There isn’t that much left now / after the Tour of Spain, especially concerning stage races.

You will have in September the Grand Prix of Québec (Sep 11) and of Montréal (Sep 13) which may not be the greatest or most interesting classics but will present the benefit, for you, to take place on the American continent, therefore in daytime. And the World Championship will follow a week later (well, Sep 27 for the men road race), in Canada again. Naturally, the WC is raced by national teams, so it won’t help you get acquainted with the commercial teams 🙂

Then as autumn classics, there are many one-day races in Italy. If I were to keep one, it would be the Tour of Emilia (Oct 3), with a scenic climb repeated in a circuit, and an honest startlist.

I didn’t pick the Tour of Lombardy because I am not a big fan of mountain classics and Pogatchar always wins in the end, but it is a ‘monument’ (if you care about that concept) which attracts star climbers. Oct 10.

The day after il Lombardia, there is the lesser prized Paris-Tours in France (Oct 11), which became interesting to watch since they added a few dirt/stone tracks and hills near the final part, even though it got harder to create differences when the weather is good since they ‘refurbished’ the tracks.

Then we’ve reached mid-October and the season is basically over.

Ah, there is the European Championship a few days before (Oct 4).

If we insisted on adding a stage race, for it is easier to get accustomed to teams and riders when you see the same ones several day on a row, what could we add? Hmmm, there are only smaller races left. Let’s see…

There is the Tour of Britain but it takes place during the Tour of Spain.

The Tour of Luxembourg is all right. 5 days including a time trial. Sep 16-20.

Ah, before the Vuelta starts, there is the Tour of Limousin in France. 4 days starting this Tuesday. Aug 18-21. It is not a bad race usually (even though it gets harder each year to create gaps on its profiles), but it ranks lower, and most of the top teams do not come. At ton of French and Belgian riders.

Naturally, I listed races without knowing what you can see: what is actually broadcasted at your place and what is compatible with your time zone and your personal timetable.

About missing races of not, if you visit PCS’ main page at https://www.procyclingstats.com/ , there are a “Next races” and a “Next WorldTour races” inserts.

Usually, I post a thread on this forum, or a comment in this topic, for the races I shall follow; and the main moderator also posts when I don’t. But that’s not 100% guaranteed and I don’t post them much in advance. And we don’t follow or post about every races.

Polynormande 🇫🇷 1.1 16/8/2026

PCS startlist

PCS profile

The fraudster Gaudu🇫🇷 went to the bus after 1 or 2 circuit laps (out of 11). 🤣 While the biathlete E. Jacquelin🇫🇷 is still in the peloton…

E. Jacquelin🇫🇷 managed to finish the race, only 12 minutes behind the winners. He had been dropped 40-50 km from the goal after having worked a bit at the front of the peloton. I didn’t expect him to be able to finish the race, as it is not an easy one, and it is a circuit (regulators may stop you if you are too far).

The race was overall quite fun despite ending in a medium group sprint. There were many attacks, breakaway (even a good solo by a guy from the little Beat Saxo team). in fact, it looked like a race without earpieces.

Decathlon did a bit whatever, failing to put more than one guy in important breakaways, then they were sending counter-attacks (typically Isidore🇫🇷, but also at least once another one behind) which had the effect of bringing the peloton back while in the breakaway the lone Lapeira🇫🇷 was pulling like crazy.

Mathys le Berre (🇫🇷 Total) who had performed a little solo breakaway even heartily insulted his own teammate when he noticed he was pulling the peloton that was catching him up! 🤣

Meanwhile, Cofidis always remained undercover, and they scored 1^st and 3^rd place with H. Page🇫🇷 and Aranburu🇪🇸! It think 3 riders successively believed that they would win the sprint: first, Isidore🇫🇷, but he probably paid his earlier (idiotic?) efforts; then Dujardin (🇫🇷 Total) overtook him, only to be himself overtaken by Page🇫🇷.

First FDJ: Martin🇫🇷, 15^th… They had no one suitable for a sprint in the first group. Or anywhere, for the only guy who could sprint a bit in the team they had brought, Bower🇳🇿, performed his 3^rd DNF in a row.

the first 2 stages have a flat finish, and the last 2 finish on ‘top’ with climbs for long punchers. Stage #3 has the hardest finish

I always forget how hard the final part is. Several riders do too 😉

Arctic race of Norway 🇳🇴 13–16/8/2026

This ProSeries race in 4 stages (I thought there used to be 1 or 2 more days, but in fact it always was 4 stages) does not leave this year the islands west of Narvik (Vesterolen, Innœya).

The official profiles (produced by the same company owning the Tour de France, Dauphiné and Paris–Nice) are utterly useless, so I’ll just describe them in words, as a few of them will suffice: the race is almost all flat with a few small hills here and there, the first 2 stages have a flat finish, and the last 2 finish on ‘top’ with climbs for long punchers. Stage #3 has the hardest finish, while the finish at stage #4 (Narvik) is preceded by a succession of really tiny hills.

PCS profile

PCS startlist, massively incomplete just 2 days before the start (because there is nothing at all on the official website…)

Official website

Last year saw Corbin Strong (🇳🇿 IPT) unexpectedly beat Tom Pidcock (🇬🇧 Q36.5) for GC. It was also the theatre of the last stage victory of the 38 y.o. Alexander Kristoff (🇳🇴 Uno-X).

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 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 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.

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 3rd category hill (5%)… Final test tomorrow on yet another type of profile: a hard mountain climb (7 km at 9%!).

Nope. A nice display of grimaces while he was playing the early teammate, and he finishes 13 minutes behind.

Gaudu and Madouas can be reassigned to inflating tyres and greasing chains, until their contract expires. They will be the most expensive greasers in the world, but GFDJ can expect a better R.O.I. this way than by putting them on a bicycle.

You’re not at the cutting edge any more, Carsten. 😉

He is almost 23 years old. That’s OLD nowadays! 😄

I look at his past and future program. So far, he has done a lot of stage races, so that’s truly many racing days, but that also means relatively significant breaks in between: 1 month off before the Trentin, 2x2 weeks off before and after the Giro, 5 or 6 weeks off before San-Sebastian; and after Burgos, apparently 1 month off is coming before the series of small and big Italian classics in September/October.

He may not end the year with more or much more racing days than in the last two season, if I trust PCS (and I do, for I am not going to check elsewhere 🤣): 60 and 64; while he stands at 50 now.

What I mean to say with this racing days statistics is that he has been used to it already for 2 years. Nevertheless, one may also think that he was running less as a leader or with high and well-defined objectives, and had less pressure to be good almost every day.

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 😞

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.

Circuit of Getxo 🇪🇸 2/8/2026

The little brother of the San-Sebastian Classic will be broadcasted today on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/live/ygoNuc5N9wM . Being just the day after the Klasikoa, this 1.1 race located in the harbour of Bilbao and the hills above it attracts a better field that its ranking may indicate (I always believe it is a 1.Pro).

PCS page

Stage 3 (last) the no-flat stage

We found the same strong guys as yesterday breaking away in the Col des Menthières, with the addition of B. Rolland (🇫🇷 FDJ) who was dropped several times but came back.

There were again quite some regrouping in the descent.

Adam Howell (🇬🇧 Bourg en Bresse) had just caught up the front group where his teammate Buck Jones🇬🇧 was already, when he lost control of his handlebar before a curve. When he got it back, he was on an outer trajectory and crashed on the roadside.

M. Beloki (🇪🇸 EF) was trying hard to have his teammate Cepeda🇪🇨 win the stage, pulling the group on flatish sections like a Pogatchar willing to have Del Toro win. That would have made EF win the 3 stages with 3 different riders.

In the very long (10 km) final uphill false flat, there were a lot of observations and a lot of half-attacks. Finally, Cepeda🇪🇨 made a stronger one before the flatter section near the end, but he was caught in the last half-mile which gets a bit steeper again.

M. Beloki🇪🇸 started his sprint too soon, and with the various efforts he had done earlier, was beaten on the line by Mariault (🇫🇷 CIC) who sucked wheels almost all day long.

In GC, they had counted a 3 seconds split within the peloton after the first 25 riders on the first stage, and Mariault🇫🇷 was the only rider among the top guys who was in the first part of the peloton that day. So he takes the 2^nd place in GC.

Behind, Buck Jones🇬🇧 and Cepeda🇪🇨 lost a few seconds in the sprint today, so they finish 8^th and 7^th.

As there were no time bonuses on this race, 3^rd to 6^th GC positions were determined by the total of stages positions, and that’s Meehan (🇮🇪 Cofidis) who wins this little game.

Despite his crash, Howell🇬🇧 could save his top-10.

Chris Hamilton🇦🇺 was on the race, by the way. Today he was in the second group, with Poels🇳🇱. That’s 5 UCI points for Picnic, wow 😆 4 of their 6 riders didn’t finish the stage (it was the development team, but…)

Noah Hobbs (🇬🇧 EF) didn’t finish the stage either. The winner of the first stage was in big trouble yesterday already. Barillot (🇫🇷 National selection / Aix en Provence) who was 3^rd in that first stage finished, but over the time limit.

E. Buchmann (🇩🇪 Cofidis) was dropped early one more time, this time by his own teammate, whom he was supposed to relay at the front of the peloton… The downfall of this rider (once 4^th of the Tour de France!) will never stop.

Conci (🇮🇹 Astana) is a cunning rider. Yesterday, when accelerating at the front of the group, he was heading for posts and other obstacles, hoping that the following rider would hit them. Today, he tried twice to break away en facteur. I don’t know how they say in English: the rider goes on the other side of the road, seemingly at the same speed as the rest of the group, but in fact he accelerates progressively and imperceptibly, and by the time others notice, he’s 5 bike lengths ahead and much faster now.

2^nd stage, the double climb of the Col de Portes.

Nothing happened during the first climb.

During the second, Unibet pulled before EF started pulling stronger, Poels (🇳🇱 Unibet) was in the first group of about 10 riders, then he was in the group of 3 juste a few seconds behind the 7-8 others. Then I don’t know what happened to him, he must have completely blown up while the other 2 jumped back into the first group, because the first group got bigger during/after the descent, yet Poels🇳🇱 didn’t come back, and on the contrary ended up in the next group 2 minutes behind, with Eiking🇳🇴. So that’s a definitive flop for Unibet.

FDJ was absolutely terrible, their best rider arrives after 12 minutes; while you can find Club riders in the first group of 11 riders…

Another hard failure is J. Ward (🇦🇺 Lidl-Trek devo) who came after 20 minutes.

The rest of the ‘favourites’ (well, the guys of which I had picked the name)responded all right: J. Meehan🇮🇪 for Cofidis, J.A. Cepeda🇪🇨 and M. Beloki🇪🇸 for EF; and for youngsters H. Buck-Jones🇬🇧 from Bourg en Bresse, A. Mariault🇫🇷 from CIC and R. Arsac🇫🇷 from Decathlon (upgraded from the devo).

M. Beloki🇪🇸 broke away on the final flat section, when others were finishing to get their bottles and stuff. Nobody chased him, they all looked at each other; it eventually even allowed the return of a group of 3 with N. Isidore (🇫🇷 Decathlon) who isn’t supposed to be a climber. That group lost almost a minute to *M. Beloki🇪🇸 in 10 km!

So, there were a few surprises / unexpected riders in the first group behind the Spaniard. This Isidore🇫🇷, but also riders unknown to me like a Brazilian and a Mexican from Soudal’s devo, Henrique Bravo🇧🇷 and Jose Cisneros🇲🇽 . Adam Howell🇬🇧 is another rider from Bourg en Bresse’s club, like H. Buck-Jones🇬🇧!

It wasn’t a bad stage. The first climb was rather useless today as nobody ‘used’ it. Conversely, there was much action in the second climb. However, as last year, this climb and its descent see a lot of regrouping, riders who were dropped relatively long before the summit seem to manage to come back. Not to mention the 15 km flat section (coming after the 12 km downhill) which is prone to ‘tactical’ cycling (which is often a synonym for ‘idiotic’).

At the end of the day, there are still clear gaps in GC before the tomorrow’s (last) hard stage (a ton of climbs). M. Beloki🇪🇸 is alone 1 minute ahead of 11 riders, which are 2 minutes ahead of 14 others, which themselves are more than 2 ahead of a few others. Among the first 12 riders, there 4 teams who have 2 riders: EF, Decathlon, Soudal-QS and Bourg en Bresse.!

Tour de l’Ain 🇫🇷 28-30/7/2026

This 2.1 presents a serious contrast in term of startlist after the Tour de France 🤣

The few World Teams coming bring either their development conti or a mixed team.

There will be many young rides on that race, but Unibet brings the good old Wout Poels🇳🇱 and Odd Christian Eiking🇳🇴. Well, Eiking is not actually old, but he aged quickly 😆

Profiles on my tiny post in French: https://sh.itjust.works/post/64127792

PCS page

Beware, the first stage is flat, so many teams bring a ton of sprinters. Apparently, no one told them that stages on 2.1s are worth nothing in UCI points, and only the final GC is rewarding.

The longer distance after the climb indeed favoured regrouping. Also, the leader and/or their rare launchers weren’t often able to kick right from the start of the climb, so less difference could be done.

Decathlon was the main chasing force in all 3 laps. As often in such case, their sprinter got beaten in the end.

Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) shouldn’t have chased the top-3 guys after the second climb. He made a big effort chasing alone, and then took relays in that group of 4, but the group couldn’t survive given the peloton’s chase behind with quite a workforce left in teams like Decathlon who had riders like Seixas🇫🇷 leading the chase. He paid those efforts in the next (and last, thus the most important) climb. However Pedersen🇩🇰 is Pedersen🇩🇰 and he didn’t give up like Evenepoel🇧🇪 did.

Van der Poel (🇳🇱 Alpecin) owes his victory to both Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) who relayed him until the end without an afterthought, and his teammate Philipsen (🇧🇪 Alpecin) who would probably have won, should the lone guy ahead have belonged to another team.

Kanter (🇩🇪 Astana) survived and made a nice 4^th place but that doesn’t allow him to get a seat on the Green jersey podium; he needed someone to withdraw for that.

Veistroffer (🇫🇷 Lotto) was the first rider to disturb the peace of the UAE parade, to launch his teammate for the first attack of the day on the flat(-ish) first circuit. He also attacked solo later, and got the I.S. prize one more time!

A single but huge change in GC: thanks to his breakaway, Guernalec (🇫🇷 Total) beats Kwiatkowski (🇵🇱 Ineos) for 109^th place! 😄

French riders were sorely lacking at the front each time there was a climb. Turgis (🇫🇷 Total) gets an OK 8^th place for his team. But here we are: that’s only the 3^rd time in 113 Tours de France that the French riders didn’t win a single stage. The first time since 1926 that they didn’t win a stage nor a jersey, and that may be because there was no jersey but the yellow in 1926, otherwise it might have been the very first time in history… 😭

How strange this is, happening right at the same time that Seixas🇫🇷 appears and there are 3 Frenchmen in GC top-10… Naturally, if those 3 had popped out GC classification, they might have gone for jerseys (well, the Polka Dot jersey was the only reachable one) and had better chances at stages victories.

At Lidl-Trek, Vatsek🇸🇰 started the Tour very strongly, after a surprisingly good Tour de Suisse, but vanished as time passed. I am not sure what to expect today, as he didn’t seem to have especially rested during the week, but has worked for others.

He’s 19, his recovery and physical development will improve.

And his crash on the Dauphiné didn’t help his preparation.

But I was alluding more to the attitude: extremely conservative and stereotyped. A vibe of Romain ‘take the risk’ Bardet who just signed up before the Tour to be a manager at Decathlon; he is not supposed to be in charge yet, but it feels like he is already 😆. Bardet is a rather bland rider and a very bland character who sees himself very differently, almost opposite to what everyone else see in him; for example he got the sentence “take the risk or lose the chance” (in English) printed on his bike, which made everyone roll their eyes. 😄 We can still hope that he applies his vision and not his actual attitude unto others.

Back to what I called extremely conservative and stereotyped attitudes:

1. A “the race is still long” attitude that reminds me of horrible periods when all riders were always acting like that, just looking at each other until the last half-mile of each stage, until the last two stages of a race.
2. Not taking advantage of his good shape in the first two weeks or the first half of the race. After many stages, he declared: “I could have gone faster”. Well…
3. Unable to perform any attack. The only thing he does is taking the lead and trying to suffocate other riders by accelerating progressively, like a caricature of Evenepoel. This only can ever work on a weaker field, not when others are as strong or stronger. Only in the Basque Country did he show a different way of doing.
4. Particularly obvious on this last mountain stage : everyone in the team seemed remote-controlled from the team car, sticking to the plan and orders without communicating between Seixas and his domestiques or even looking at each other, in order to assess locally the situation and adapt. That’s different from what we saw on previous races, where Seixas seemed to be the one calling most shots, and doing rather OK with it. This concurs to point (2.): no tactical decisions (or bad tactical decisions) were taken on the field when appropriate to the current shape of Seixas and the perceived shape of others. Perhaps he could lift his eyes from his watt-metre from time to time to look at other riders and what happens around him. But he was like this already at young age (I mean, when he was 15 years old), never changing anything to the instructions that had been given to him, never getting a little bit away from his ‘watts’ plan…
5. The team’s attitude in general. They are lucky that they were forced to take Kooij because he immediately scored victories in the very few races he could ride when he returned from injury shortly before the Tour of France, otherwise everyone would have stayed with the leader from day 1 to 21, and they would have been at the mercy of their leader’s GC result; like they did on the Giro d’Italia, like they did on the Dauphiné. Well, actually, they did that here too, as bringing a sprinter only changes the result, not the fact that the whole team can stay with the leader, as everyone stays together on sprinters stages. If you will, Decathlon is the exact opposite of Lidl-Trek who tries (even on the same day) to play on two different classifications and at the same time to win the stage on top of this.

When Pog and Vingegaard quit in a few years he will be just as likely to win as Remco or Lipo or Martinez.

But in a few years, a new marvel will have appeared from nowhere, if we trust it keeps happening at the current rate. 🙂

Unless he gets fed up – which is possible, Pogatchar is likely to stay much longer than Vingegaard: younger (he was riding for White jerseys not long ago), less broken, more versatile and still getting better. Not only getting better, but getting better faster than others, young and old, get: Evenepoel prepared as much as humanly possible for this Tour, with utmost dedication, yet he didn’t get closer to Pogatchar by an inch, compared to 2 years ago. What I mean is that it seems that he hasn’t reached his peak/plateau and rides most of his races with a safety margin (the only case without margin I remember must have been in Romandie this year, and yet he won 4 stages, GC and points…), so we can’t see the beginning of his future decline yet.

Meanwhile we, French, had to watch the future Hinault slowly turn into the future Bardet, day after day. 😄

Also the Cotton Bud from Soudal-QS, and the Wheelsucker From Outer Space too 🤣

I hope he doesn’t crash! I feared he would, when I saw him going after the breakaway, and he needed to catch them up in the descent of the Croix de Fer for of course he wouldn’t be able to catch them up in the climb.

Carapaz is the pocket climber version of Pedersen 🤣 To each his terrain.