Race Thread: Tour de Limousin, Deutschland Tour, Renewi Tour 2025
Tour du Limousin-Périgord - Nouvelle Aquitaine
The Tour du Limousin-Périgord – Nouvelle-Aquitaine is a professional four-day stage cycling race held every August in western France. Founded in 1968 and part of the UCI Europe Tour (2.1), it winds through the hilly landscapes of Limousin, Périgord, and Nouvelle-Aquitaine, covering departments like Haute-Vienne, Creuse, Corrèze, and Dordogne. Known for its rolling terrain with frequent climbs, the race showcases both rising talents and seasoned riders, while also promoting the scenic and cultural heritage of the region.
The 2025 Renewi Tour, held from 20 to 24 August, is a five‑day WorldTour stage race in the Benelux region spanning 911 km. It kicks off with a flat opener from Terneuzen to Breskens, before two more stages through Belgium—Blankenberge to Ardooie and a decisive Aalter to Geraardsbergen stage featuring Flemish Ardennes climbs like the Taaienberg, Bosberg and multiple ascents of the famous Muur van Geraardsbergen—both crucial for the general classification. The fourth stage runs from Riemst to Bilzen, offering rolling terrain that favors both sprinters and attackers, while the finale in Leuven incorporates the traditional Tour of Leuven circuit, blending short climbs with circuit racing to close out the week in style.
The 2025 Lidl Deutschland Tour takes place from 20–24 August over five days. It begins with a short, explosive 3.1 km prologue in Essen through the UNESCO-listed Zeche Zollverein, followed by a 202.6 km hilly stage to Herford that winds through the Teutoburg Forest. The race then tackles its 190.3 km queen stage from Herford to Arnsberg, packed with Sauerland climbs like the Gauseköte and Seufzertal. On the fourth day, riders face a 175.7 km mountain-like stage to Kassel, with around 1,000 m of elevation and likely decisive attacks. The tour concludes with a 163.7 km flatter stage from Halle (Saale) to Magdeburg, opening with a punchy climb but expected to end in a fast sprint.
Tour du Limousin
It starts on Tuesday (one day earlier than the other two tours), for 4 stages. It is indeed hilly, and takes medium or small twisty roads favouring attacks, but in the end most stages often end up with a punchy sprint typical of French races.
The Décathlon team is probably favourite, they come with Prodhomme🇫🇷 who just won this Sunday the Polynormande (PCS page), another hilly and twisty race, with a solo from a breakaway group; after finishing 2^nd^in GC behind Cian U. (🇧🇪 Visma) and winning a mountain stage on the Tour de l'Ain 10 days earlier. Those 3 races were/are class .1.
Official site (in French): https://tourdulimousin.com/
PCS page: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/tour-du-limousin/2025
I would be surprised if Prodhomme, Lapeira, and maybe Vendrame are not in the mix for the GC victory.
Seixas really created a monster when he gifted Prodhomme the victory back in the Tour of the Alps stage 5, it's been great to see a domestique suddenly believing he can win and then doing it over and over again.
🤣
While today's race was uneventful (Intermarché peacefully leading the peloton with the help of Total behind an early breakaway, hoping for a bunch sprint) until then, the last 35 km were really active. The first small attack from the peloton was by one Unibet, and then FDJ did many attacks. However when the 'good' one left after catching up the morning breakaway, there was no FDJ inside 😀 and FDJ had to pull the peloton. Bouchard🇫🇷 from Décathlon was in the breakaway, but he may have felt unwell (?) and stopped relaying anyway. FDJ wasn't closing the gap, even disorganised the peloton at the bottom of a descent, and then, icing on the cake, crashed in front of the peloton (another FDJ rider had crashed earlier). Strangely for the viewer, Décathlon started pulling despite the fact that they weren't helping FDJ before Pacher🇫🇷's crash. In the breakaway, the Conti riders (Mifsud🇫🇷🇲🇹 for Nice and the Nantes rider) stopped relaying too. Décathlon (with a very brief help by one Kern and one FDJ) almost caught up with the breakaway, but one of the the two Total riders and Costiou🇫🇷 from Arkéa attacked from the breakaway. One Décathlon attacked from the peloton, followed by yet another Total. Those 2 groups of 2 arrived to the finish line ahead of the peloton, each Total rider in front of his opponent which was aiming more for GC.
Not a great operation for Décathlon, considering their firepower and the fact that they had one man (not one the right ones?) in the right breakaway.
An umpteenth disaster in a row for FDJ...
Total always very present at all levels of the race, and doubly rewarded at the end: better than anticipated.
So, for FDJ: Pacher withdrew, and Germani (the one who crashed earlier, perhaps with Noa from Décathlon who had crashed a bit on Sunday in Normandy as well) is 21 minutes behind in GC.
edit:
So, Germani doesn't start stage #2. And neither does Le Huitouze!
Therefore, FDJ is down to 4 riders (out of 7) after just one day of racing...
Limousin, stage #4 (last one)
Not too many attacks on the circuit of Limoges this year. The remains of the early breakaway (I. Noa (🇫🇷 Décathlon) and A. Balmer (🇨🇭 Vini-Fantini)) were only caught after the flamme rouge. There was a sprint finish even though, as usual there, the peloton was stretched, with micro-splits, by the last false-flat.
Total had been pulling the peloton for a long time, before smaller teams like Roubaix and a couple of Spanish teams took the lead, pulled harder and reduced the gap with the breakaway. They were not rewarded much as Décathlon won the sprint with 2 riders. Delettre (🇫🇷 Total) misses the time bonus by ending 4^th^; in GC he is therefore at the same time as Moniquet (🇧🇪 Cofidis) who has grabbed a 1-second bonus earlier today, but his 4^th^ place allows him to stay 2^nd^ in GC according to the total of places.
FDJ didn't lose any extra rider today! However their best rider finishes behind every other team best riders, except Balearic Islands.
Mifsud (🇫🇷🇲🇹 Nice) scored a top-10 today, after giving his best every day. He finally ranks 15^th^ in GC.
First Conti riders in GC are the ex-Cofidis Champion (🇫🇷 St-Michel) 10^th^, the aforesaid Mifsud and Capron (🇫🇷 Roubaix) just behind him..
There are 3 Kern Pharma riders in top-12. When you can't manage to score through victories or podiums, making a tight group brings points too.
Euskatel, Caja Rural, Bardiani, Vini-Fantini end up significantly farther than them and the Conti teams I quoted.
Again, I am worried about those Spanish and Italian Pro-Teams. I have some vague theory about that as a more general problem.
It is like there is no room for them any more. 2 or 3 World Teams grab almost all WT victories, therefore the average and bottom World Teams (and the top Pro-Teams which are World Teams in disguise, often equal or better than the lowest World Teams) pivoted to .Pro and then even to .1 races, and there is no room for smaller Pro-Teams any more.
The concept of 'development teams' exacerbate the situation, by depriving Pro Teams and true Conti Teams of the best young riders, and at the same time reinforcing Word Teams headcounts and firepower through mixed devo/WT teams who then compete and often blast smaller Pro- and Conti teams and their riders.
A sort of reform will be required.
Limousin, stage #3
Nothing happened in the climbs located just before mid-course. There was a bigger breakaway than on the previous days (8 or 9 guys), including the mountain jersey wearer and one teammate again, but also including 3 riders who were only 1′30″- 1′45″in GC (Gachignard, winner of 1^st^ stage for Total, Rochas for FDJ and Lastra for Cofidis).
In the peloton, Arkéa was leading with a medium pace. Despite a not-so-great collaboration at the front, the gap was not reducing, rather increasing a bit over 3 minutes. Then Total started pulling, probably hoping to catch up with the breakaway before the last Intermediate Sprint, as their best man in GC Delettre🇫🇷, ranking 2^nd^, had already grabbed a 2″ bonus on the first I.S.
The breakaway was getting more and more disorganised. Rochas (🇫🇷 FDJ) was watching everyone, he obviously wanted the breakaway to break again and while not provoking it, didn't want to miss any such move. After a couple of dozens of kilometres like that, indeed several true attacks including him did break the group. However when the right one left, he wasn't in it. It was one Wagner-Bazin guy, joined by Lafay (🇫🇷 Décathlon) and then by another Wagner-Bazin who had been in a previous attempt with Rochas (it is possible I mix up who joined whom between the 2 Wagner-Bazin). Lafay looked stronger than the two Wagner-Bazin (which is a rather unlucky team sitting at the bottom of the Pro-Teams) but all 3 collaborated as they could. The rest of the breakaway including the 3 potential GC guys was more watching/fighting each other than collaborating.
Anyway, Total didn't manage to catch up the 3-man breakaway before the Intermediate Sprint. In fact the breakaway, reduced to 2 members as Q. Bezza🇫🇷 sacrificed for Renard-Haquin🇫🇷, wasn't caught up before the flamme rouge! Unfortunately for them, the finish was a punchy climb.
Lapeira🇫🇷, whose team hadn't done anything today, waited and grabbed the victory for Décathlon. The GC contenders Costiou (🇫🇷 Arkéa) and Delettre (🇫🇷 Total) came 2^nd^ and 3^rd^. Delettre lands on the stage podium for the third time in three stages, but still hasn't won! First Contis at the top were Capron (🇫🇷 Roubaix) and Mariault (🇫🇷 Nantes).
I see that I drew only French flags. I haven't made any statistics, but I have the feeling that 2025 really isn't a good year for small Italian and Spanish (pro) teams.
Concerning FDJ, the only guy who had made a stage top-15 in the race withdrew. They are down to 3 riders, all of them being out of top-30.
Limousin, stage #2
I think I recognised the final climb with those irregularities in the end, from the years when there were plenty of Italian riders on the race (and on the finish). Checking PCS, I see that Rebellin🇮🇹 came 2^nd^ in 2014; and Wackermann🇮🇹 won in 2018. What happened to Wackermann, by the way, did he melt a test-tube? He did 2 (surprisingly) excellent years on the Tour of Limousin and then disappeared.
Anyway. Today the fight began 20 km from the finish, just after the early breakaway, where Kenny Molly (🇧🇪 Roubaix) kept on scoring mountain points with the help of his teammate Guillon🇫🇷, and Sanlaville (🇫🇷 Nantes) and Hannes (🇧🇪 Intermarché) were battling for sprints, while Curto (🇪🇸 Balearic Islands) seemed happy to simply follow. Actually, all 5 breakaway guys looked happy today.
The battle was started by Decathlon, who had been pulling the peloton all day, with some help from Total until perhaps 50 km from the line, but none from Arkéa. Over the 3 remaining hills, it was an alternance of attacks and stops allowing allowing some (but less and less) regrouping. In the final climb, the head group was only made of Total, Arkéa, Cofidis, Décathlon riders (+one Kern Pharma); those who looked favourites let Moniquet (🇧🇪 Cofidis) go while they were watching each other, and they never manage to catch him up. Delettre (🇫🇷 Total) made a small gap versus Costiou (🇫🇷 Arkéa) and Prodhomme (🇫🇷 Décathlon) behind him.
It seems that the Decathlon team is uneasy handling its status of favourite team with many good riders. On this stage, they miss the podium again. So, in GC, they are at the same 4^th^ place, and the little gaps and time bonuses put them around 30 seconds behind. Which is a problem, as on the remaining two stages, it will be harder to create gaps. Mind you, there are no less than 4 Intermediate Sprints on each stage, and I think 3 of them grant time bonuses (3-2-1 seconds each). So we might see a fight for time bonuses tomorrow and perhaps on the last day.
FDJ riders were dropped on the first Décathlon acceleration, managed to catch up this time but not on later attacks. One (Rochas?) arrived in a second group, but behind St-Michel and even Nice riders... Mifsud (🇫🇷🇲🇹 Nice) had made a huge effort to catch up with the first group in the climb before the final one, I think, he couldn't keep with that group in the last climb but made another big effort to (almost) finish in front of the second group. Champion (🇫🇷 St-Michel) finishes ahead of that group, but I can't remember if he was dropped from the first group or jumped from the second. There were for a long time a couple of St-Michel riders in the first group on the previous climbs (therefore already doing better than the terrible FDJ team/riders).
So far, it has been a very nice edition. Better than the last few ones (in my fuzzy memory). Fights for 35 and 20 km, with splits, regrouping, splits, jumps.
A general remark: Usually, when there are races on the same day, organisers try to schedule the arrival times so that one is early and the other late, so that broadcaster and viewers have it is easy to watch at least the last hour of each race.
That's not the case at all this week with those 3 races which are really overlapping.
Tour of Benelux without Lux
Max altitude reached on the first stage in Netherlands is probably 5 metres... The second in Belgium isn't much better. The other ones are a bit more hilly but in a very smooth way; only stage #3 seems to present spring-classic vibes.
It is the only WT race this week, but it probably presents the most boring profiles of the 3 races.
This stage #3 may be worth watching, even though it seems promised to Van der Poel (🇳🇱 Alpecin). This will be on Friday, if I am not mistaken.
Official site : https://renewitour.com/en/
PCS page : https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/renewi-tour/2025
Promise accomplished, but with a tiny margin over an Arnaud De Lie (🇧🇪 Lotto) truly back in the game. De Lie was struggling hard to stay in the wheels of Van der Poel and Wellens (🇧🇪 UAE) but he still was relaying them most of the time. He has found again most of his legs, but he also has found again his will to go beyond pain.
Van der Poel was completely exhausted after the line. After taking over De Lie in the sprint, he had hoped he could celebrate but he couldn't: he checked behind him and had to start pedalling again until after the line as De Lie wasn't dropped at all. De Lie arriving in the same time allowed the Belgian to grab the leader jersey, by the way; for 1 second!
Tour of Germany
A 5-stage class .Pro race.
At first sight, it looks less hilly than last year's edition, and J. Milan🇮🇹 won 3 stages last year... (M. Pedersen🇩🇰 winning the other two, making 5/5 Lidl-Trek stage wins (+ GC) on the Lidl-Tour...) Milan will take part again this year.
Official site : https://www.deutschland-tour.com/en/home
PCS page : https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/deutschland-tour/2025