Stage 5, Wednesday 26

173 km, D+ 1700m*

With the hills that start 60 km from the line and end 20-30 from it, this should be a game of sprinters vs punchers. Therefore we should see punchers-sprinters having their day.

Summary: Okay... so, punchers / breakawaymen-punchers / punchers-climbers / finishers did nothing at all, therefore there was a mass sprint, therefore Brennan (🇬🇧 Visma) won again.

I heard there were echelons before I turned the telly on, however there were no groups nor breakaway when I came.

Hayter (🇬🇧 Soudal-QS) went ahead a few miles before the Intermediate Sprint. Nobody chased after him, nobody joined him. So he got the I.S. max points, and this was enough to warrant the most combative rider price today, to tell you the extent of nothingness in this stage.

30 seconds behind him, nobody fought for the I.S. points. Nobody fought for the time bonuses in spite of the fact that we have 9 riders in 50 seconds in GC top-10... Visma who was leading the peloton just granted Van Aert🇧🇪 the points for 2^nd^ place.

Nobody did anything in the hills, except for a short-lived solo by Kron (🇩🇰 Uno-X) after a while. The peloton nevertheless started pushing like maniacs in the false-flats before the last and main hill, but then they rode slower and slower along the climb. So the peloton was still massive at the top of this 3^rd^ category, the only KOM of the day. UAE was leading the peloton, so they scored the points, as only 1 Astana tried to score them, but started too late...

Then it was mostly a procession again: as everyone agreed on a sprint, there was no hurry and the final acceleration only started about 4 km from the line.

Congratulations to all riders who had only 3 occasions of getting hilly/punchy terrain this week, and did nothing in Manosque, and nothing here. Congratulations to teams like FDJ and Cofidis, whose sprinter finished 13^th^ and 17^th^ today (that is, behind 2 Visma launchers...) after finishing 24^th^ and 15^th^ in Manosque, but never tried anything in the hills here or there. 🙄

The only positive thing today is that there was no crash in the end.

As I expected, *Cian U*.* (🇧🇪 Movistar) didn't restart today 😥

Stage 4, Tuesday 25: 🇦🇩Andorra la Vieja–Andorra la Vieja🇦🇩

105 km, D+ 3000m

Visma was very willing to go on a breakaway. But perhaps halfway into the real Envalira Pass, Decathlon took command of the peloton and brought the gap down. They kept pushing in the descent to the Pas de la Case, after after the tunnel, they had caught everyone.

They kept on pulling until the Beixalis Pass started and when they had only one teammate left in front of F. Gall🇦🇹, the Austrian attacked. Hum, no, that's not what happened. The Slovenian attacked. Gall🇦🇹 tried to follow him for a few hundred yards, and then came back into next group.

So, basically what we've already seen again and again, and was expected after we saw Decathlon starting pulling.

After that (there were 50 km to go), I didn't watch much. The gap grew and grew and grew, although the guys behind Pogatchar🇸🇮 weren't dawdling around, because they were split in 2 little groups of about 3 to 6 guys each.

Gall🇦🇹 then tried to get rid of other guys, but couldn't.

The gap, which had grown over 3 minutes, was reduced by 30 seconds in the last 10 km.

A few things to note:

• J. Widar (🇧🇪 Lotto-I.) was often disappointing in the past, but that really wasn't the case today; it seems that he finally 'grew up' to adult strength;
• it is not going to be as easy as everyone (including myself and himself) thought, for Gall🇦🇹 to finish second of this Tour; he isn't superior to several other climbers, and those may be superior to him on other terrains, and a few of them are ahead of him because he didn't do very well on the first 2 stages; will Decathlon repeat today's tactics? no matter what the result over Gall🇦🇹's true contenders would be, that would grant Pogatchar🇬🇧 several extra stage victories;
• among those, they are two (old) surprises: Roglitch (🇸🇮 Bora) and again Mas (🇪🇸 Movistar) who truly seems to have found his younger legs this year;
• not a comeback, but Onley (🇬🇧 Ineos) was looking very good too, a bit better and certainly fresher, even; let's wait for his 3 punctures in the same stage 😄;
• Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) tried hard, but he often missed a little bit, and was relegated to second group, coming back, dropped a bit again... I don't know what he is going to do in the rest of the race, he certainly hasn't lost time enough to get a free pass for breakaways;
• Skjelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) blew up in the end, but again, he is less than 45 seconds behind all the other guys.
• Cian U*.* (🇧🇪 Movistar) was in trouble again in the first slope of the day; he is injured, he finished in time today, but I doubt he will start tomorrow (?)

Allowed delays were conveniently changed from the 16% that was written in the regulations document, to 20%... 🙄 (equivalent to 'upgrading' the stage from difficulty category 4 to difficulty category 5).

Stage 3, Monday 24: 🇫🇷 Gruissan–Font Romeu🇫🇷

175 km, D+ 2600m

After a very long transfer along the French Mediterranean coast, this stage arrives already in the Pyrenees. Amusingly, the destination is basically the same as where the Tour de France entered France from Spain in July. Most of the approach is made of unbearable dozens of kilometres of a slightly then strongly uphill false-flat highway road. The final climb is pretty much the same.

The summary will be short.

Hayter (🇬🇧 Soudal-QS) joined the breakaway and scored max points at I.S.

The peloton was lead by UAE all day long. They accelerated a bit 95 km from the line in an urban area, which caused a split; 90 km they accelerated again in the flat country, which caused echelons; they didn't do it long and everyone regrouped for a procession until the top. In Mont-Louis, UAE stopped the race because it was raining ice.

Despite the fact that it was just your classical ice storm that, while impressive when you are under it, ends after 5-10 minutes, the race wasn't restarted in any way.

I think that the two guys who were ahead in Mont-Louis are fucked as the race seems cancelled and not shortened. Wenzel (🇱🇺 Kern) from the breakaway and Fortunato (🇮🇹 Astana) who had attacked from the peloton.

Will they de deprived of the Mountain points for which they sprinted in mont-Louis as well? Will Hayter🇬🇧 be deprived of his I.S. points too? We shall see.

There are 6/4/2 seconds to grab at the I.S. 36 km from the line, and of course 10/6/4 seconds at the finish.

There are a number of more or less likely candidates to take the Red jersey today (2nd stage):

• Hayter (🇬🇧 Soudal-QS) went into the 4-man breakaway, he needs only 1 second;
• Laporte (🇫🇷 Visma) needs 7 seconds, he might get them though a 2nd or 3rd place at the finish and a 3rd or 2nd place at the I.S.;
• Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma again) needs 10 seconds, he may get them though a 2nd or 3rd place at the finish and a 3rd or 2nd place at the I.S.;
• M. Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-trek) needs 17 seconds, he might get them though winning the stage and and a making place at the I.S. and creating somewhere in the peloton a large enough split (unfortunately, I think that the 3-second rule applies today): he is pretty much doomed by 0,07 seconds, otherwise 16 seconds would have ‘sufficed’.

First big failure for Visma and wonderful effort by Hayter🇬🇧: the base pace of the peloton was set by Visma and Lidl-Trek against a breakaway of 3 Spanish ProTeam riders and Hayter🇬🇧, which never gained a big gap, as it is usual nowadays. With a bit more than 20 km before the I.S., Visma put Armirail🇫🇷 and Kruijswijk🇳🇱 to push hard, and the gap quickly dropped down to around 20 seconds. But then Hayter🇬🇧 switched to second gear, and managed to grow the gap from 15 to 25 seconds and keep it that way! The Visma boys only lost time over the last 10-12 km to the I.S.!

Another mistake by Visma: at the I.S., Laporte🇫🇷 lead Van Aert🇧🇪 and... instead of sticking with him, was beaten by Coquard (🇫🇷 Cofidis) for 3^rd^ place.

Therefore, Van Aert🇧🇪 is now 11+ seconds behind Hayter🇬🇧, thus cannot get the Red jersey only by the time bonus et the finish. And Laporte🇫🇷 also moves out of the 10 seconds limit, he is now at 12+ seconds from Hayter🇬🇧...

Lidl-Trek had decided they didn't care about the Red jersey.

Regrouped after the I.S., the peloton took the form of parallel trains. Nobody attempted anything, as they all wanted a sprint. Luckily, there were no crash in the finish with the town entry.

Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma) attacked at 2 km, where there was a hump. He was only followed by... Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE). The EF behind them parked. Pogatchar🇸🇮 didn't relay the Belgian, nor counter-attacked; Van Aert🇧🇪 wasn't pushing very hard either in spite of the fact that they had quickly created a significant gap; they were caught up by one Astana rider and soon by the peloton.

edit: the Astana rider was Romele🇮🇹.

In the sprint, Brennan (🇬🇧 Astana) launched from very far, he was followed by M. Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) but the Dane gradually lost his wheel. Behind him was... Pogatchar🇸🇮 again! The Red jersey took him over near the line, but was at the same time overtaken by a surprise rider: Pau Miquel (🇪🇸 Barhrein) while Brennan🇬🇧 was winning far ahead.

I am waiting for photo-finish recalculation of splits to comment on GC, because there were guys a bit everywhere and I don't trust immediate classifications in such cases (they tend to give splits where they aren't).

I am a bit disappointed that nobody used the very hilly terrain (3000m of D+) at any point. They let a mini-breakaway of PT go, and when there was regrouping with still 30 km to go, every single team rode for a sprint.

The hills were enough to create differences, we saw it when Armirail🇫🇷 lead the chase against Hayter🇬🇧: a lot of riders were dropped from the peloton.

We also saw Cian U*.* (🇧🇪 Movistar) in trouble in the hills... I am not sure whether he had crashed or was suffering from a crash that would have happened several days ago, or both. At the same time his arm was bleeding a bit but he had scabs, so it looked like he had ripped off a scab.

... So, they don't seem to have changed the classification, the splits have remained. Therefore, Hayter🇬🇧 is not rewarded for his spirit and his efforts as he came behind the 2^nd^ split. 😞

Also, Gall (🇦🇹 Decathlon) lost time too: the Austrian is now 1′08″ behind Pogatchar🇸🇮!

There are only a handful of riders left who can hope to get the Red jersey through time bonuses. Of those, only Van Aert🇧🇪 is (slightly) below 10 seconds. Brennan🇬🇧, Bisiaux (🇫🇷 Decathlon) and F. Fisher-Black (🇳🇿 Bora) are between 10+ and 14 seconds.

There are 6/4/2 seconds to grab at the I.S. 36 km from the line, and of course 10/6/4 seconds at the finish.

There are a number of more or less likely candidates to take the Red jersey today (2^nd^ stage):

• Hayter (🇬🇧 Soudal-QS) went into the 4-man breakaway, he needs only 1 second;
• Laporte (🇫🇷 Visma) needs 7 seconds, he might get them though a 2^nd^ or 3^rd^ place at the finish and a 3^rd^ or 2^nd^ place at the I.S.;
• Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma again) needs 10 seconds, he may get them though a 2^nd^ or 3^rd^ place at the finish and a 3^rd^ or 2^nd^ place at the I.S.;
• M. Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-trek) needs 17 seconds, he might get them though winning the stage and and a making place at the I.S. and creating somewhere in the peloton a large enough split (unfortunately, I think that the 3-second rule applies today): he is pretty much doomed by 0,07 seconds, otherwise 16 seconds would have 'sufficed'.

Stage 1

The circuit displayed a ton of narrow lanes and curves, yet never looked dangerous. A surprising contrast.

Armirail (🇫🇷 Visma) got a puncture just after, what?, 3 km? anyway, before Eurosport had the time to play the interview with the Visma manager who was explaining how their team was the most meticulous with the hardware. 🤣

Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE): 1/1!

After 9 km of race, he is already 30″ ahead of Skjelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek), 35″ ahead of Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) and 45″ ahead of Gall (🇦🇹 Decathlon)...

Uno-X now wears the same jersey as Visma 🙄

Yeah, but the sudden retirement of S. Yates gave the same feeling, however nothing came out. Of course, in such cases, it could be tests internal to the team. A bit like we are suspicious about all the 6-months 'holidays' riders at Visma have to take while they are expected to be riding (oh, Simon was at Visma as well 🙂); or the Guérin case, who was hired by a French Conti in 2018, who didn't let him race for a good 6 months too (and has now joined a Portuguese team and just won the local Tour of mopeds, like a confirmation of suspicions 😆).

As far as Alaphilippe is concerned, his wife dumped him just before the Tour de France. Sportingly, the Tour de France was also a big pain for him: it was obvious that seeing that he really couldn't do anything any more affected him and added to his personal situation. The will was nevertheless still there, but the legs weren't, even for a short while like during the 2 previous years where he was doing his attacks way too early as if he knew he wouldn't be able to perform them later in the race: on this TdF, you could see him attack, but basically only downhill, I guess that said it all.

It was also strange to see him holding at the front on the very last stage in the Alps, the hardest of the whole Tour, after not having managed anything in all other, easier, stage. Like a final test or a jubilee.

In the interviews at the Tour du Limousin yestermorn, Cavagna told that Alaphilippe called him a week ago to tell him about his retirement. So the intention probably was mulled over into a decision during the Tour de France or just after.

I have no idea what the financial agreement with his team is, BTW.

Stage 2, Sunday 23: 🇲🇨Monaco–Manosque🇫🇷

214 km, D+ 3000m

The first of the two French stages proposes a very hilly course, over a distance longer than any of the Tour de France stages this year. The finish may be (I don't know) the same we often see on the Tour de la Provence in the beginning of the season, where it is usually won by sprinters who can handle punchy courses or strong uphill false-flat finishes.

Okay, so I checked the finish. While the riders will enter the town in a different way, the last kilometre is indeed the same. Of the riders on this Vuelta, M.Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-trek) won the last 2 Provence stages finishing there, and Coquard (🇫🇷 Cofidis) the one before.

Pogi said he’s also riding with the worlds in the back of his mind, so he’ll try to save as much energy as possible (although with Focaccia you never know what “conserving energy” means)

Yes, however saving energy may also mean crushing competitors in the 1^st^ week, and going easy after that. It might even be a better way to arrive not too tired at the following race(s), than to have to push hard in the last week of the Vuelta.

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🇪🇸 3^rd^ 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 2^nd^ place through time bonus. Same from Decathlon who had L'Hôte🇫🇷 in the same time as the 5^th^. So basically, only Total who had Vercher🇫🇷 2^nd^ tried a few things (which didn't generally involved said rider); they also had Delettre🇫🇷 (5^th^) 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.

Hmmm... Pogatchar could win all 4 stages if he wanted to. Stage #2 is probably the more involved, though, he would have to get rid of sprinters before the finish, and the needed effort is probably not worth it.

It is strange that he doesn't attempt to take part in the autumn classics, where he had a better chance to shine a bit, for an ultimate time, than during the rest of the season.

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 10^th^ 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 5/6^th^ 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 1, Saturday 1, Team Time Trial

20 km, D+ 220 m

A very short TTT in the streets of Barcelona, with some climbing near and at the end (your usual Montjuic).

This format created quite some mess. Suffice to say that Bernal (🇨🇴 Ineos) will wear the Green jersey tomorrow 🤣

At FDJ, the two guys who were supposed to aim for a modest top-20 in GC crashed. G. Martin🇫🇷 and Berthet🇫🇷 finished the stage, but the latter won't restart tomorrow. Grégoire🇫🇷 finished very well, but it looked more impressive than it actually was because he used a huge gear ratio with a low frequency while standing up .

Astana also crashed.

At Ineos, Vauquelin🇫🇷 who was supposed to be the final arrow and hadn't taken any relay, got a puncture... Subsequently, Ganna, who had taken the heaviest relays on the flat, was forced to also lead the finish. This beast managed to almost win! He climbed faster than all punchers and GC leaders, but one.

At Bora, Evenepoel🇧🇪 dropped Lipowitz🇩🇪 in the last climb.

De Lie (🇧🇪 Lotto) was completely ill. Cian U. (🇧🇪 Movistar) overheated, blew up and had cramps. O'Connor (🇦🇺 Jayco) quickly sank.

Vinegaard (🇩🇰 Visma) and Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) are already on the podium. Top-10 favourites are already in the top-10... And there are still 20 stages to go.

It seems designed to create differences, so I guess there will be a few. What could happen to minimise them is one stronger leader with a weaker team vs the opposite; perhaps the Pogatchar-UAE vs Vingegaard-Visma will be along this line. But the flat section is relatively short (for a TTT), so I don't know whether significant advantage can be gained there by a strong team.

I don't expect much from Seixas/Decathlon, given what they showed on the Dauphiné.

It could be interesting to see what happens at Bora, performance-wise, but also circus-wise 😀

We can note that the organisers had the 'brilliant' idea of scheduling the last/favourite teams/leaders at the same time as the WC first 1/8^th^ match of the day 🙄 As if they couldn't have made it just 20 minutes earlier...

Stage 16, Tuesday 21

26 km, D+ 500 m, Individual Time Trial

This ITT presents an unusual profile, with an horrible 4,5% strongly uphill false-flat right from the start which lasts for 10 km (!), then a steeper descent and only finally a flat section.

I watched little of the race. In other times, the horrible flat climb would have caused a few riders to miscalculate their effort by not finding their pace on this bastard slope, but in the days of computerised cycling, it cannot happen.

Therefore there were very few surprises. The profile, a more regular version of the Gavarnie stage finish, looked perfect for Evenepoel (🇧🇪 Bora) and Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE), and so it was. We might have believed Seixas (🇫🇷 Decathlon) to make a difference over Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE), but Sunday's stage was a big warning that one shouldn't be overconfident about that, and in the end there was almost no difference. Ayuso (🇪🇸 Lidl-Trek) confirmed as well the more serious troubles he experienced on Sunday. Skelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) may have done a bit better than expected, but he is used to ITT top-10s.

In fact, the only true change in top-10 is caused by Lipowitz🇩🇪's crash (on the flat section) and withdrawal.

Among the 6 contenders for places 9 and 10, Voisard (🇨🇭 Tudor) did the best time. Yates (🇬🇧 UAE) probably didn't give a damn, which allowed Piganzoli (🇮🇹 Visma) to gain 2 ranks in order to try to save GC for his team.

Stage 12, Thursday 16

This one is a bit more hilly than the previous one, but those hills look far from enough to prevent another sprinters stage.

There was quite some action compared to other sprinters stages. My memory and therefore my account will be pretty fuzzy because I slept through several parts and was away at a few others :-)

Breakaway took some time to form. Finally, only Veistroffer (🇫🇷 Lotto) successfully broke away alone. At the I.S. there were a few attacks, I though they had all failed (after reducing the gap by half, to 1 minute), but when I came back, 3 guys had joined Veistroffer🇫🇷.

(Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) won the peloton's I.S. but he could have been relegated for he went from the centre to the right of the fence, blocking Philipsen (🇧🇪 Alpecin) and another rider against the fences.)

With 60 km to go, Veistroffer🇫🇷 dropped Caruso (🇮🇹 Bahrain) and Vercher (🇫🇷 Total). 10 km farther, Costiou (🇫🇷 FDJ) gave up, and Veistroffer🇫🇷 was alone again.

When the peloton reached the hills 35-40 from the line, there were a lot of attacks (the fist one caught Veistroffer🇫🇷), mainly by Lidl-Trek who wanted to avoid a mass sprint. They put quite a mess during 25-30 km, but the last 10 km, really flat, allowed sprinters teams to regain control.

Therefore, it ended with a mass sprint. And a mass crash, due to a vicious little wave of the road brilliantly set 350-400 m from the line, which left only a few riders for the sprint (basically, everyone who survived the crash scored UCI points...). The first to hit the ground was Gaviria (🇨🇴 Caja Rural), whose front wheel was hit by a Bahrain rider who changed direction.

Fun fact: after 12 stages, Veistroffer🇫🇷 has grabbed 3 times as much prize money 💶 as the whole GFDJ team 🤣

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, Sunday 5

169 km, D+ 2000 m

A stage for punchers, again finishing in Barcelona's Montjuic

This stage was turned into a joke. Nobody attacked, except for Johannessen (🇳🇴 Uno-X) followed by Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF), about 18.3 yards from the top of the very last climb. It was just a strong-ish pace by the lone McNulty (🇺🇸 UAE) all along. And then Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) won because Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) left him the victory. Yep.

Tomorrow, spectators will be banned from the part of the course in France, as there is a major forest fire developing (far) down the valley.

Reluctant with good reason! It’s the day after a time trial and more than a week to a rest day. Would you really risk a good classification place or later stage wins this early, attacking on a hillside crit circuit that the breakaway has maybe 1% chance of winning? Be serious.

1. A circuit like this, like any punchy finish, is a perfect place to attack if one is afraid of losing GC: losing GC won't happen. One can pick one's distance for attacking, and if it fails, one may recover or attack anew when it comes back again. Even if one blows up, gaps won't be big.
2. There aren't only GC leaders in the race, there are punchers who don't give a damn about classification and who won't be served many suitable profiles this year.
3. Last year, both punchers and GC leaders did use punchers stages. There were attacks by Visma lieutenants and even a bit Vingegaard as soon as stage #2. Pog and Ving attacked and created splits in the punchy finish as soon as stage #4, the day before the ITT. It was just an attack 6 km from the goal, but still better than yesterday.
4. I've heard of Time Trial 'blocking' the race for a couple of days before the TT, but blocking it for a few days after the TT would be a first ;)