The hilliest stage so far and a good chance the breakaway makes it.
Timetrials and tribulations: the win for Remco Evenepoel, predictable but impressive all the same because he delivered. There’s satisfaction in the win but on French TV he was also open about his team not being able to match his GC rivals, the subtext regarding his ambitions was not subtle.
If Pogačar didn’t win the day he put in a claim to win the month, just 16 seconds behind Evenepoel and putting a minute or more into most of his GC rivals.
Meanwhile Jonas Vingegaard put the calvaire in Calvados as the relative loser of the day, 1m21s down on Evenepoel, 13th on the stage… and only the third quickest rider on his team after Affini and Jorgenson. The flat, exposed course didn’t suit but the margin of his loss was worse than expected, he’ll hope it was just a jour sans but he looked ordinary when at his best he’s a thrill to watch with a “ride it like you stole it” style through corners. He’s 1m13s down on Pogačar, and it’s only Thursday.
It could have been worse, Enric Mas had been doing so well in the crosswinds and sharp climbs until now but lost almost three minutes in one go.
The Route: 201km and 3,350m of vertical gain which is nudging the amount for a mountain stage or a hilly one day classic. Note the early intermediate sprint, the time for the breakaway to form is probably after this as sprinters’s teams may want a straight contest.
The first climbs are in la Suisse Normande , “Swiss normandy”. Now it’s not the Sustenpass but it could almost be the Doubs valley, think river gorges and hills instead of snow-capped peaks. There are plenty of mountains points up for grabs today.
The climb to Mortain marks the opening point of the finale, there’s a narrow pinch-point in front of Mortain’s church. Juvigny and the climb out of Chérencé to Saint-Michel are just regular roads, nothing stressful.
The Finish: the race goes into Vire and then out to tackle the climb to Vaudry. It begins with a right turn and a wide junction before funnelling into a narrow road. The steep part is just after a level crossing and short but enough to sap some riders before dragging on to the top. Then a big road back in to town.
The final kilometre is uphill with 700m at 10% and 15% with 300m to go before easing to the line.
The Contenders: this is the hilliest stage so far but because it’s an accumulation of climbs, and most of them are not discriminating by themselves, the roads are often wide and gradients steady. There’s no one selective point or danger moment. The uphill finish is a challenge for Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), it’s more than long enough to run out of momentum and Tadej Pogačar (UAE) can out-climb him.
It’s a good day for a breakaway as Pogačar is in yellow but can afford to loan it out, in fact he almost said this out loud on French TV yesterday evening. Some riders had an unofficial rest day yesterday and if they burn energy today their next appointment isn’t until Monday. It’s probably not their style but Visma-LAB took a hit yesterday so we’ll see if they respond today; more likely they gather and try to pick another day.
Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek) has been rested after crash injuries so far, we’ll see if he goes for this as the uphill finish suits him well if he’s fresh. Lenny Martinez (Bahrain) had a dire opening stage and then made an energy-wasting breakaway two days ago, if he can stay more composed the finish suits him, especially from a small group.
Other riders with space include Romain Grégoire and Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ), Mauro Schmid (Jayco), Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor), Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) and Simone Velasco (XDS-Astana). Ben Healy and Neilson Powless (EF) too but there are plenty more candidates too.
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Nys, Pogačar |
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Grégoire, Healy, Schmid, Alaphilippe, Martinez |
Weather: sunshine and 26°C. The wind will blow from the NE meaning a tailwind for a lot of the stage and then a crosswind for some of the climbs later on.
TV: KM0 is at 12.45pm the finish is forecast for 5.25pm CEST. Tune in for the start to see if there’s a battle for the breakaway at the start. If not then 3.50pm for the Mortain climb and the final 60km.
Postcard from Vire
The local rider at the start today is Kévin Vauquelin. Then the stage visits Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet’s home roads. At the finish it’s Thierry Gouvenou, the ex-pro who is now deputy race director at the Tour. A pro for a decade, he rode the Tour seven times, and was a specialist for Paris-Roubaix where he finished 7th at his last attempt and has since become race director.
While Christian Prudhomme is Monsieur Tour, as the face and voice of the race, he’s also a delegator. You may not even know of Pierre-Yves Thouault who is his deputy director of cycling, his job is overseeing the technical and logistical aspects of the race.
Gouvenou does a lot of the sporting side, especially course design. So while some the Tour’s route is down to Prudhomme, Gouvenou is also central to the design. If you’re enjoying the opening week and discovering the courses are not as flat as they look from a glance at the profile, it’s on him.
It’s safe to write that 100% of today’s course is down to Gouvenou. He shares a lot Prudhomme’s thinking, never having more than two consecutive sprint stages is a shared dogma. But he’s less political in his language. When asked about why the Tour doesn’t visit the flatter, western parts of France as much as it used to he replied to newspaper Ouest-France (translated):
“Would you be OK for me to tie you to a chair to watch a Nantes-Bordeaux stage, completely flat, for the whole afternoon? And we’ll do this several days in a row… …nobody is ready to endure this today.”
Honest and such language suggests he might not be house choice to takeover from Prudhomme any time soon. And it’s why he’s found every hill going on the course today.
If UAE are happy to let a break go, I’d be surprised if MvdP isn’t in it. Baudin might be one to watch too if the break doesn’t go till the climbing starts.
Yeah. Isn’t mvdp from the break about the most likely outcome?
A good chance but depends who is in the break as he can be beaten uphill today, it’s not a big ring sprint. He could go solo from the break of course. The Mûr-de-Bretagne climb tomorrow suits a lot more.
This is clouding my thoughts. I like Alaphilippe for today… But also tomorrow. And also realise he his a bit of a long shot for both, but then I am a hopeless romantic in this case.
Big struggle for the break to get away today, I reckon. To the detriment of it’s success.
He has to win from the breakaway and have some luck. The old version of winning an uphill sprint against everyone is gone, he’s 33.
It looked like Vingegaard’s seat was too far back yesterday, he had to jerk his body backwards every few pedal strokes which can’t have helped. Saying that, Jumbo don’t seem like the kind of team that would get the seat position wrong. Bit bizarre really.
I think Vingegaard’s body (and seat) were positioned 1m and 21 sec too far back from the finishing line.
😂
LOL. I think Vingegaard would appreciate your joke. I loved his snarky reply to a question today about what he thought of his deficit to Pogacar: something like “I think it’s a minute or so”.
I hope he wins the tour in some miraculous comeback. I think Pog is the most exciting racer out there but I’d love to see JV win.
Is it possible that Vingegaard was suffering from a fatigue backlash following his previous day’s effort?
This might explain the dropoff in form?
It’s possibly a factor but this didn’t halt Pogačar and while Evenepoel didn’t join the attack on the climb, he was chasing hard in the finish and had less team support too.
It could be, that Vingegaard is physiologically less adapted to the short, hard efforts of the previous day and therefore suffered more fatigue than Pogacar, but that’s just speculation, of course
Seat being back is down to a variety of reasons; more upright seat tube on tt bikes, saddle being behind the bb for UCI regs, but riders wanting to be further forward for aero and they slide to the front of the bike.
A ‘master’ of the seat shuffle was Contador in his prime — used to shuffle back constantly. Tony Martin was famous for skateboard grip tape to try and limit the slide forward. Cue ripped shorts and blood on the backside.
But they got affinis set up bang on
God I hope they let a strong break go. I can’t imagine that UAE are particularly interested in fighting all day; I hope our intrepid host is correct and Visma spends the day licking their wounds. Would love to see Powless and Simmons get in the break together along with a few more of the same type.
Wouldn’t that mean to gave up the yellow?
Yeah but give up to someone that won’t keep it
Should “some riders had an unofficial rest day tomorrow” actually be “yesterday”?
Fixed, think the idea was tomorrow and the weekend are semi-rest days for the breakaway riders.
No breakaway tomorrow? I think it has a chance tomorrow as well, at least a large enough chance that there will be a fight to get into the break.
A chance but today is just suited more. If you’re a rider you might try today rather than save it for tomorrow; but if you try and it doesn’t work then you can go tomorrow.
I guess Visma’s strategy for today could be “how do we get pogi get carried away and waste a lot of energy to take this stage too?”
(Not that I think that strategy would bring success.)
Perhaps the person who knows Jonas Vingegaard best had not been “misquoted” in the Danish media, or perhaps the efforts of the previous four days have taken their toll. In commentary yesterday it was pointed out (Rob Hatch?) that over the past number of years of head to head TdF rivalry, the time difference over thousands of kms of racing between Tadej Pogacar & Jonas Vingegaard is 3 seconds (excluding bonus seconds etc) so this is a big lump of time,
For me ride of the day was Kevin Vauquelin, not sure he (or his team) can sustain a top 5 bid but sure the French media will get excited. Honorable mentions to Florian Lipowitz (who do Bora back for GC?) and Oscar Onley (assume this will be his weakest day).
I cant see a break today, I think UAE & Visma will be too competitive though MvdP might want to wait until tomorrow.
Vauquelin did a great ride but a top-5 looks tough, the high mountains are not for him.
But he managed to get second at the Tour du Suisse. A number of high mountain stages there, though can see on a rather different scale to those in the third week here
No big climbs and he got a four minute headstart.
I rate him as a rider and there’s a lot of room for improvement, he’s had a lot of mental issues (not health, just his approach, being worried, overthinking one minute, underthinking the next etc). Set to join Ineos.
Is he going to be the proverbial Brailsford’s French rider?
Lipowitz gained a lot of time from the stage 1 breakaway in Tour de Suisse. And had enough to hold on to most of the advantage in the rest of the week. That is rather different from trying to keep up in the GC group on hard mountain stages in the Tour.
Yes, I find Vaquelin interesting but from memory he did a strong time trial last year as well but faded as the race progressed. He looked very self possessed at the end of the ride though.
I can surely design a Nantes-Bordeaux well worth the spectator’s attention. In fact, I remember that very stage in 1984 being won by Jan Raas in a thrilling way. There were substantial time bonuses all over the stage. And I know quite a few funky back roads in the Saintonge. 😀
A thrill at the finish but would you have watched the whole stage? It’s interesting how the TV coverage is impacting course design with the need for action points throughout.
Nobody sane watches a whole stage, and we should stop saying silly things like that. At the maximum, you leave the TV on while you go do other things and check the race from time to time. Which is easier now with continued Internet live updates. Back in 1984, I would have seen on Twitter or overheard from the kitchen that Bernard Hinault had caused chaos by breaking away in the middle of a 330km/9h stage, pocketing many time bonuses on the way. And sat for a while before going to the lunch table. And only later see Madiot attack, and Raas winning a long flat stage that did NOT end in a mass sprint and was sprinkled with lots of action and uncertainty, and which left a serious imprint on riders’ form for the following stages.
That 1984 stage started at 8am – bet that’d go down well now – and the riders generally rode along at 30km/h, sped up for all the intermediate sprints of which there were ten or something, then had a proper race for about the last 40k or so. Took almost ten hours to complete. “It was stupid” was the succinct summary from (I think) Stephen Roche.
It’s a good sign when some riders whine.
Twitter in 1984! Was was it back then, a transistor radio brand?
Yes, made by the Big Brother Incorporated.
You understood I meant, “if we had Internet back then”, for sure
The biggest problem i see for the break today is that to many will won’t in and people trying to get in the break won’t go the front of the peloton fast enough and therefore keep nullifying the break. Could be one of those 100 km to break formation days. Every strong non-GC rider should be interested.
This seems to hard a finish for MVDP up against lighter top guys at the end of the stage and i doubt his teem is strong on this climby race unless they get help if the break is strong. If he wants to win and take yellow back the break is the place unless he just waits for tomorrow.
Looking at from my preferred team’s perspective. Dunbar and O’Conner should try and get in the break with Schmid or someone else. They won’t get another chance until Monday as tomorrows race seem a likely peloton finish. O’Conner is 4 minutes down and i doubt UAE would be bothered if he took yellow and he has form for doing this sort of move.
Can I just say that I genuinely love the term ‘climby race’ 🙂
I may be proven wrong, but I think Visma will fight all day today and not give the Pog a day off.
that would be a very naff tactic, Pog’s team will simply ‘sit on’ and be trained to the finish (Pog meanwhile will be the last of that train until two km from the finish and then sail over the line with his hands in the air thanking Visma!)
Given there was no climb in the TT I was expecting Vingegaard to come in at roughly the same time as Jorgenson, Roglic, Almeida et al – around a minute behind Evenepoel, what I didn’t expect was Pog to be so close to Evenepoel. The TT was supposed to be Evenepoel’s chance to gain some decent time.
I had a feeling Pogacar and Gianetti would find a way to smash this TT.
I think Evenepoel could have gone faster, but he’s been riding without a team for too much time this week already, so that might have slowed him down a bit.
I wasn’t surprised by Pogačar’s time relative to Evenepoel, who perhaps hasn’t been at his best.
There was plenty of talk about Tadej’s performance in the Dauphiné TT, when he lost a chunk of time, though he was perhaps using it as training: lower cadence, didn’t sprint out of corners or before the line, nearly falling after going over a manhole cover didn’t help; and strangely, slowly drinking from a bottle half way through a 17km ride.
He was on it yesterday though.
Looking back at last year’s Giro there was a similarly flat 30km TT and Pog was 30secs behind Ganna, I was probably paying too much attention to the Dauphine. For the sake of the GC battle I was really hopeful that Evenepoel would have at least a minute if not more following the TT. It’s still early days though, and the first week as been exciting so far
Evenepoel is unable to hold on on a 2km climb, I struggle to see him surviving multiple 20+ km climbs without bleeding minutes.
I was one of the people who thought Mr Inner Ring should have rated Vingegaard’s chances a little higher for the time-trial. Before the stage I thought Pogi and Vingegaard were roughly equal: I had them both at about 40 secs behind Remco. I guess I was wrong.
You’re not alone!
A bit Pedant’s Corner here, but “La Suisse Normande” actually translates as “Norman Switzerland” rather than “Swiss Normandy”!
Interestingly, Google Translate translates both “Norman Switzerland” and “Swiss Normandy” as “Suisse Normande”!
EF have been quiet so far in this Tour, except for some mild Asgreen Action we’ve not seen them in the front mutch. I expect they might go all-in today. Both Powless and Healy are an option and if they could get Asgreen in front as breakaway booster engine as well it will be one to watch.
tbh it will be one to watch regardless of who makes the breakaway…
Well foreseen!
Seems like Mrs Vingegaard is the Cassandra in this ongoing French drama. Whether it was just one bad day or something worse, we have to wait and see.
Remco did as expected but not the demolition that many believed. Infact 1min 47 seconds covered the top 20 which for a flat 33km long ITT seems a levelling of performance.
A day off for the GC guys today with one eye on Friday’s Mûr stage I guess. A whole bunch of guys already over 10 minutes down on GC could win, but I fancy Vino/Astana might have made some plans for this stage.
Recommend this article regarding the route design:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6464971/2025/07/03/tour-de-france-route-designer-interview/
Thank you for posting this
One of the pods mentioned that Jonas was on a larger chain ring his nearest rivals? perhaps that in combination of the headwind on the start sapped the legs leaving him empty in latter part which was where the damage exacerbated. Jumbo is a team i’d expect to be all over the details and had Affini on the hot seat for the start maybe they read too much into that and missed the changing conditions, anecdotally i prefer to spin into a head wind instead of grind a gear as it feels smoother / less resistant of the wind. It will be interesting to see how hard Remco chases Pog and the benefit of that to Jonas. It’s set the next weeks up beautifully with the intrigue of the team relations in the mix for Jumbo and DQS
it’s pretty telling that Visma have let WVA now Simon Yates attack today…
who knows what will happen but that makes it feel like the writings on the wall to me?
I know people are holding out hope that Pog had a bad TT in Dauphine and then came back so maybe Vin will do similar, or that Vin out rode him in the mountains previously, or that Remco or even Jorgenson may now be the main rivals… all may turn out to be true but as far as I can see they all feel a touch desperate – Jonas hasn’t outclimbed Pog in nearing two years, and neither Remco nor Jorgenson ever have, and as for previous Jonas wins, Pog’s level is clearly higher plus his team and even racing style now feel pretty honed unlike the years he lost.
pre Tour this scenario felt very likely and unfortunately it seems to face off with Pog everyone needs not only a huge slice of luck but also everything to go right on their side.
but let’s see – I’d like Pog to win but some jeopardy would be nice – just not sure how that’s possible.
OTOH it also dissuades Pogacar from going for another win and bagging even more seconds… so either way it’s sensible tactics from Visma.
oldDAVE, I couldn’t agree more. It would take something weird for a legitimate GC battle to develop. Or at least for the maillot jaune in Paris. The podium battle could be interesting, especially since I don’t see Remco staying with the best climbers in the second half of the race.
What? Simon Yates was on a training ride for the week 3 mountains (as the elevation gain on this stage almost equalled a mountain stage). Something he alluded to himself in an ITV interview.
Love Gouvenou’s quote!
Rather glad Quim Simmons did not win. He is a vocal supporter of the mango Mussolini in the states, so he can go rot.
Amen.
My memory is of him being very unpleasant to Jose Been on Twitter a few years ago.
MvDP today was what a super talent looks like after days of going hard. Pogacar has never looked like this since Gianetti started having him do more z2 last year. Never gets tired and all that from just more endurance riding. Modern science, wow.
I’ve read article claiming Pogi’s Z2 base training sessions are ~5 hrs @ 300-320 Watts (!!). Article wasn’t clear whether that’s Average Pwr (AP) or Normalized Power (NP), nevertheless it’s prodigious.