Stage 1

165 km, D+ 1500m

The traditional punchy finish on the castle hill in Burgos, after the flattest stage.

It went as usual: the breakaway died over the new ring road that comes just before the actual entry into the city, and then there was a group finish in the climb, with a Kern rider who started early but blew up as other riders launched the sprint over the last 150 m.

Visma takes the first 2 positions with the two Englismen M. Brennan🇬🇧 the sprinter-puncher, and B. Tullett one of the GC favourites. A pair of Decathlon riders did well too, the all-terrain Labrosse🇫🇷 and the possible GC co-leader Bisiaux🇫🇷.

This is Gaudu’s comeback to actual (?) competition. Let’s see if he can put out this week something that justifies a bit of his salary…

Nope. Not today anyway. Several miles before the finish, he brought a few teammates up in the peloton, and then dropped. 🙄

edit: Ah, here is his classification: 151^th at 3′30″…

I am waiting for the official classification, but there will certainly be splits at the finish, with several GC favoutites behind.

edit: so, of the list of favourites & outsiders I had picked:

• only B. Tulett (🇬🇧 Visma) and L. Bisiaux (🇫🇷 Decathlon) are in the top dozen;
• M. Rondel (🇫🇷 Tudor) follows at 6 seconds;
• A. Eulalio (🇵🇹 Bahrain), J. Vine (🇦🇺 UAE), P. Sivakov (🇷🇺🇫🇷 UAE), M. Beloki (🇪🇸 EF), J. Nordhagen (🇳🇴 Visma), F. Gall (🇦🇹 Decathlon) and G. Ciccone (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek) are in the large group at 12 seconds;
• so only Pellizzari (🇮🇹 Bora) is pushed back to the group at 28 seconds; what’s a bit concerning is that the split happened right before him.

Stage 3

183 km, D+ 3200 m

This stage and its almost-on-top-finish will very likely start sorting GC favourites. They won’t be able to hide on this difficult Puerto del Escudo

Sivakov (🇷🇺🇫🇷 UAE) and Tronchon (🇫🇷 Decathlon) were among the breakaway today (well, the Franco-Russian had jumped from the peloton later than the others, if I understood right). The Decathlon rider was dropped early, in the Estacas de Trueba, which marked the passage into Cantabria. As well as the fog. 🌫

The breakaway survivors were killed by the transition and its false flats.

In the almost-final climb, J. Vine (🇦🇺 UAE) lost control of his bike after touching / being touched by another rider. He didn’t actually crash on the ground, but still ‘collapsed’ on his bike and feet, and stopped. He couldn’t put his chain back in place, perhaps the derailleur was broken, and it took ages before he could change bike… with Sivakov who had been dropped by the peloton.

Meanwhile, at the front, things were getting faster, and their teammate Torres🇪🇸 attacked. The best ones chased. Onley (🇬🇧 Ineos) made another significant attack. Who was catching whom changed several times until the summit, it was interesting 👍 . I think (I ain’t sure) it was after Onley🇬🇧’s (second?) attack that Ciccone (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek) told Gall🇦🇹 he couldn’t follow any more; he wasn’t lying. The decisive attack was F. Gall (🇦🇹 Decathlon) dropping a cooked Onley🇬🇧. The Austrian maintained a small advantage in the 3 km after the summit over the chaser who had a little bit regrouped with a new configuration again.

The strong men today were, on top of the already quoted Gall🇦🇹, Cicconee🇮🇹 and Onley🇬🇧:

• Pellizari (🇮🇹 Bora) who was dropped midway but finished really well. Perhaps his troubles in the beginning of the Tour of Burgos were because it was really too punchy for him and he like better longer efforts.
• E. Mas (🇪🇸 Movistar) again.
• M. Rondel (🇫🇷 Tudor) came back once or twice but was more in trouble in the end. Opposite curve compared to Pellizzari🇮🇹, if you will.
  Gaps between those guys weren’t big in the end.

One may add J. Widar (🇧🇪 Lotto), even though he finished with the group behind.

J. Vine🇦🇺 was probably strong too: he finishes barely over 1 minute behind, after standing on the roadside a hell of a long time. Well, actually, he was standing on the middle of the road…

The race is still very open. Today’s gaps weren’t as big as I had perhaps expected it, and they counter-balanced the existing gaps created on the short and long punchy finished of the first 2 stages.

11 riders in 1 minute. Before and after, gaps are rather evenly spread. The current GC podium have the larger margin over their followers, and that’s only 20 seconds!

Tomorrow may turn to be a day off for GC leaders, whose fate will be decided on the traditional last stage.

Stage 4

178 km, D+ 1900 m

Can sprinters make it through this one in a front group? Otherwise, it looks like a good chance for breakaways, between 2 mountain stages.

I didn’t see if there was a lot of fight to form the breakaway or not at all; however when I saw the breakaway, it was only composed of 2 Caja Rural (including a trainee) and 1 Burgos, so it looked like nobody wanted to try his luck in a breakaway. That’s strange considering the number of strong riders present in yesterday’s breakaway, for what looked like a GC stage…

So, a mass sprint was expected, and indeed the whole peloton (minus the running gag Gaudu) arrived for sprint. Brennan (🇬🇧 Visma) was badly located on the left, while everyone was taking over by the right side; yet the guy sprinted alone in the wind on the left side, and passed all other sprinters who were fighting on the right lane, one after another, to win. Pithie (🇦🇺 Bora) managed to pass through an extremely tiny hole near the right fence where everybody but Brennan🇬🇧 packed, to grab a second place.

Still 0 UCI point scored by Cofidis 😞

GDFJ and Total did no better.

GDFJ and Cofidis will/may score one small top-10/15 in GC in the end (with Berthet🇫🇷 and Meehan🇮🇪, respectively), but not Total…

Stage 5 (last)

137 km, D+ 2900 m

The usual decisive finish on top.

And here we go: Gaudu (🇫🇷 FDJ) withdrew after 25 km. A bridge too high? 3 races in 3 months for 3 DNF. 👏

Widar (🇧🇪 Lotto) and Tuckwell (🇦🇺 Bora) didn’t start today, I don’t know why. They were 9^th and 12^th in GC. That more annoying for Lotto whose next rider is 42^nd, because Bora still has its leader Pellizzari🇮🇹 (6^th and getting better).

In the breakaway, the FDJ rider (the young Daumas🇫🇷 I think; edit: it was in fact Rochas🇫🇷, which is more embarrassing) was the first completely dropped after an attack… Sivakov (🇫🇷 UAE) joined (or was the breakaway already dead by then?) the front perhaps some 25 km from the line, as he did two days ago, but he was caught rather early in the final climb.

The 3 guys who were already on the podium with a bit of margin over the others were the strongest today again, but as they were doing stop-and-go all along the second half of the climb (and Gall (🇦🇹 Decathlon), being only 6 seconds ahead of the other 2, had no interest in arriving for stage win because of time bonuses), they didn’t win. they let go Pellizzari (🇮🇹 Bora) at some point. Gall🇦🇹 always struggles with attacks, but always comes back after a short while.

Rondel (🇫🇷 Tudor) and E. Mas (🇪🇸 Movistar) were strong again, just less strong than the top boys. they both have been very regular on this race, and end up 6^th and 5^th in GC, overtaken by Pellizzari🇮🇹. That reflects their race very well.

L. Bisiaux (🇫🇷 Décathlon) limited damage after exhausting himself pulling the peloton in the fist part of the climb (I always doubt the usefulness of those actions, when the leader doesn’t do anything with them). He almost lost the Youth jersey to M. Beloki (🇪🇸 EF), though.

Vine (🇦🇺 UAE) had crashed one more time 10 km after the race started. Contrarily to the other two guys who crashed at the same time, he didn’t withdraw immediately, but he didn’t finish either. Actually 4 UAE riders didn’t finish today!

Yesterday, I wrote that:

GDFJ and Cofidis will/may score one small top-10/15 in GC in the end (with Berthet🇫🇷 and Meehan🇮🇪, respectively),

Neither of them was good today, they come 18^th and 22^th today. Therefore, in spite of the withdrawals, Berthet (🇫🇷 FDJ) is kicked out of the top-10. That’s a grand total of 20 UCI points in 5 days for GFDJ, 10 for Cofidis, and 0 for Total.

(edit: Meehan🇮🇪 crashed just after the start of race, and it took him over 30 km to get back into the peloton. this explains pretty well that he wasn’t in a shape during the finish!)

Apart from Decathlon, French cycling is close to death. FDJ is the only team among these 3 which is present in Poland, and after 6 days, they haven’t scored a single UCI point there and their first rider is 7 minutes behind in GC. Cavagna may score points in the last stage as it is an ITT, though.

Stage 2

177 km, D+ 2300 m

A finish for long punchers on this murito.

We had the usual breakaway, the last survivor of which, R. Belahoyte (🇫🇷 Total) was caught up by the peloton just before the start of the murito.

No one tried anything in the final climb, a good pace was made by successive teams, but nothing special and it was still a large peloton at the flamme rouge. Then there were much stronger accelerations, and in the end Onley (🇬🇧 Ineos) and Ciccone (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek) detached for a long, side-by-side sprint! 👍

That’s 2 Brits winning in a row. It doesn’t look like Yorkshire landscape, though? 😄

Gall (🇦🇹 Decathlon) looked like he was a bit dropping in the acceleration of the last km, but he finished well.

Mario Aparicio (🇪🇸 Burgos) made it in the stage top-10.

Bjorn Koerdt (🇬🇧 Picnic) made it on both stages! It is clear he didn’t understand the principle of being in the Picnic team 🤣

Pellizari was better today on a profile more for climbers and climbers-punchers than sprinters-punchers like yesterday. He was counted a split again, but a small one this time. Still, he is 40 seconds behind in GC now.

E. Mas (🇪🇸 Movistar) surprises everyone: 5^th yesterday, 3^rd today! I reckon he will disappoint when he will arrive on his favourite terrain 😆

M. Rondel (🇫🇷 Tudor), J. Vine (🇦🇺 UAE), and M. Beloki (🇪🇸 EF) were solid one again. B. Tulett (🇬🇧 Visma) and L. Bisiaux were okay; P. Sivakov (🇷🇺🇫🇷 UAE) and J. Nordhagen (🇳🇴 Visma) not so much.

A. Eulalio (🇵🇹 Bahrain) sank quite a bit (45 seconds); his teammate P. Bilbao🇪🇸 is now better ranked in GC.

Landa (🇪🇸 Soudal-QS) was dropped rather early and finished 2 minutes behind. 4 Euskatel-Euskadi riders did (much) better than him: I don’t know what he will bring to them next year. ❓

The Gaudu comedy continues. It wasn’t because yesterday finish suited Tronchon (🇫🇷 FDJ) better than him, that he just played the teammate. Today, on a profile better for him, he finished after 6 minutes, after having struggled on the previous 3^rd category hill (5%)… Final test tomorrow on yet another type of profile: a hard mountain climb (7 km at 9%!).

PS: again, I cannot upload pictures for tomorrow’s stage 😞