A day to reshape the overall classification. A dress rehearsal ahead of the Tour de France? Yes but today’s course is longer and requires more finesse, it’s even more about cohesion than usual.
Antho(n)logy: a ten rider breakaway kept on a six minute leash by EF because the best rider overall up the road was Clément Braz Afonso who started the day 5m35s down on Alex Baudin. Squads with ambitions for today’s team time trial opted out of the racing as best as they could.
With 47km to go Baptiste Veistroffer launched the first attack, taking Braz Afonso with him and this set up a boiling final hour as Braz Afonso dropped Veistroffer on the Baraques climb, normally they had plenty to gain from working together but the others were closing in and Veistroffer just couldn’t climb fast enough to keep clear. From here on the moves kept flying with riders on the limit and seemingly nobody holding back.
Anthon Charmig was in the third group but he and others kept chasing. As soon as he got across kept the group moving. On the final climb of the day through Saint-Vidal and had only five seconds’ lead over Braz Afonso and Raul Garcia Pierna with 11km to go but this was the fitness test of the day. He had the most and stayed away solo for the win.
There’s a small symbolism to the victory as Charmig had ridden for Uno-X before signing for Astana and then returned. It’s important for the team to show that they can reignite careers as having to shop exclusively among Danish and Norwegian riders, one way to avoid paying a premium is to show the performance will improve. Small symbolism as this is not conclusive for all but it was a well-taken win in a race where smaller budget teams need to find opportunities.
The Route: 28km and tricky course. If this a dress rehearsal for the Tour de France’s opening stage, it’s like performing a tricky opera ahead of performing an Abba tribute in Barcelona next month.
The route today uses smaller roads for the first half which keep changing direction and slope, it’s twisty in places and so hard to keep in formation and swap turns like a track pursuit event, instead riders will be changing gears, backing-off, even braking in places. This is most notable about 9km into the course on the descent out of Coutouvre. Rather than a powerhouse, this is where a good pilot can make the difference for the group, picking the best line and setting a pace all can follow.
Once past the second time check it’s on a bigger road that is much faster all the way to the finish. This part was used in the opposite direction in the 2015 Dauphiné TTT with some downhill sections worthy of giant chainrings. The final kilometre sees the route climb into town and it’s narrow and twisty, a chance for the team leaders to make the difference.
The Rules: “Paris-Nice rules” with riders given the time they cross the line with and teams being awarded the time of their first rider across the line.
The Contenders: on paper Netcompany-Ineos are the first pick, they won the Paris-Nice stage with almost the same team, Michał Kwiatkowski was racing then when Laurens de Plus is here today. But they only won by two seconds from Lidl-Trek, but the German team had a more heavyset squad for the stage. Today though is more unpredictable as the first half of the course is more tricky. Visma-LAB are obvious contenders too. It should be one of these teams but UAE and Decathlon-CMA CGM can run them close.
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Netcompany-Ineos, Visma-LAB |
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Lidl-Trek |
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UAE, Decathlon-CMA CGM |
Weather: sunshine and clouds, 21°C. A 15km/h wind from the NW means a tricky 3/4 tailwind for much of the first half, a 3/4 headwind for the second.
TV: the first team off is Picnic-PostNL at 3.05pm and the last is EF Education-Easypost and they’re due in around 5.00pm CEST. If you want the full start order and times, go here.
Postcard from Roanne: today’s stage is in Perreux, population 2,111. It’s a village just outside the town of Roanne, home to over 35,000. It’s not famous for much but like several medium-sized towns is enjoying a revival of sorts because of rising defence orders and reindustrialisation.
The Tour de France visited Roanne in 2023 and the Dauphiné has been here several times, notably in 2015 for a team time trial that used part of today’s course too, the long downhill to the finish today was a drag up to the line. It was a day of mixed fortunes for Swiss teams as BMC won the stage while IAM Cycling managed to crash when going uphill during their recon ride leaving some sore and red-faced. It was a long time ago now but George Bennett rode it for Lotto-Jumbo and Emanuel Buchmann for Bora-Argon 18 and they’re back today with NSN and Cofidis respectively.
For Bennett if there’s déjà vu on these roads that’s also because he came to Europe to race as an amateur and in 2009 joined CR4C Roanne (pictured), a local team that has been among the first division of French amateur teams and sent many riders into the pro ranks.
Now things are different to the point where if an ambitious U23 rider can’t get on a World Tour development squad by the time they’re 21 then many will give up. However it is still, just, an avenue to the pro ranks. Ask Matthew Fox who rode for a French club last year and is now riding today’s team time trial with Lotto-Intermarché.
Is this the first real test of Netcompany’s AI tools?
Hmm, that smells of marketing. The company mainly does things like software for airports, tracking baggage from check-in to loading or monitoring the length of immigration queues. And it runs an educational platform in Denmark shared by teachers, pupils and parents. Perhaps AI could be useful here but it’s more a platform to run something with; if the team uses it they could have barcodes on bikes, on spare derailleurs and plan where and when to bring supplies.
Netcompany PULSE is a real-time, event-driven enterprise orchestration platform. Developed by Netcompany, it functions as a digital “control tower” that unifies fragmented, siloed systems, sensors, and data stores to enable instant, AI-driven decision-making and cross-departmental coordination without requiring architectural overhauls.
This sounds appropriate
Ai can’t turn pedals.
NetCompany could be a more liberal Palantir. If that is the case, their tool could be really powerful.
Basically they could potentially turn literally everything into digital token assets : what interval a rider did how many days out from key objective, how well he completed it, how many carbs he took on that ride, what is heart rate and perceived efforts, how’s his HRV the next morning. They can do that to everyday a rider is training. They can collaborate these with a rider’s actual performance on the event and use traditional deep learning to train their model to identify patterns between training events and racing performance (God, I can’t believe I am calling deep learning “traditional”). The quality and comprehensiveness of the data would mean the model would be very very good at predicting rider performance on the day. With time, it could even direct training.
That said, correlation isn’t causation. They would still need a strong head coach who understands the physiology/performance science behind all that data. I don’t think they have such a person at the moment.
Sounds like much optimism for little data
😉
Which is why Ferrari used to say that coaching is more art than science. Albeit art based on science of course.
I’m really keen to see the moment (soon I guess) when a team will explain its jump in performance with AI.
Long cranks, no wait, short cranks, eat less to use fats, no, wait, eat more carbs; high RPM, no, wait, lower ones. More Z2. Or more intervals. Oval rings. 1x drivetrains.
AI finally will allow it all to make sense together.
Yesterday we used long cranks, today short ones. The AI told us to do so.
Which explains why our athletes go faster than the rest. Until the political wind changes, of course.
I would prefer turning a file containing a pro’s training ride (or race!) into an NFT that you could buy (or ”invest in”). Then we could have Digital Cycling World Championships (instead of ebiking/indoor races) where you could show off your NFT collection and the one who’s collection has most watts wins a UCI rainbow jersey!
Was it just me or was it a bit dull yesterday? Great for Anthon Charmig but the bunch didnt seem bothered which doesnt make for great racing. Perhaps the combination of a long stage with the TTT today.
Netcompany seem the obvious pick but is Dorian Godon out of sorts? Visma look strong too. However, assuming I have understood the rules correctly, if Decathlon get Paul Seixas to the bottom of the final drag not too far behind he can simply leave his team behind in an effort to climb the final bit as fast as possible, the team time is largely irrelevant?
I thought it was a lively final hour, all the moves coming and going. It’ll be interesting to see if Ineos riders Onley and Vauquelin make it to the finish together.
Noticed the Danish Sprite appeared at the finish. I assume the bottle contained a sugary drink and was not replaced with mineral water!
Agree, the final hour was fun. Not too much before though!
The only time that I am faintly optimistic about Jayco these days is when there is a TTT. Not expecting a win but respectability … and interested to see how McKenzie goes.
They seemed to be saving themselves yesterday, on a day when a World Tour win was up for grabs and they haven’t got one yet (nor have Movistar, Groupama-FDJ and Picnic-PostNL). But there’s a lot of competition today.
Ten years ago Jayco as ORICA had a team of big, strong, and mostly Australian rouleurs: Durbridge, Tuft, Hepburn, Bewley, Howson… and a solidarity and sort of anti-establishment culture to go with that. Now they just seem – sadly – another mid-market team chasing points that the better-endowed teams (UAE, CMA-CGM, Ineos, Red Bull, Lidl-Trek…) haven’t already scooped up.
Ten years ago they had three top quality riders in Yates x 2 and Chaves, something they probably just can’t afford now. But, yes, note that the three of them long stayed in the team because of their good personal relation with it as a whole.
The team came out of the Australian AIS and their track program so a lot of pursuit specialists to pick from and management who knew about this too. The TTT was sometimes an overlooked area where specialists could win against big teams, see Crédit Agricole winning in the Tour, Garmin too. Highroad focussed on it. Today it’s hard to find this opportunity.
Visma will have Vingegaard at the Tour to go last for the line, and UAE, who already seem one man down with Almeida’s bad form, will have Pogacar, so Decathlon with Seixas need to prove something here.
Speaking of Almeida, his form is so alarmingly bad that it makes you wonder why UAE even considered sending him to the race. I can’t see how it’s doing him any good.
Supposedly training. Also, he might be save himself up so that he can domestique work in more crucial stages. Let’s see if he does anything of note in the mountains.
Roanne is also the place of the three-stars restaurant of les Troisgros. For those, like me, who cannot afford to eat there (but they also have a brasserie in the centertown which seems affordable), I can warmly advise the Wisemann documentary named Les Troisgros, long but very interesting, and with some really nice images.
Fantastic picture of NCI TTT.
Trying to grit my teeth and watch the godawful Peacock coverage, when suddenly at the most important moment it goes into almost nothing but ad breaks. That I’m paying for!
I would pay more just to not have to listen to Bob Roll and Christen Vande Velde on Peacock.
I know, I can turn off the volume but thats not the point! Just give me any Euro commentator that actually does some pre-race study.
I would pay an extra ten bucks a month for Jose Been to do the Peacock broadcasts. CVDV can stick around, just no Bob, please.
The GC picture is very interesting now, with 3 top-5 GC riders 12-15 seconds back from the current jersey wearer, and the pre-race favourites ranging 47 seconds to 1:16 down. It looks like the next big GC day is Friday. The suspense! Will a stand-out GC rider appear on Friday? Or will there be 10 closely matched riders?
I’m really surprised that more people aren’t commenting along the same lines. I feel exactly the same about the situation, it’s poised for a lot of action when the hills get bigger. I guess it’s unlikely to blow up in the next couple of days, so maybe people are just waiting for that. Anyway, I’m really excited to see what Seixas can do, cause he’s going to have to attack when he gets the chance.