Ok, so we’re not going to create a race thread for ALL races this year, especially since we’re only about 10 people reading here :)
This thread is available for you to write about all the races which don’t have a race thread.
Ok, so we’re not going to create a race thread for ALL races this year, especially since we’re only about 10 people reading here :)
This thread is available for you to write about all the races which don’t have a race thread.
Tour du Limousin 🇫🇷 2.1
profils
liste des engagés
The course is made of 4 very hilly stages, without a time trial. On stage #3, there will even be the climb of the Suc au May, that was climbed in July during the Tour de France stage which was won by Van der Poel.
Concerning teams and riders, we may get this year the weakest startlist ever on this race. Only 3WT: the 2 remaining French ones and Lotto-Intermarché, but also only 4 or 5 PT. So there will be many Contis including little known ones and those French clubs which have been semi-upgraded to Contis since last year. A massive number of French riders and quite many young Belgians too.
Does someone know what category it is that PCS calls ‘C-PRO’?
After his 4th DNF in 4 races, this Sunday, Gaudu was pulled out of the team presented par GFDJ.
On the contrary, the biathlete Émilien Jacquelin (🇫🇷 Décathlon) should come. He was better than I expected on Sunday (I didn’t expect him to finish). Let’s see if he can now keep going over 4 days (with only 1 rest day since the Polynormande). Positive point to make it: except on the last day, there is no circuit, therefore delays are comfortable if you want or need to go easy in the end. Stages are longer than the Polynormande classic, though (one could have believed the opposite).
Stage 4
The circuit was different from the usual one: the common part was used backwards, and the rest looked much less urban.
There is much to say about today’s race. There weren’t many attempts. Cofidis who had Aranburu🇪🇸 3rd in GC didn’t want to win GC but the stage, so rode to neutralise the stage to arrive with a sprint and hope to jump to 2nd place through time bonus. Same from Decathlon who had L’Hôte🇫🇷 in the same time as the 5th. So basically, only Total who had Vercher🇫🇷 2nd tried a few things (which didn’t generally involved said rider); they also had Delettre🇫🇷 (5th) take a 1-second bonus at the first I.S. early in the stage. Roubaix and Elite Fond. made one small attempt each 1 lap from the finish, and that was about it.
The only sweat for FDJ happened just after they entered the circuit, as Costiou🇫🇷 had a puncture or something like that and stopped right away. But he was back in the peloton 5-6 km later.
The finish ridden at the full speed before the final little climb proved that splits were possible, but as everyone waited for the last 2 miles to do that instead or trying it on previous laps, it had no consequences.
So the fate of GC was decided on stage #2 by riders refusing to relay for a 5-second effort, as basically nobody attempted anything to win GC in the following 2 stages, except for overtaking 1 rider through a time bonus. 😞
During the stage, the French channel which was broadcasting the race played many ‘morning’ interview, where riders all explained how Alaphilippe excited them or was a model when they started riding. Yet, their (or their teams’) plan was to attempt nothing: they all rode in the opposite way, conservative as fuck, the antialaphilippe way.
Stage 3 (supposedly the queen stage)
Pierre-Henry Basset (🇫🇷 Astana devo) was the last survivor of a breakaway of a dozen riders (which included Veistroffer (🇫🇷 Lotto) of course). In the Suc-au-May climb, he was joined midway by a Lotto rider the name of which escapes me now, as this Lotto rider crashed at the end of the descent by going a bit too wide in the gravel at the exit of a curve/crossing. No serious consequence for him, but his transmission was fucked.
In the peloton, apart this Lotto guy, none of the leader moved, expect for a 33 metres long attack by Aranburu (🇪🇸 Cofidis) somewhere like 1 km from the top perhaps. There was no attack at or right after the summit either. Everyone looked happy to let Costiou (🇫🇷 FDJ) win the GC.
Later, there were several attacks. The most notable was perhaps one with 3 riders including the Yellow jersey Costiou🇫🇷, especially after they were joined by 2 extra FDJ riders who had managed to break away behind them without carrying anyone else with them. FDJ looked much stronger today than on the other days. Unfortunately, FDJ played it very conservatively, their 3 riders were not willing to catch the lone breakawayman not do any effort, probably fearing to lose time bonuses at the end, so that group was caught up. Such conservative attitudes already plagued stage #2.
Pierre-Henry Basset🇫🇷 wasn’t caught before the flamme rouge, congratulation to him! Aebersold (🇨🇭 Elite Fond.) had failed to catch him in spite of a good attack from the front group.
As pace was slowing down one more time, a guy from Baloise Verzekeringen - Het Poetsbureau Lions attacked, coming in overspeed from behind the group, and gained a few metres. Mariault (🇫🇷 CIC) joined him but couldn’t overtake him in the end. It turned out it was the same Baloise rider I mentioned after stage #1: the young Daan Depuydt🇧🇪!! That was unexpected.
But ‘top’ French riders were busy looking at each other’s butt once again, so congratulations to him too.
Oh, and Pierre-Henry Basset🇫🇷 managed to stay well inside the front group and thus finished in the winner’s time! This allows him to jump to 10th place in GC.
Veistroffer🇫🇷 now is 20 points ahead of T. Delacroix (🇫🇷 St-Michel) in the Mountain classification. A max of 20 points can be grabbed tomorrow. I expect to see Veistroffer🇫🇷 or his teammates try to go and grab the points of the first climb tomorrow, to be safe.
So far, this 2026 race has been very Coupe-de-France-y. A timid attitude for 5/6th of the race; followed by attacks over the last 20-30 km, none of them making a real difference because they are not pushed on, because nobody wants to make more effort than their neighbour, which generally means it ends with a sprint of a small/medium/large group on a uphill false-flat or a a couple hundred yards after a hill.
The level is very weak. It could be expected from the startlist although PCS’ “startlist quality” doesn’t often reflect the truth of the moment, but the actual race demonstrates it even more.
The young Belgian from the Baloise Conti was second on the sprint stage, and now wins what was supposed to be the queen stage (therefore for a different kind of rider in theory)… He even had a teammate in the front group; in fact the first 2 riders today are Conti riders and there were no less than 10 Conti + 1 Club +1 Trainee riders in the front group of 26 riders: half of it! Yes, E. Jacquelin (🇫🇷 Decathlon) got in that group too: he struggles less on this race than on the couple of amateur races he attempted to race just before the Polynormande!
So, the difference in level between Conti/amateurs and the teams brought here by WorldTeams and ProTeams is small to start with, and the extremely conservative attitudes of leaders completely level off this small difference.
Stage 2
Our traditional breakaway was split by Veistroffer’s (🇫🇷 Lotto-In.) attack 35 km from the line (it was the same little climb that would serve as finish 35 km later). The two Conti rider managed to catch up after the summit but the two Club riders were dropped. 10 km later, those were dropped as well.
The peloton base pace was set like yesterday by riders from 3 teams, with FDJ replacing Lotto. It was still Jacquelin🇫🇷 for Decathlon. When things got serious around 25 km from the line, Decathlon disappeared quite a bit and was replaced by Total.
FDJ started pulling and Costiou🇫🇷 attacked. While the peloton was blown to pieces, he wasn’t able to make a big gap over the best riders, and was soon joined by 4 other riders. They didn’t collaborate well and were not able to catch Veistroffer🇫🇷 up. They came back into what was left of the peloton but attacked again at the same time.
A motorbike crashed at the exit of an hairpin in a descent, Veistroffer🇫🇷 could avoid it, and then the passenger-commissar could signal for later groups.
Then a group with the same riders and a few extra ones reformed again.
Finally, Costiou🇫🇷 attacked one last time in a easier place (were there still 10 km to go?), and nobody in the little group wanted to follow. This group had several chances to catch Costiou🇫🇷 up, especially has the last 9 km were not as hectic as the 20 previous ones (narrow winding roads going up and down all the time), but basically only the several Total riders were pulling regularly and when the group would come near the FDJ rider, nobody would be willing to make the last little effort.
Near the last hill, M. Vercher (🇫🇷 Total) broke a bit away and got the 2nd place. Busy looking at each other, the gang of idiots (7 Frenchmen + Aranburu (🇪🇸 Cofidis) who won their sprint and 3rd place) is now about 30 seconds behind in GC, when they had the capacity of arriving with Costiou🇫🇷. Because they feared losing stage victory and a 4″ time bonus to Aranburu, they lost 30″ to Costiou, lost the stage victory and… lost a 4″ time bonus to Aranburu 🤣 Naturally, Mariault (🇫🇷 CIC) was one more time always present in the group that didn’t collaborate…
One may note that St-Michel–Auber had 2 riders in the front group, while FDJ, Decathlon and Cofidis only had 1 each!
Veistroffer🇫🇷 had been dropped in one of the last hills after being caught after the previous one, perhaps the one on top of which Costiou🇫🇷 attacked. He got the Mountain jersey, though.
Stage 1
There was a breakaway of 5 little riders, then 4, then 3 after the Bike Aid guy was dropped on top of the first GPM: 1 from Rouen, Maximilien Juillard🇫🇷 from VilleFranche who grabbed all bonus sprints, and Davy🇫🇷 from Nice who always gets in breakaways since he was freed from FDJ’s shackles 😀
They never got much more then 2 minutes. Controlling the peloton were 1 guy from Cofidis, 1 from Lotto, and E. Jacquelin (🇫🇷 Decathlon) who pulled until there was only 20 km to go and the gap was down to 20 seconds! He is really much better than I thought he would be (and easy to spot as he has bigger arms than all others).
Then there were a number of attacks in those last 20 km. Cavagna (🇫🇷 FDJ) started one (the first one?). Later, Joris Chaussinand (🇫🇷 CIC), whom we already saw being active on Sunday, did a small solo. There were a few others.
Anyway, the peloton arrived for a sprint in this long, straight uphill false-flat. Isidore (🇫🇷 Décathlon) hadn’t made any effort before the sprint, contrarily to Sunday, so he won it. The 2 Cofidis riders who were on the podium on Sunday made it into the top-5 today again. Gautherat (🇫🇷 Décathlon) sprinted along his sprinter after ‘launching’ him, it was a bit weird and he could have helped the Cofidis behind him by doing so, but fortunately for him, Page (🇫🇷 Cofidis) was located elsewhere and it was the slower Aranburu🇪🇸 in his wheel.
The surprise is the name and pedigree of the 2nd: Daan Depuydt🇧🇪 from Baloise Verzekeringen - Het Poetsbureau Lions. I knew neither the rider nor the team 😄
Maximilien Juillard (🇫🇷 VilleFranche) managed to stay within the peloton, and thanks to the time bonuses, he is now 3rd in GC. While this doesn’t award any UCI point or anything, it is always nice for someone from this division. (He used to be in the Roubais team.)
Other than that, yeah, it is indeed the weakest startlist in this century for this race. I though that this race would rise to 2.Pro one day (not that I wished it…), but it seems to go the opposite way. They probably are short on money, as they picked a cheaper producer/broadcaster than previously – you could see from the deteriorated picture that a 4G communication was used. Previously a national channel was producing the race, now it is only a regional one; it belongs to France TV and is available (in France) on satellite/fibre for free but you have to actively look for it, you cannot stumble upon it if you don’t already know the race is going on and is broadcasted on the channel, and as they barely promote the races they show on their national channels (except for TdF, Roubaix and women races), you can imagine that they do absolutely nothing for a program that they buried on a regional channel.