Primoš Roglic and Adam Yates, two names you won't see on the start list for the Grand Prix de Denain, will hit the cobblestones of northern France this month as a warm-up for the Tour de France.

The Tour de France will visit the cobblestones on stage 5 of the 2022 edition in July, with the route from Lille to Wallers-Allenberg covering 19.4 km of cobbles over 11 sections.

Cobblestones can wreak havoc and are just as crucial to the success of riders seeking the yellow jersey as mountain finishes and time trials. For this reason, Grand Tour riders unfamiliar with cobblestones and classics often warm up months in advance.

While Paris-Roubaix is considered too intense and too important to test the waters, the nearby Dunain GP on March 17 has been cited as an alternative race by Jumbo Visma and Ineos Grenadier.

The 2022 event was announced this weekend, with Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) and Yates (Ineos Grenadier) on the provisional start list.

Roglic, who finished second overall at the 2020 Tour and is a three-time winner of the Vuelta a España, will ride with teammate Jonas Vingegaard, who finished second at last year's Tour. These two will be flanked by the team's larger riders in the classics and sprint divisions.

As for Ineos, Yates will lead the team in this year's Tour. Egan Bernal was named leader at the start of this year's race, but has since suffered a life-threatening injury and the timing of his comeback is unknown.

Richard Karapas has defended his plans to compete in the Giro d'Italia, while 2018 winner Geraint Thomas will reportedly compete in the Tour. While it was not announced that a Grand Tour program would be assigned to Yates at the beginning of the year, Yates' selection for the GP Denain suggests that he will carry the flag with Thomas in July.

"The fact that the Tour de France will cross our region and that the Lille-Allenberg cobbled stage is included in the program certainly explains the participation of a Tour de France favorite in our race," Sports Info Nord de France said Dominique Serrano, head of the organizing committee, according to the

The 2022 GP Denain will once again be held in the spring, after being held in the fall last year and then cancelled in 2020 due to a pandemic. The route, which has steadily added cobblestones in recent years, will be 206.3 km long, with a total of 20.8 km of cobblestones in 12 sectors.

The peloton consists of 20 teams, eight of which are World Tour, the others being UAE Team Emirates, Bora-Hansgrohe, Cofidis, Groupama-FDJ, and Intermarke-Wanty-Gobert.