy.

On that same climb, the group of 18 was joined by Neilson Powless (Education First), Mikel Nieve (Mitchelton-Scott), Romain Sicard (Total Direct Energie), Simon Geschke (Sunweb) and Pavel Sivakov (Ineos) after a LONG effort to bridge from the peloton. A 23-strong breakaway had 12:45 on the peloton at the start of the Montée de Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte.

Pacher attempted to go solo as soon as the climb started, which was a curious move given his teammate's polka dot ambitions. Carapaz, Alaphilippe, Kamna and Reichenbach closed him down (despite cagey teamwork) with 4.6k to go to the summit, distancing Rolland and ensuring he'd stay tied at the top of the King of the Mountains standings.

(By tiebreakers, Cosnefroy will remain in polka dots on Stage 17, thus extending the most underwhelming King of the Mountains rein of my memory.)

With 2k to go to the Cat 1 summit, Carapaz ended any lingering sense of cohesion in the break, accelerating and creating an Alaphilippe-led chase. Then Alaphilippe -- on a stage that he had reportedly been eying from the beginning of the Tour, and that I had called "suspiciously suited" for his skillset -- proceeded to combust, dropping fast out of contention and leaving just three riders to contend the stage. (He'd finish 10th, 2:54 off Kamna.)

Carapaz attacked again after he was reeled in, only to launch Kamna to the biggest win of his career. Still, Carapaz's second place was a helluva lot better for Ineos than whatever Sunday was.

All the while, Jumbo-Visma controlled the peloton with very little trouble. Guillaume Martin tried to disrupt the status quo with an attack on the Montée de Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte. He and teammate Nicolas Edet stayed out front for a while, but were inevitably hauled in.

With two kilometers to the finish, Pogacar attempted his now-clockwork attack to steal a few seconds off Roglic, following a leadout by teammate David de la Cruz. Roglic, like clockwork, grabbed onto Pogacar's wheel. Then Wout van Aert went to the front of the group to quell any more unrest. Only Lopez seemingly landed a blow ... only to be awarded the exact same time as his Roglic and Pogacar.

I guess you can't measure pride.

Light, pleasant fun

Tadej Pogacar is a hellcat on a bike, and a dear sweet boy in all other contexts.

GORGES.

Goofy waves to the camera have been a whole genre at this year's Tour.

19th Century French military leaders had some wild ideas about where to build forts. (That's the Fort du Saint-Eynard and I guess there's a good reason for it.)

Wout van Aert turned [/this many] today.

This is the correct distance to put between yourself and cyclists during a pandemic.

OH HEY A READER QUESTION

I forgot that this is something I could do until a reader emailed me out of the blue. So thanks to Zack for sending this in. If anyone else wants to ask me anything, write to idreaminpolkadot@gmail.com or yell at me on Twitter.

Here's Zack:

After going out of town for the weekend, I spent all of today catching up on Saturday and Sunday's stages. One thing I can't figure out is why no one ever discusses the team GC standings. It seems like there's been a pretty good battle between EF and the Movistar team, but even in the really slow parts of the race it almost never gets discussed. Was wondering if you could shed some light on it if you have a spare paragraph.

Sorry that this response is longer than a paragraph, but it's a good question.

The team classification criteria are wonky, and not particularly good as a catch-all measurement of success. The standings are calculated by taking the top three times from each team on each stage and adding them up for 21 stages. A team that has several riders highly placed on the individual classification will likely do well in the team classification. And that's good! But the results can also be misleading.

For example, Jumbo-Visma is currently fourth on the classification, and Team Sky/Ineos (currently second) only won it once during an eight-year span when they won seven yellow jerseys. Yet, few people would argue that those aren't/weren't the strongest teams in the Tour. To win the yellow jersey, individual riders have to sacrifice their place on the general classification for the good of the team leader, but the team classification doesn't take that into consideration.

In fact, winning the team classification can be a badge of dishonor. Movistar's four wins in the last five years has become a symbol of how its top-end talent has consistently fallen short of Tour-winning ambitions.

For all of the Tour's various classifications, context matters a lot. For example, if Movistar wins this year with an aging Alejandro Valverde, and without Nairo Quintana and Mikel Landa, that would be a meaningful accomplishment. I also reckon it'd mean a lot to a team like Education First, currently in third, which is relatively young and undermanned. They've placed a rider in the top three on the individual GC despite largely focusing on stage finishes.

tl,dr: Team success can't necessarily be measured by time, but that's all that the team classification takes into account.

The standings

STAGE 16

1. Lennard Kamna (Bora-Hansgrohe) -- 4hr 12min 52sec
2. Richard Carapaz (Ineos) -- +1min 27sec
3. Sebastien Reichenbach (Groupama-FDJ) -- +1min 56sec
4. Pavel Sivakov (Ineos) -- +2min 34sec
5. Simon Geschke (CCC) -- +2min 35sec
6. Warren Barguil (Arkea-Samsic) -- +2min 37sec
7. Tiesj Benoot (Sunweb) -- +2min 41sec
8. Nicolas Roche (Sunweb) -- +2min 47sec
9. Quentin Pacher (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) -- +2min 51sec
10. Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step) -- +2min 54sec

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION

1. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) — 70hr 06min 47sec
2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) -- +40sec
3. Rigoberto Uran (Education First) -- +1min 34sec
4. Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) – +1min 45sec
5. Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) — +2min 03sec
6. Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) -- +2min 13sec
7. Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren) -- +2min 16sec
8. Enric Mas (Movistar) -- +3min 15sec
9. Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) -- +5min 19sec
10. Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) — +5min 43sec

GREEN JERSEY

1. Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) — 269 points
2. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) — 224
3. Matteo Trentin (CCC) — 212
4. Bryan Coquard (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) -- 166
5. Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) -- 158

POLKA DOT JERSEY

1. Benoit Cosnefroy (AG2R-La Mondiale) — 36 points
2. Pierre Rolland (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) - "
3. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) -- 34
4. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) -- 33
5. Nans Peters (AG2R-La Mondiale) -- 32

Stage 17 preview -- 170km from Grenoble to Méribel Col de la Loze

Stage 17 will begin at 12:15 p.m. local, 6:15 a.m. ET. For those watching from the United States, coverage will begin at 6:30 a.m. on NBCSN. (Here’s NBC’s complete broadcast schedule).

Don’t get that channel? You’ll need to pay, sadly. I really like the NBC Sports Gold Cycling Pass, which gives you a commercial-free stream as well as some handy race-tracking whatzits. The much cheaper option, however, is Peacock Premium, which costs $4.99 per month and will reportedly get you access to live coverage of every stage, though presumably with ads and without the whatzits.

If you can’t watch live and want access to replays, it appears Gold is your only way to go.

I put this stage No. 1 in my watchability guide and I stand by my reasoning:

This is an overwrought Michael Bay action sequence of a stage. Only about 15 kilometers of flat reprieve separates the climbs up the HC Col de la Madeleine and the HC mountaintop finish up Col de la Loze. That last climb is 21.5 kilometers (!) at an average of 7.8 percent (!!), of which the last 4.5 kilometers average roughly 10 percent (!!!).

Stage 18 has a more interesting and equally sadistic profile, but I'm a sucker for BIG CLIMBS, and Wednesday will feature two of the biggest in the whole dang Tour:

Like Sunday, there's a long, flat preamble before the climbs start. You're welcome to sleep in. But then suit up because the last two and a half hours of the stage should strip riders to their core. The stage ends on the longest Hors Categorie climb of the Tour, which begins shortly after the descent of the third-longest. When Christian Prudhomme and Thierry Gouvenou drew this one up, they did so with visions of a beleaguered rider plugging his way to the summit, summoning energy out of the ether, barely able to keep his arms up in celebration before he collapses across the line in front of a majestic mountain backdrop.

That final 4.5 kilometers of the Col de la Loze are a JERK:

That's a roughly 10 percent gradient that kicks up to 18 (!!!!) and 24 (!!!!!) percent in spots. Riders are going to crack left and right, creating time gaps everywhere.

Primoz Roglic and Tadej Pogacar are the surest bets to win; they've duked out every mountain finish so far. Still, this is a special sort of challenge. Roglic's Jumbo-Visma teammates were at their high-mountain best Sunday, but they've disappeared before. Will Roglic be able to weather Pogacar's attacks on his own? Will either of them get caught off guard by suddenly feisty challengers like Miguel Angel Lopez and Richie Porte? Will Rigoberto Uran amble his way into the yellow jersey after everyone else wears themselves out?

Oh what's this? There could be thunderstorms?

NOW WE'RE TALKING

Get ready for a croziflette of a stage: Entirely overproduced, but nonetheless delicious.