Some steep climbs await in the finish.
Stage 3 Review: Ineos won the day, their first team time trial win since the Tour of Britain in 2020 which says something about the team’s reconstruction and something about the dwindling amount of these races too.
Lidl-Trek were two seconds behind but because Juan Ayuso took bonus seconds from placing on an intermediate sprint on Monday he’s in the yellow jersey.
Decathlon-CMA CGM were third, pipping Visma-LAB. UAE were eighth. Once again the format provided something interesting to talk about on a Tuesday. Josh Tarling seemed to be worth two riders for Ineos while Decathlon-CMA CGM’s Daan Hoole went solo for the final 4.5km.
The Route: 195km and “only” 2,520m of vertical gain, it’s hilly ride but the steep climbing is only for the finish. It’s a long ride east and the the first climb to the hamlet of La Croix des Cerisiers is just a long gradual road up. It’s over to the unmarked Col du Rebout but nothing steeper.
After the intermediate sprint it’s on to the route of the 2021 Tour de France but that continued to Le Creusot where Matej Mohorič won a lively stage. The Croix de la Libération is harder than the roadbook suggests, it’s got a wall of 20% which then eases and soon after comes a 15% section. Then comes a quick descent, a short flat passage and then the road starts to drag up.
The Finish: a tricky climb to ride, and equally hard to describe in words because the gradient just keeps changing in the final 1.5km. Flat then 12% then 6% and then it’s 16%, 18%, 14%, 18%. It’s not got the ferocity of the Mur de Huy but the difficulty comes from change in slope. More detail in a Roads to Ride post if you want it.
The Contenders: Lenny Martinez (Bahrain) is almost a local, having grown up about 40km to the west of today’s finish. Better for him he’s suited to sharp climbs and changes in pace and he has a good final kick. It’s how he won last year’s stage above La Côte-Saint André. But he hates the cold weather which means a chainring less.
Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) is in yellow and so can afford to watch, react and snipe the win rather than gambling to take back time with an attack.
Kévin Vauquelin and Oscar Onley (Ineos) are both ideal for the stage today and if either wins, even in a photofinish on the line they stand to take the race lead thanks to the time bonus.
Axel Zingle has won uphill finishes like this before and can apparently do 1,250W for 30 seconds but is more likely to be deployed to help Jonas Vingegaard even if the Dane would like a longer climb.
At his best David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) could take this stage but his form isn’t sparkling.
Almost half the field are four minutes down so the breakaway has a chance but if a punchy climber is going to win from this then chances are the big teams won’t want to let them back in the race so the break will have it hard. Eddie Dunbar (Pinarello-Q36.5) and Pavel Sivakov (UAE) fit the bill as both are seven minutes down but the Irishman isn’t on great form and Sivakov might be more useful for UAE in support of McNulty in the finish. Expect TotalEnergies to try and Mattéo Vercher is their best bet ahead of Alexandre Delettre.
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Onley, Ayuso |
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Vauquelin, L Martinez |
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Gaudu, Vercher, D Martinez |
Weather: 10°C and wet as a weather front crosses France. The following days should better and today is just cold rather than icy but the damp conditions will make things harder.
TV: tune in for the final hour at 4.00pm to see the steep climb out of Autun and catch the finish at 5.00pm CET.
Postcard from the Signal d’Uchon
Today’s finish on the Signal d’Uchon sits in the Morvan, France’s smallest mountain range. The Morvan tops out with the Haut-Folin at 901m. Today’s finish is only 635m. You can ride higher with the Col de Haut-Folin which sits at 857m but which ever way you approach the pass the slope rarely gets more than 6% and it’s all on a wide, regular road. If a stage was to finish there the result would be different.
No hairpins, no cuttings, no embankments, the Signal d’Uchon is a tricky climb because it has few concessions to engineering to level the slope. It’s disruptive to ride up, the uneven gradient is hard to master. Ideally you want to profit from any easing of the slope to accelerate but it’s hard to judge and one wrongly timed surge can be ruinous.
France has rules for road construction that regulate the maximum gradient but there are many exceptions, particularly when old tracks have been incorporated into the road network. What constitutes the steepest road keeps forums busy as it’s a question of measurement, you can find half a metre of 50% on the inside of a hairpin bend, but for a sustained portion the chapel above Alès that hosts the finish of the Etoile de Bessèges is said top the bill with 33%. There are plenty of options for a kilometre over 15% too.
Race organisers are on the lookout for these steep roads. Paris-Nice has used Mont Brouilly before, or see last year “wall” stage. The Dauphiné/Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes tackles the Grand Colombier this summer, it’s done the even steeper Bastille road above Grenoble in 2023 where Giulio Ciccone won. The Tour de France has a “new” version of the Col du Haag which has 10% and 15% but also some nasty 1% and 3% to disrupt things.
Today is tricky and tomorrow’s stage features some backroads in the finale. Such climbs work best for racing and the TV spectacle the gradient keeps changing.
The paradise, or hell, for these kind of climbs is the Basque Country. The Itzulia Tour of the Basque Country puts the spotlight on some of them for a week, notably the Alto de Arrate above Eibar but there are plenty more. Indeed there are plenty in the French part of the Basque country too and around Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port you can find several of France’s steepest roads. But no race visits them and so they don’t exist in our psychogeography.
This year seems especially difficult to differentiate between Paris-Nice and Tirreno Adriatico, I was wondering if something happened to him to not have Jonas Vingegaard as a contender for the win.
Vingegaard gets a mention above but sprinting from a group isn’t his thing, it’s more tactical than he might like. It could work if he goes from a bit further out and others hesitate but that’s risky in case it backfires because others match him.
Didn’t he win a similar uphill in last years Vuelta?
Ti-Ad had a great stage yesterday, utterly impressive, while Pa-Ni’s best watch for now was the TTT which says quantity (though I personally like them under any format! I’d even say that I like them more as a show to watch than as a technical feature with GC impact).
But I expect things to go even today with a very promising finale at Pa-Ni.
In Italy San Gimignano with its nearly perfect mix in the top 20 of one-day riders and GC men, climbers and heavier Classics specialists granted a (small) consolation for Strade Bianche having become a bit more inclined to lightweight guys (although the top 20 is also very varied).
Van der Poel giving his all to best Del Toro and Pellizzari on a terrain more akin to côtes than to bergs was a spectacle to behold, just as Pellizzari staying with two masters of bike handling on an extremely slippery terrain, where both of the former manifestly proved they were playing at the very limit.
The (not so) new TTT format is a real winner IMO, especially if there is no proper climb at the end. It allows for so many different strategies. The outcome was not a huge surprise, apart from Decathlon — I would have never thought they drop their GC rider to go for the stage win. Unusual approach, given that the prestige of winnning a TTT somehow seems a little lower. I had also expected that Visma would do a bit better, but they seem to be stagnating while others improve. Many teams had clearly chosen a roster with the TTT in their minds, keeping the time gaps small. That should be different in the TdF, despite the additional rider.
Prodhomme had said he has some small GC hopes for this race but if he was dropped yesterday then so be it because the team came with big goals for the TTT.
Also an anecdote/trivia: this format has been in place in Paris-Nice since 2023 but apparently all with the plan of Barcelona in 2026 in mind since the start.
I didn’t know that the all of this was meant to be a series of trial runs for Barcelona, thanks. The planning that goes into all of this never ceases to amaze me…
Lidl didn’t win but Ayuso looked very strong at the finish … not normal for any sort of time trial.
He’s looks like a climber but has probably won and placed in more time trials than mountain stages.
A great read as always and interesting to see Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port get a mention. I’ve always thought that if I was fortunate enough to be able to pick a place in France to live and ride it would be a close run thing between the Basque Pyrenees and the Cevennes. It’s a great experience to ride the Galibier or the Madeleine on holiday but maybe less so if it was routine and with few other options available. Being based in Saint-Jean (or Ales, which also gets a mention above) would allow access to a phenomal range of tiny mountain roads absent of traffic and an almost unlimited range of potential routes. The riding is pretty good in the Morvan too and almost as quiet.
The local weather forecast shows fresh winds with gusts to 50km/h. Several teams (UAE, Visma, Ineos…) have multiple rouleurs who could force échelons. Will they try or does the hilly finish negate that strategy?
Looking at procyclingstats, it seems you were right with your suspicion. Sadly, no live pictures yet. I would love to see this.
Dunbar is DNS.
Apparently very frenetic start of the stage, in wind and rain… Like 5 years ago we could have some surprises in the final.
I think it’s not the exact same road as 5 years ago : they pass through Etang-sur-Arroux and the beginning of the climb is from another road until La Chapelle-sous-Uchon.
At the exit of Etang, the green litter zone sign was down because of the wind. I picked it up and put it back when passing by, I hope it won’t fall on the riders 🙂 But it shows that weather is not good…
No need for Auron when you have the Morvan !! 10th at 5mn…
Having the 38 group shattered by a single crash to half a dozen five of which from the same team then working hard to the line also helped…
But, yeah, I love a tough day of racing.
I went to check the place where Ayuso fell. Apparently he fell first, but it’s a random place, nothing special on the road.
Vauquelin’s perf was pretty incredible, he was on the front of his group most of the 50 last km.
Being on the side of the road just 2km after it happened, with no internet, I didn’t understand how the race shaped when I saw 5 RedBull almost alone, with one Lidl and Vingegaard (I thought the Lidl was Ayuso covering his yellow jersey with his parka, but it was actually Vacek). All the riders in all the groups seemed very tired, and it was la soupe à la grimace. A lot of bidon collés at the other end of the race, 25 minutes after the first riders 🙂 And just a small gruppetto, all the rest was in small groups from one rider to ten, all the way till the end.
Must have been interesting to see, but not pleasant conditions for spectating!
Thanks for the local insight. It wasn’t caught on TV, the rear-facing moto camera just showed the group coming out of the bend but only 5 Red Bull + Vacek + Vingegaard.
Max Kanter won on Monday and was last in today, just inside the time cut.
@inrng
Like Ganna winning on st. 1 at Ti-Ad and the last to cross the line today 😉
What a strange stage and result with chunky non-climbers (Van Dijke * 2, Plowright…) mixing it with the featherweight climbers, and Martinez, despite sheltering for hours behind teammates, barely able to gap Tim Van Dijke on the final climb. A day where resistance to cold and rain, and the ability to stay upright almost counted as much as inherent climbing ability. A day too which will surely have left its mark and make the subsequent days unpredictable.
Hard to forecast but at least the weather promises to be better tomorrow.
What a strange stage. Sorry for Ayuso, but the dynamics and the impact of weather made for a great ride!
I had my doubts about Vingo but he seems to have his preparations right for once.
And the cynic in me is so happy that we have a race where UAE is out of contention.
No criticism to the athletes in such conditions, but I was left a bit perplexed by Red Bull’s and Ineos’ tactics (lot of stress in the team car, too, but at least you’re warm and dry, besides not needing to pedal hard).
As for Red Bull, I guess they must value much having secured a sound second place in GC plus betting on a victory option just a Vingo away (not the smallest obstacle, but bad luck could strike him, too). If so, it’s not the sort of strategy I like best, quite the contrary, but at least there’s a rationale behind. Instead, if this wasn’t the case, i.e. if they actually thought to be playing for victory, theirs today was the equivalent of Waregem 2025, just imagine that Visma hadn’t Van Aert but, dunno, van Baarle as their protected sprinter that day, and they weren’t towing on a free ride Powless but, say, van der Poel. The final performance of Tim Van Di casts further doubts on the tactics deployed. Not like you could really use him as a conventional GC menace in the stages to come, but at least winning today and then have a chance to use him as a pressure element with creative tactics (breaks), was he closer in GC. But, hey, whatever, only few doubts about today’s final result looking poor. Spanish TV was commenting that this way they’ve got a privileged position to win the team classification, which, being it the *Spanish* TV, really says it all. It’s their default consolation for a team messing it up big time!
In Ineos case, yep, hindsight is 20/20, yet I can’t help but wonder if they shouldn’t have thought better once Onley was left behind by his mechanical, besides having hit the ground before. Whatever the reasons, it’s not generally the best sight to watch a team pulling a group ahead and one behind, even less so when who’s pulling behind is your supposed co-captain whom you previously left with little to no help in the flat (only Godon if I recall it right, as C. Rodríguez is injured). And it even looks far worse if the captain you decided to protect eventually finishes 5 minutes behind the one you sacrificed, whereas the latter is actually both the best man on the line for your team *and* the best man in general among those who had been caught behind in the split. As above, big ol’ style Movistar vibes all over again.
At least UAE don’t even try to presume to be great tacticians 😛
Tomorrow’s preview will reach similar conclusions, Ineos should have gone back to rescue Vauquelin but this was hard to know in the moment, it’s only certain with hindsight.
As chief Vingegaard apologist, it is my duty to point out that as silly as he looked at times today, he was perfectly prepared for the day. It’s easy to overlook the little things that separate riders, but there’s a reason he has the palmares that he has. Today was a great example.
Not Vingo’s biggest fan, but on a day like this it’s not about looking stylish. Silly would be trying to look tough or cool and ending up toasted or dead cold. I don’t know how and why his solution worked better for him, but it surelt did. Not that Pogi looked especially fashionable on that Giro stage which he won on short sleeves and long bib tights ^___^
(When Pellizzari couldn’t follow to be given the stage so he got the shirt)