The Grand Boucle is off to a scintillating start. The Grande Depart in the Basque Country was tremendous with millions of fans out to witness in one of cycling’s heartlands.
Stage One: After a weak breakaway went for the KOM points on offer early in the stage, the big teams reeled them back in quite far from the finish line. The three strongest climbers in the race were Pogacar, Vingegaard, and shockingly, Victor Lafay of Cofidis. Over the top of the Pike, the three slowed and there was a regrouping of about 10 riders. Adam and Simon Yates attacked, leaving Jumbo-Visma the only team to chase behind, working for a Wout van Aert stage win. Wilco Kelderman could not reel in the strong Yates twins, and the end result was a surprising victory and first yellow jersey for Adam. Pogacar sprinted to third place and a few crucial bonus seconds.
Stage Two: A similar profile stage to the first. UAE pulled a large part of the day hoping to get Pogi the stage win and bonus seconds. But they did not drop enough riders on the final climb the back side of the Jaizkebel. Pogacar and Vingegaard showed their strength again by taking first and second on the summit of that climb, which netted the Slovenian three more seconds on his rival. Lafay proved super strong again and attacked with one flat kilometer left, and a similar scenario played out with Jumbo unable to pull him back. It was Cofidis’ first stage win in 15 years and Lafay truly earned it. I think he needs to transfer to a more professional outfit (like Laporte did in 2022) and he could be a major player in the Ardennes. Wout sprinted to second and Pogacar took another third.
Stage Three: A bunch sprint for Jasper Philipsen.
Stage Four: A bunch sprint for Jasper Philipsen.
Stage Five: The earliest stage in the Pyrenees in many years did not disappoint. Jai Hindley, the winner of the Giro d’Italia in 2022, snuck into a 38-rider breakaway that rode full gas for three hours, forcing a desperate chase from UAE-Team Emirates. Jumb0-Visma had Wout van Aert in the break and elected not to chase, which was a risky bet. But UAE did their bidding. Hindley ended up winning the stage from the breakaway and going into the yellow jersey. UAE’s chase kept the leash on the Aussie, but depleted their team going into the final climb; the Marie Blanque. Jumbo-Visma went nuclear and Jonas Vingegaard did a historic performance, dropping Pogacar by nearly a minute in just a few kilometers. To put this in perspective, Pogacar did the 20-minute climb 30 seconds faster than in 2020 on a stage in which he won (and set the climbing record), and lost about a minute to Jonas. This was not a moment of weakness on the part of Tadej Pogacar, but a legendary ride by Jonas Vingegaard. The Dane would only extend the gap on the descent and false-flat uphill to the finish line. The Tour appeared to be squarely in his grasp after just one mountain stage, provided he could deal with Hindley at some point. I remarked within seconds of Jonas’ thermonuclear attack on the Marie Blanque that the Tour de France was over.
Stage 6: Smelling blood, Jumbo-Visma drew up an epic battle plan and sent Wout van Aert in the breakaway again (he was not of much use the prior day). It was another strong one, but not nearly as dangerous as the day before. On the lower slopes of the Tourmalet, the yellow bees burnt up their rouleur domestiques (Laporte, van Baarle, and van Hooydonck) setting a pace that would not do much to trouble many GC riders. Wout was on the front of the breakaway, shredding most mortals off of his wheel. It may not have made much sense to most viewers why J-V would have a bunch of guys on the front of the peloton chasing their own rider, who in turn was pulling full-gas in the breakaway. But in fact the strategy was pure genius. Jumbo needed a satellite rider to make it as far as possible into the stage to pull Jonas in the valley after the Tourmalet and then the false flat section of the final climb. And they needed as hard a pace as possible in the peloton to try to put the final nail in Pogacar’s coffin. After a period during which the cameras had been focusing on Wout’s crazy ascent, all of a sudden the peloton was nearing the top of the legendary mountain (which, by the way, is the most-used mountain in Tour de France history). Wilco Kelderman and Sepp Kuss appeared at the front, and the camera angle shifted, showing only three other riders left: Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogacar, and the maillot jaune: Jai Hindley. Kelderman is in incredible climbing form, despite his failures to get Wout a stage win on the first two stages. Kelderman’s vicious pull quickly shelled the yellow jersey off Pogacar’s wheel. Then it was time for Kuss to go to work, and he certainly did so. His shift on the front must have been even more brutal, though not as long as Sepp usually goes for. When the w/kg estimates were released after the stage, it became clear that he had been setting a stratospheric pace and of course, could not pull for long. According to Twitter user Naichaca, the two did about 6.8-6.9 w/kg on the final 13+minutes of the Tourmalet, which normalized for sea level would be 7.4-7.5 w/kg. That is after 30+ minutes of climbing at 5.5 w/kg, which is a completely unsustainable pace for most riders, but apparently does nothing to tire out these guys. The level in this Tour de France is absolutely as high as it ever has been. Jonas attacked and kept riding full beans with Pogacar not moving an inch in his wheel. That’s how the two went over the top of the Tourmalet. The insane speed with which these two climbed the last 4 kilometers of the Tourmalet put a gap of two minutes into every other GC contender. This Tour is quite obviously a two-horse race. Wout waited on the descent, re-caught the rest of the breakaway, and pulled the two all the way to the base of the steep section of the final climb. All signs indicated that Jonas would finally drop Pogacar, but the Slovenian apparently was feeling strong enough, and shockingly attacked and dropped his rival. Tadej Pogacar would win the stage (his 10th career TDF stage) by 24 seconds, gaining a total of 28 seconds back in the GC. Jonas went into the yellow jersey with a trimmed lead of just 25 seconds on Pogi. These two days in the Pyrenees were some of the best bike racing I have ever watched.
Stage 7: A sprint stage won by Philipsen. Cavendish sprinted to an impressive second.
Stage 8: An exciting hilly finale won by Mads Pedersen. Pogacar sprinted to 10th but probably would have been better-suited to sit back and let the big boys duke it out. Cavendish crashed, broke his collarbone, and abandoned his final Tour with no stage wins.
Stage 9: The Tour de France headed to the Massif Central and Puy de Dome, a legendary mountain that had not been used in the race for 40 years. I was hoping for a big battle for the break and UAE and Jumb0-Visma to control aggressively. The breakaway formation was interesting in that 14 strong riders almost immediately got a gap of a minute, which usually means things are settled. But then attacks started flying left and right from the peloton, and the gap actually came down for a while. But soon enough, everybody gave up and within about a half hour, the peloton had donated the breakaway 10 minutes. The stage win would come from the break, and with two strong Americans up the road (Matteo Jorgenson and Neilson Powless), I was hopeful. However, I expected Mike Woods to win the stage. On a 90-degree day, the breakaway rode all-out for the duration of the hilly approach to the final climb. Jorgenson was alone in the lead with a minute gap before the final climb, but I did not like his strategy. He wasted an unspeakable amount of energy before a brutal finale. I felt that he would need a bigger lead to hold on with strong climbers behind. Woods began the climb more than two minutes back. He picked off the breakaway riders one-by-one and despite a heroic ride from Jorgenson (who increased his lead before the final 4.8k 12 percent ramp), Woods finally went by the leader and won his first career Tour de France stage at age 36. Jorgenson blew up and finished fourth. I think the worst-case scenario for the 24-year-old American from Boise, if he did not solo 30k before the climb was second place, potentially the victory. Many minutes down the mountain, the GC group was battling with Jumbo-Visma doing a full leadout for Vingegaard to attack off of. But Kuss was a bit weaker today, and so was Jonas. He did not attack when his leftenant pulled off. Pogacar eventually did, and slowly, agonizingly gapped Jonas off his wheel to gain eight seconds back in a 3:55 effort. Not bad, I was happy, and the race is well and truly on. Jonas leads by just 17 seconds. By the way, that sub-4-minute attack destroyed the rest of the GC riders by about a minute. That is how much better these two are than anybody else in the race. The w/kg estimates for Pogi’s attack were once again absolutely lethal, some estimates even peg the whole climb (in the heat, and including a huge negative split and a false-flat section) as Pogacar’s best 35-minute effort of all time.
I will go over the four jersey competitions and then pick favorites for next week’s stages, now knowing who has form and who seems to not.
Philipsen is dominating the sprints and Green Jersey competition, and I do not expect that to change. Pedersen is in good form for the hilly sprints. Wout is climbing well but not sprinting as well as in past years. Van der Poel is doing thermonuclear leadouts for Philipsen, but we’ll see if he has the legs to win from a breakaway. There are some opportunities coming up.
Powless is leading the KOM classification by a good margin, but if UAE and Jumbo-Visma start controlling again, he has no shot to finish in the jersey. He has not shown to be the strongest climber from the breaks, often finishing between 6th-12th on stages he should be able to win or podium. He’s wasting enormous amounts of energy chasing a jersey I do not believe he can hang onto by Paris. Pogi is my pick to win polka-dots again. It is unclear if Powless has the legs to win a less-mountainous stage in this Tour anyway, but he should be chasing breaks to try to get one, not sprinting for one or two KOM points.
Pogacar has already broken the record for most days in the white jersey in TdF history, and he has something like 60 consecutive days in the jersey. Unreal. It is easy to forget that the best rider on earth, who is the winner of 61 races and is headed towards GOAT status, is a mere 24 years old.
I think most fans believed the Tour was over after Marie Blanque, as I did. After the last two clashes, I think most fans think Pogacar has the upper hand despite his deficit. He seems to be gaining form while Vingegaard is plateauing or declining. The interesting thing about the rest of the Tour is the balance of stages left which on paper suit the two superstars is fairly even. That being said I thought Pogi would struggle in the heat and longer, steeper efforts, but on those stages he has actually gained time, while on the 20-minute climb (Marie Blanque) he lost a heap of it. He is indisputably in the climbing form of his life. I would also give him the mental edge over Jonas. I don’t think mind games are going to mean much in the long run; the legs will decide, but tactically, Pogacar is more aggressive. He could win the Tour on Stage 20 with a raid. Or he could slowly chip away at the diminutive Dane until he has a 90-second lead and ride defensively. I do not expect many more breakaways to succeed in obvious GC opportunities, as UAE likes to ride aggressively and go for stage wins. At the moment it looks like Pogi could snag a few more. He needs the bonus seconds. I still give Jonas the edge on the Col de la Loze stage (17), but by then I expect Pogi to be in yellow and simply sit in his wheel up the Alpine monster. And, if the weather is cold and/or rainy in the Alps, Pogi has a huge advantage. All in all, on the first rest day, I really like my Pogacar pick even though I was doubtful after Stage Five.
Stage 10: Hopefully an all-star breakaway day. I’ll take van der Poel over van Aert.
Stage 11: Sprint day for Philipsen.
Stage 12: Breakaway day with more sustained climbs than stage 10. Jorgenson for the win.
Stage 13: A short unipuerto day with the Grand Colombier. Pogacar to win the stage over Vingegaard and narrowly take yellow, dashing French hopes for a victory on Bastille Day.
Stage 14: Joux Plane. I’ll take the breakaway here with the final descent rumored to be dangerous. If they take that descent out, it may be GC. It’s tricky to predict because the final climb is so difficult, but the descent is also extremely important. Romain Bardet should be far enough down on GC that he is allowed in the breakaway and wins the stage.
Stage 15. GC day for Tadej Pogacar to win in yellow.
That’s it for the rest day. This Tour is going to shaping up to be legendary. Let’s hope it continues as it gone so far.
Puncheur 
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