Beyond the Peloton

The final stage before the race’s second rest day, and first day in the Alps, produced a shocking stage result, with Red Bull-Bora’s Remco Evenepoel winning over Tadej Pogačar atop the hors catégorie Plateau de Solaison, with Pogačar appearing to hold back in an effort to act as a domestique for his UAE teammate Isaac del Toro.

After a hard day of racing through the Vosges mountains in the wilds of the Alsace region, Tadej Pogačar stormed clear of an elite GC group to claim his fourth stage victory and extend his overall lead over Jonas Vingegaard by nearly an additional minute, giving him a cushion of over four minutes on his closest rival.

The longest stage of this Tour, which tracked through the rural reaches of the Alsace region, saw a long, difficult fight for the breakaway produce both the fourth fastest Tour stage of all-time, and an uncontrollable 57-rider move going clear on the 150 kilometers of flat terrain, before an elite ten-rider group forged clear on the two categorized climbs, with the 9km-long Ballon d’Alsace being the most selective.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -42:43 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Spencer Martin, author of the Beyond the Peloton newsletter, and co-host Andrew Vontz discuss the second week of the Tour de France, including what to make of Tadej Pogačar and UAE’s decision to pace hard on non-GC days, and how to interpret the GC picture behind them.

After a day of high-paced racing through the countryside of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France, Soudal-QuickStep’s Tim Merlier grabbed his third stage win of this Tour de France, surging clear of a group of elite sprinters in the final 200 meters, edging out Olav Kooij and Jasper Philipsen to confirm his status as the fastest man at this Tour de France.

Following a day of scorching temperatures and speed on the picturesque rural roads of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Uno-X’s Søren Wærenskjold delivered a shocking result to the sprint stars when he launched from distance to hold off Olav Kooij and Jasper Philipsen on the streets of Nevers. The win came at the end of the fastest Tour de France stage on record…

Through the untamed and unpopulated mountains of the Massif Central, Tadej Pogačar exorcised the demons of the 2024 Tour de France, which saw him reeled in and defeated in a two-up sprint by Jonas Vingegaard on the same roads, and delivered yet another solo stage win with a devastating attack on the penultimate climb before holding off a chase group mad…

On a heat-shortened, but brutally fast, stage through the Massif Central, Alpecin-Premier Tech’s Mathieu van der Poel won the Tour’s stage 9 from a four-rider breakaway, outsprinting Uno-X’s Tobias Halland Johannessen and Pinarello Q36.5’s Tom Pidcock amid the rural beauty of Ussel. However, instead of a routine breakaway day, the UAE-led peloton was chasing close behind, which saw the bunch sprint, won by Netcompany-INEOS’ Filippo Ganna, finish just six seconds back.

On another brutally hot day in France, Lotto-Intermarché’s Liam Slock almost flipped the script after nearly holding off a hard-chasing peloton after being the last man standing from the early breakaway, only to be reeled in with just over a kilometer remaining. So, instead of a heroic solo win, Tim Merlier was able to make it back-to-back victories on …

On yet another scorching hot French summer afternoon, Bordeaux proved to be not only the capital of wine but also the unofficial capital of Tour de France sprint finishes, with Soudal-QuickStep’s Tim Merlier ripping clear from deep in the bunch inside a chaotic final 500 meters to get his first stage win of this Tour. The extremely technically-skilled B…