The final stage with a hectic dash across the Alps and all to play for on GC.

The Route: 120km and 3,860m of vertical gain. It’s uphill right from the start with the Col du Pré, one of the most scenic climbs in the Alps and a hard one too with a gentle start but soon come steep ramps between the hairpins in the second half. The descent is more regular and down a bigger road.

The Bisanne climb is a backroad version of the Col des Saisies, a small road and irregular in places.

The Aravis is one of those climbs with a climb to get to the start that is so long and steep it would feature in most other races. The top has an Alpine-style descent that then eases as it heads through a long valley or gorge section all the way to the Faucigny area and the Arve valley floor. This is a tactical point where cards can be played.

The Finish: 11.2km at 9.2% and that’s with a flat section midway that doesn’t show on the profile. It’s got lots of 10-12% slopes and is up there with the likes of the Mortirolo but needs more visits to make it infamous.

The Contenders: Isaac del Toro (UAE) won yesterday and he has every chance of repeating, today’s stage ends with another selective climb with steep ramps and he’s got double the incentive now with Luke Tuckwell’s yellow jersey only 49 seconds ahead, the Australian having lost two and a half minutes yesterday; plus needing only a handful of seconds to leapfrog Matteo Jorgenson on GC.

Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) said he rode like an idiot yesterday. It was audacious but came with a cost, we’ll see if he can be more measured today as he could just aim to snipe the stage even if he is close on GC too. Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X) is having a great race but getting ahead for the win is going to be hard.

With Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) we’ll see, first if he starts today. It’s the plan he said yesterday. He will be sore and probably lacking sleep and he had a hard ride chasing back from his crash but all the same if he’s able to be in contention by the final climb he showed on Friday he was climbing the fastest.

The breakaway has a chance because UAE just need to make life hard for Tuckwell. Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-Quickstep) is looking better each day and gets to race on a climb he can reach from his home.

	Del Toro
	Ayuso
	Paret-Peintre, THJ, Seixas

Weather: sunny and 27°C.

TV: KM0 is at 1.30pm and the finish is forecast for 5.00pm. During the week we’ve got the last 90 minutes live but here the final two hours so tune in around 3.00pm and see the action as the race starts the Col des Aravis.

Postcard from the Signal de Bisanne
Mont Bisanne is the second climb today, the Signal sounds like a TV aerial or suchlike but it’s the name given to one peak.

This road has been in the Tour de France before and your blogger went to recon it in June 2016 only to find it was being resurfaced in time for the race. The road was fully closed for the works and a crew had just rolled fresh bitumen on the road. This is quite a common experience in June.

The workers had done a few hundred metres that morning and they helpfully explained that the only way around was to walk on the narrow parapet by the road. Here’s the view from Google Earth above, you can see the wall on the left and the tarmac across the whole road done in one go. Walking on the wall wasn’t obvious, one slip in plastic cleats and it was a long day down one side and the other had tarmac that would more than cook an egg. But it was the only way through.

Just then a Tour contender and a couple of team mates arrived on the scene, they were doing their recon as well, complete with two following vehicles which quickly turned around as there was just no way through and they had a long detour, leaving the riders to find a way past. Taking the wall was ruled out, too risky so the team leader decided to walk on the road and wheel his BMC bike. Moments later the Doron valley echoed to the cry of an anglo-saxon word beginning with “F” as he sunk new white Sidis into the bitumen, then struggled to lift his feet clear from the sticky mess.

As the race passes today it’s quite possible the imprint of small shoes and Shimano cleats, like the handprints on Hollywood Boulevard, are still set in the road.

The post Aura Tour Stage 8 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

More mountains, this time with a much longer finish on the flanks of the Grand Colombier.

The Route: 133km and 3,820m of vertical gain, a lot in a short course. It’s uphill at the start on some fun foothill roads to help a breakaway go clear, in land where Mandrin used to roam, think of a French Robin Hood without the Hollywood and Disney treatment and the terrain here probably suited his smuggling activities.

After a flat ride to Culoz it’s time to tackle the Grand Colombier but not to the top, instead steep climbing on a south-facing slope via the lacets (“hairpin bends”) before the road straightens and the slope eases leading to a right turn to descent to the valley floor. The descent is tricky amid woodland. Then it’s up the Rhone valley.

The Col de Richemond is gentle, most of the time at 5-6%. In Italian this is called pedalabile, “pedalable” and in French the term is roulant, you can roll up it and even a big ring climb with a suitable cassette on the back.

The Finish: the Grand Colombier again, but there are four ways up and this is the directissime route from Arvière, a village until recently known as Virieu. 8.4km at 10.2% is hard if it was just a steady road but the difficulty here comes with the irregularity, there’s a long section at 15% and other parts at 18%-20% in the first half of the climb. The saving grace for riders is it’s in shaded by woodland.

There’s a gentle section midway for recovery before it rears up again and starts to clear the trees and it’s steep all the way to the finish at the top.

The Contenders: Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) shredded the field of GC contenders and only Isaac del Toro (UAE) could hold the pace and for a long while sat on rather than shared the work but this can give the Mexican options but it’ll be harder to hold on today. These two should be the obvious contenders for the day, helped by Red Bull who should chase today to give Luke

Tuckwell’s debut in a yellow jersey some deserved support.

The breakaways keep working but today will be a lot harder given the GC contenders are likely to take on the race more. Torsten Traeen (Uno-X), Lorenzo Fortunato and Harald Tejada (XDS-Astana) are good in the mountains but the form isn’t sparkling.

	Seixas
	Del Toro
	Tejada

Weather: sunshine and 29°C.

TV: KM0 is at 12.25 and the finish is forecast for 4.00pm.

Postcard from the Grand Colombier
Ride the whole Grand Colombier from Culoz via the lacets to the top and it’s 18km at 7%, comparable to the Galibier. It doesn’t feel the same as the landscape is gentle and the road only tops out just short of 1,500m above sea level.

Whether one is more scenic than the other depends on taste, the Grand Colombier has great views of the Rhone valley below where you are sufficiently clear of the noise but still able to see details down below; the Galibier can feel almost Himalayan at the top and a wilderness with only marmots for company before plenty of tourists in cars and motorbikes interrupt you.

One view you get from the Grand Colombier is a glimpse at the future. The area is host to the Ain Bugey Valromey Tour, a junior stage race that uses these roads in the Jura mountains. Last year saw 16 year Benjamin Noval finish third and he’ll ride for Netcompany-Ineos as soon as he’s out of the junior ranks and eligible for the World Tour. Albert Withen Philipsen won 2024, ahead of Paul Seixas and Lorenzo Finn.

Andrew August beat Paul Seixas in 2023. 2022 saw Emil Herzog, Maxime Delcomble and Jan Christen the podium. In 2021 it was Romain Grégoire, Cian Uijtdebroeks and Lenny Martinez. Junior results count for a lot more these days and so this race is a big deal for participants, World Tour development teams and their scouts, plus agents looking to sign any talent that hasn’t been snapped up.

This year’s edition takes place in July and the final day is a time trial up the Grand Colombier. Who ever wins this can hope to see Mont Blanc in the distance, the Rhone below weaving past the Lac du Bourget… plus a six figure contract from a World Tour team with a bright future ahead of them.

The post Aura Tour Stage 7 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

The race goes into the Alps with the first of three summit finishes.

Un Flamand au Parc des Oiseaux: the sprint win for Wout van Aert. Visma-LAB and Cofidis led the chase all stage when a move of six got way on the first climbs and never gave them much more than two minutes. In the final stages more teams joined in and the break was finished.

The finishing straight was three kilometres long and felt almost as wide until the finish came into sight. Helped by lead-out from Matteo Jorgenson and then a 600m turn from Edoardo Affini, Van Aert launched with 200m to go and held off Hugo Hofstetter and Phil Bauhaus. For a rider saying he’s searching for form there might be some way to go but all the same this was a solid long sprint. For all his talk of poor form right now he’s now got two stage wins to his name and was won the bunch sprint on Stage 4 too.

The Route: 181km, 2,850m of vertical gain and a day of déja-vu. The start is in Saint-Vulbas, home of Mark Cavendish’s final Tour stage win in 2024 although today in the town itself rather than outside by the logistics park that hosted the finish last time.

The mid-stage climb of the Col du Granier sees the race traverse the Chartreuse Alps via a scenic road with steep cliffs and balcony sections cut into the hillside; and where Bernard Hinault once stopped to pee. More importantly today it’s got a lot of 6-7% gradients. The descent is steep and twisty, but used by the race recently in 2024. There’s a long valley road via Albertville to Ugine, Alex Baudin’s home roads as it happens.

The climb to Héry sounds gentle with the 5% average on the profile but it’s 7% most of the way, the average is reduced because of a descent mid-way so this is a selective climb, and all on a small, twisting road including on the way down. The Tour de France was supposed to come here last year but a last-minute change because of a bovine disease and angry farmers prompted a change.

The Finish: the Dauphiné came here in 2023 where Georg Zimmerman won but for once there’s no déjà vu as that time they took the main Col des Saisies route up, then cut across to Crest Voland. This time it’s just the road up from the valley floor, a climb all the way.

It’s a steady main road up and one of those climbs where you ride thinking “I’m not feeling good today” but then realise it’s 8-9% a lot of the way.

The Contenders: with 100 riders over six minutes down the breakaway has a good chance today, the teams with GC ambitions don’t need to lock down the stage, especially as there are two more mountain stages to come.

Georg Zimmerman (Lotto-Intermarché) won here last time but this finish is more suited to someone at ease on an Alpine climb.  Marco Frigo (NSN), Mauri Vansevenant (Soudal-Quickstep), Yannis Voisard (Tudor), Gal Glivar (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies) fit the bill but they have seven wins between them and nothing in the World Tour yet.

Ben Healy (EF) does win from the breakaway but will he be retained to help Alex Baudin defend yellow, or if he’s going to lose it then why not try to take the stage? Pello Bilbao (Bahrain) can win but the form is a question today, while team mate Santiago Buitrago isn’t far down on GC but could try a move on the final descent.

Otherwise to extrapolate from the opening stage glimpses, Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek), Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) and Isaac Del Toro (UAE) are suited here with Ayuso being the most experienced but also not prolific in summit finishes.

Netcompany-Ineos don’t have to launch moves and this suits both Oscar Onley and Kévin Vauquelin who only have to match rivals to stay ahead on GC and of the upcoming mountain stages, today suits best as it’s a shorter climb. Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-LAB) looks in great form but he doesn’t finish so well out of group sprint, it’s solo or bust.

	Del Toro, Seixas
	Ayuso, Onley
	Jorgenson, Vauquelin, Bilbao, Tejada, Buitrago, Healy

Weather: sunny and 26°C

TV: KM0 is at 12.45pm and the finish is forecast for 5.00pm.

Postcard from Mont Granier
Chartreux, Chartreuse anyone? Play word association in France and it’s a monastic order, an alcoholic liqueur, a colour and a breed of cat. It’s also range of mountains in the Alps and the race crosses it today via the Col du Granier.

Nearby sits Mont Granier, a big table-like mountain whose steep flanks were revealed by a vast landslide in 1248 where half a billion cubic metres fell away, including blocks several hundred metres long, some of which rolled down the valley and came to halt several kilometres later.

The Charteuse Alps range runs north-south, bookended by the cities of Chambéry and Grenoble. Only today the race crosses from west to east: up, over and down. This is the “wrong” way as the Chartreuse Alps have been spectacular in races before when the route has gone along over the top via the Col du Granier, the Col du Cucheron and Col the Porte, sometimes referred to as the trilogie Chartreuse.

In 1947 Jean Robic would win the Tour thanks to an attack on the final stage but he was within touching distance of yellow in part because of his win in Grenoble after romping across the trilogy of climbs. In 1958 the race took the reverse direction and Charly Gaul started the Col de Porte with a two minute advantage on the chasing bunch. With cold rain pouring down he took time on each of the climbs to win solo by 14 minutes, defrocking yellow jersey Louison Bobet by 19 minutes, Jacques Anquetil even further back.

Action-packed short stages in the Tour aren’t new. The 1989 Tour de France used the trilogy during a 125km stage. Pedro Delgado, third overall, attacked after just 50km and was later joined by Greg LeMond, Laurent Fignon, Gert-Jan Theunisse and Marino Lejarreta, a breakaway royale that stayed away with LeMond winning the sprint.

Today the Chartreuse trilogy is largely forgotten. It makes you wonder what race-winning terrain today could vanish from the collective conscience in the future too.

The post Aura Tour Stage 6 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

A stage for the sprinters only there are so few in the race it could suit the breakaway too.

To offset a predictable preview, today’s postcard tells the tale of one of the best jerseys ever.

Stage 4 Review: sprint or breakaway, that was the question in the morning. It went to the breakaway on a blisteringly fast stage, 47km/h on a hilly day. No early move went clear, too many efforts cancelling each other out. It was only mid-stage that Quinn Simmons went solo and then a counter-group got across. Helped by a “Noah’s ark” tactic with three teams each sending two riders in the move, they only got a slim lead.

Cofidis led the chase to keep the gap at 90 seconds, then Visma-LAB joined. The gap fell but the breakaway was unified as if repeating the previous day’s team time trial. It left a tense final half hour where it was touch and go if the break would make it or the bunch would get them, and suspense both ways as who could win from the break and which sprinters were left?

It’s hard to engineer but a sprint stage that has hills in the early and mid-section can make for a lively stage as it sets up the breakaway and the chase. Like the Giro, the Dauphiné Aura Tour has plenty of terrain on hand for this.

Simmons won the sprint ahead of Finn Fisher-Black and Matteo Vercher, a birthday present for Lidl-Trek team manager Andy Schleck. Three road stages, three breakaway wins.

The Route: 198km and some climbing out of the Gier valley to start with. There’s the unmarked climb out of the Val d’Oingt around the 100km mark amid the Beaujolais vineyards and then its onto flatter terrain where the local is Paul Seixas. Precise knowledge won’t help as the roads are largely flat.

The Finish: the Dombes is a large wetland area full of lakes and ponds and very flat. The finish is the same as the 2015 Dauphiné and 2016 Tour de France finish, flat and the last corner is with 3km to go.

The Contenders: a sprint stage in a race with few sprinters. Wout van Aert (Visma-LAB) won the bunch sprint yesterday ahead of Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) and Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain) and that’s an easy scenario to see again today as Van Aert tends to win while the other two don’t. This trio does seem ahead of other picks, Dorion Godon (Ineos) would like an uphill run to the line, Michael Matthews (Jayco), well he’s 35 and Matteo Trentin (Tudor) is 36.

It’s not easy ambush territory for a Segaert-style move and some of the most likely riders to try this like Edoardo Affini, Benjamin Thomas or Matej Mohorič have sprinters to work for; maybe Josh Tarling has a go but it’ll be hard just to surprise the bunch and get a gap.

	Van Aert
	Bauhaus, Coquard
	Romeo, Godon, Hofstetter, Kockelmann

Weather: 20°C and a light NW wind of 15km/h.

TV: KM0 is at 12.45pm and the finish is forecast for 5.00pm.

Postcard from Saint-Chamond
Today’s start is in the Gier valley between Saint-Etienne and Lyon, an industrial area with steel mills and textile factories only most closed down years ago.

It was in Saint-Chamond that Roger Zannier, the son of an Italian builder, bought two sewing machines in 1962: one for him and one for his sister Josette. He began his own textile business. It flourished and by 1982 Zannier’s company stopped manufacturing clothes and instead was designing and selling them, and able to hire others to manufacture them.

During the 1986 Tour de France the Peugeot team got news from its sponsor that the funding would stop at the end of the year, the end of a sponsorship that began in 1901. This stunned team manager Roger Legeay who convinced TV channel TF1 to do a news feature on the team’s history and its search for a new sponsor. One person watching this was Zannier, now running a successful clothing empire. He and his marketing director went for it and would use their children’s clothing brand “Z” as the new sponsor for 1987. This story is told in full with a lot more detail in the July-essential Pédale mag.

Z started with a bang, their kit featured a bold graphic design because of the new technique of sublimation. As lively as the kit was, the 1987 Tour was a flop for Z. Upcoming hope Ronan Pensec had finished third in the Dauphiné and then decided to do a pre-Tour clean of the gutters on his house and fell, breaking several bones. Zannier had gone all in, pulling all TV and billboard ads for Z to spend the money on a cycling team instead but had little to show.

The next year Zannier knew the results might not be better but wanted the team to be more visible. He bought a TV for his office so he could tune in when coverage started then told Legeay (translated from Pédale):

“Let’s be realistic, we won’t win the Tour, but I want a Z every day in the breakaway at 3.00pm. Do as you like, I don’t care, even if the guy dies at the finish, but I want to see the guys at the front.”

It worked, the team was visible and being up front gave them options on the win and Jérôme Simon took a stage with Gilbert Duclos-Lasalle second on another day.

Zannier was exploring manufacturing in China and found factory owners who had demanded letters of credit now recognised him and Z because they’d seen the glimpses of the Tour de France, knew he was something big and were ready to work for him. Zannier invested more in the team, hiring Robert Millar for 1989 and then for 1990 recruiting Greg LeMond who’d just won the 1989 Tour de France and Worlds. LeMond would win the Tour with Z in 1990 and they took the team prize, it’s the last time a French team won the Tour.

Embed from Getty Images

Zannier pulled the cycling sponsorship but Z kept on retailing for years but the franchises gradually closed in the 2010s, then Zannier had sold out and seemingly left the new buyers with a turkey. The company was liquidated in 2020, it’s HQ in Saint-Chamond closed for good.

Zannier owned other brands like Catimini clothes and Kickers shoes and made a fortune from it all with which he and his family then pivoted towards luxuries, buying a Michelin-starred restaurant and a fancy wine château which he operates today along with his son. A long way from a sewing machine for him and his sister.

Z lives on as an iconic design, the cycling jersey arguably more famous than the chain of children’s clothing stores it represented. It’s also digital indoor cycling platform Zwift lets riders unlock the vintage jersey.

The post Aura Tour Stage 5 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

Sprint or breakaway?

Netcompany Unchained: the stage win for Visma-LAB but it was close with Netcompany-Ineos only nine seconds behind. The Dutch team lost Ben Tullet to a puncture and then Wout van Aert  with 8km to go when apparently he was meant to deliver a lead-out up the final climb. The British team lost Sam Watson to a dropped chain and then the same fate struck Oscar Onley which left them all sitting up to wait to wait for him and this cost them the win. If they’d ridden on they could have won the stage and had Kévin Vauquelin in yellow. By Sunday we’ll know what the right option was.

The big surprise of the day was EF finishing third to keep Alex Baudin in yellow by 12 seconds, again with help thanks to Netcompany’s jumping chains. An impressive result by itself for EF, all the more so given the work they did the previous day too.

A second surprise was UAE in ninth, a minute down and both the position and the time gaps. Lidl-Trek lost 32 seconds, Decathlon CMA-CGM 42 seconds.

To watch the stage was to see a lot of this happening, the format of teams shedding riders is televisual. You could see the confusion for Netcompany-Ineos in the moment, you could see Van Aert dropped early, likewise Stefan Bissegger for Decathlon.

The Route: 165km and 2,250m of vertical gain. The amount of climbing makes this accessible to the sprinters here, just and several teams have riders who can win after a tiring stage but it’s equally open to the breakaway. It’s across the Forez, the forested hilly roads of the Auvergne and then 50km in the final of descent and flat.

The Finish: a long flat road to the finish, no corners or junctions in the final 5km but there are some urban street furniture and traffic calming dividers.

The Contenders: a sprint finish or a breakaway? Just like Monday several team have a house sprinter who could win after today’s hilly course, think Dorian Godon (Netcompany), Wout van Aert (Visma-LAB), Benoît Cosnefroy (UAE) and Michael Matthews (Jayco) but unlike then there’s no reason to hold back today. Godon’s form has looked questionable but did a good ride leading the team until almost the food of the final climb while Van Aert is a harder pick but could still try the sprint while Cosnefroy needs an uphill finish.

There are sprinters here but they have few wins between them. Hugo Hoffstetter (NSN) is a sprinter but a rare winner and not yet in the World Tour. Matthew Fox (Lotto-Intermarché) can be quick but a win today would be more of a surprise than Hoffstetter. Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain) won a Dauphiné stage in 2017. Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) is here too but an infrequent winner and even focussing less on the sprints this year, team mate Valentin Ferron is quick and could aim for the breakaway.

Breakaway specialist Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto-Intermarché) finds terrain to suit, likewise Ivan Romeo (Movistar) and with both it’s solo or bust. Matteo Trentin (Tudor) can do well from a group, maybe Matej Mohorič (Bahrain) too.

	Bauhaus, Godon, Matthews
	Simmons, WvA,
	Hoffstetter, Veistroffer, Romeo, Healy, Ferron

Weather: some rain clearing to leave dry roads, 20°C.

TV: KM0 is at 1.15pm and the finish is forecast for 5.00pm.

Postcard from Montrond-les-Bains
There are only so many roads and over time an annual bike race will return to places it has been before. Today’s finish races where the Dauphiné has been before, in the last few years the race’s westward push has visited this area many times.

With 23km to go today’s stage goes through Mornand-en-Forez, in 2022 it was the mid-stage time check during the 32km time trial stage. Filippo Ganna won the stage but just, two seconds ahead of Wout van Aert. Primož Roglič was the best of the GC riders, his team mate Jonas Vingegaard was next among them 30 seconds back. A teenage Juan Ayuso was 10th, Movistar’s Matteo Jorgenson 11th.

Sacked on the Planche des Belles Filles in 2020, crashing out of the 2021 Tour, Roglič had won Paris-Nice in the spring of 2022 and with the Dauphiné everything seemed back on track, he went into the Tour as a contender alongside Vingegaard who’d matched him on the climb to the Plateau de Solaison. The pair would crack Tadej Pogačar on the Col du Granon, in part because the Slovenian did not eat enough but that was because he was kept under pressure. But by then Roglič was nursing injuries and Vingegaard would win the Tour while Roglič left the race again.

Today’s stage might be hard to extrapolate from but look out for Sunday’s Solaison finish as the Dauphiné goes there just as it did in 2022, and so will the Tour in July.

The post Aura Tour Stage 4 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

A day to reshape the overall classification. A dress rehearsal ahead of the Tour de France? Yes but today’s course is longer and requires more finesse, it’s even more about cohesion than usual.

Antho(n)logy: a ten rider breakaway kept on a six minute leash by EF because the best rider overall up the road was Clément Braz Afonso who started the day 5m35s down on Alex Baudin. Squads with ambitions for today’s team time trial opted out of the racing as best as they could.

With 47km to go Baptiste Veistroffer launched the first attack, taking Braz Afonso with him and this set up a boiling final hour as Braz Afonso dropped Veistroffer on the Baraques climb, normally they had plenty to gain from working together but the others were closing in and Veistroffer just couldn’t climb fast enough to keep clear. From here on the moves kept flying with riders on the limit and seemingly nobody holding back.

Anthon Charmig was in the third group but he and others kept chasing. As soon as he got across kept the group moving. On the final climb of the day through Saint-Vidal and had only five seconds’ lead over Braz Afonso and Raul Garcia Pierna with 11km to go but this was the fitness test of the day. He had the most and stayed away solo for the win.

There’s a small symbolism to the victory as Charmig had ridden for Uno-X before signing for Astana and then returned. It’s important for the team to show that they can reignite careers as having to shop exclusively among Danish and Norwegian riders, one way to avoid paying a premium is to show the performance will improve. Small symbolism as this is not conclusive for all but it was a well-taken win in a race where smaller budget teams need to find opportunities.

The Route: 28km and tricky course. If this a dress rehearsal for the Tour de France’s opening stage, it’s like performing a tricky opera ahead of performing an Abba tribute in Barcelona next month.

The route today uses smaller roads for the first half which keep changing direction and slope, it’s twisty in places and so hard to keep in formation and swap turns like a track pursuit event, instead riders will be changing gears, backing-off, even braking in places. This is most notable about 9km into the course on the descent out of Coutouvre. Rather than a powerhouse, this is where a good pilot can make the difference for the group, picking the best line and setting a pace all can follow.

Once past the second time check it’s on a bigger road that is much faster all the way to the finish. This part was used in the opposite direction in the 2015 Dauphiné TTT with some downhill sections worthy of giant chainrings. The final kilometre sees the route climb into town and it’s narrow and twisty, a chance for the team leaders to make the difference.

The Rules: “Paris-Nice rules” with riders given the time they cross the line with and teams being awarded the time of their first rider across the line.

The Contenders: on paper Netcompany-Ineos are the first pick, they won the Paris-Nice stage with almost the same team, Michał Kwiatkowski was racing then when Laurens de Plus is here today. But they only won by two seconds from Lidl-Trek, but the German team had a more heavyset squad for the stage. Today though is more unpredictable as the first half of the course is more tricky. Visma-LAB are obvious contenders too. It should be one of these teams but UAE and Decathlon-CMA CGM can run them close.

	Netcompany-Ineos, Visma-LAB
	Lidl-Trek
	UAE, Decathlon-CMA CGM

Weather: sunshine and clouds, 21°C. A 15km/h wind from the NW means a tricky 3/4 tailwind for much of the first half, a 3/4 headwind for the second.

TV: the first team off is Picnic-PostNL at 3.05pm and the last is EF Education-Easypost and they’re due in around 5.00pm CEST. If you want the full start order and times, go here.

Postcard from Roanne: today’s stage is in Perreux, population 2,111. It’s a village just outside the town of Roanne, home to over 35,000. It’s not famous for much but like several medium-sized towns is enjoying a revival of sorts because of rising defence orders and reindustrialisation.

The Tour de France visited Roanne in 2023 and the Dauphiné has been here several times, notably in 2015 for a team time trial that used part of today’s course too, the long downhill to the finish today was a drag up to the line. It was a day of mixed fortunes for Swiss teams as BMC won the stage while IAM Cycling managed to crash when going uphill during their recon ride leaving some sore and red-faced. It was a long time ago now but George Bennett rode it for Lotto-Jumbo and Emanuel Buchmann for Bora-Argon 18 and they’re back today with NSN and Cofidis respectively.

For Bennett if there’s déjà vu on these roads that’s also because he came to Europe to race as an amateur and in 2009 joined CR4C Roanne (pictured), a local team that has been among the first division of French amateur teams and sent many riders into the pro ranks.

Now things are different to the point where if an ambitious U23 rider can’t get on a World Tour development squad by the time they’re 21 then many will give up. However it is still, just, an avenue to the pro ranks. Ask Matthew Fox who rode for a French club last year and is now riding today’s team time trial with Lotto-Intermarché.

The post Aura Tour Stage 3 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

A long day and one for the breakaway.

Stage 1 review: the win for Alex Baudin, he went in the early breakaway with eight others and the group struggled to get more than two minutes with Decathlon-CMA CGM leading the chase although reduced by one rider when Matthew Riccitello abandoned, struck with food poisoning. The escapees looked doomed going into the final climb.

Baudin rode away from his companions and crucially did not lose any time on the chasing bunch. The big teams set a strong pace up the climb and dropped plenty but no squad would use up their riders. Baudin was out of reach as long as the main contenders watched each other.

He landed his biggest win, after taking the tricky Tour du Limousin before and is now building a palmarès when before he was noted for being disqualified from the Giro following a Tramadol test, an outcome that was never explained.

One back to the valley floor the group saw attacks fly and riders profiting from the lack of control, notably Netcompany pair Oscar Onley and Kévin Vauquelin. Lidl-Trek missed the moves completely and Mattias Skjelmose and Juan Ayuso made some big moves to chase, Paul Seixas had Léo Bisiaux up the road but later on joined in the chase and his effort along with Ayuso seemed to shrink the gap and being 30 seconds behind at one point it was down to 12 on the line led home with a powerful sprint by Isaac Del Toro.

The Route: 234km and 3,800m of vertical gain. This amount of climbing is worthy of a mountain stage but today’s route has nothing too severe, instead the distance over a long course just means the climbing adds up. The route sticks to hilly terrain, avoiding valley roads and plains.

The Col du Chatain at the start is the hardest climb of the day, irregular and on a narrow road. The next climb is more gentle amid farmland. Then it’s across to the Rhone valley.

The Col Robert Marchand is the subject of today’s postcard and comes mid-way between the Rhone valley floor and the unmarked Col des Barraques, this is about 50km of climbing and if it’s rarely steep, it’s long period of load on the pedals.

The Côte des Baraques is a tough climb with 200km done, there’s 3km at 8.5%.

The final climb through Saint-Vidal is irregular with some steep sections but all open, it’s less about ambush and who has any force left.

The Finish: a scenic run through Le Puy-en-Velay and flat.

The Contenders: this is probably a day for the breakaway but several team have a house sprinter who could win today, think Dorian Godon (Netcompany), Wout van Aert (Visma-LAB), Benoît Cosnefroy (UAE) and Michael Matthews (Jayco) so we’ll if they go in the breakaway or if not whether their teams want to chase for five hours. All these names can infiltrate the break and win from there too.

Otherwise take a pick from breakaway candidates who are no threats to the GC contenders. A stage winner last year, Ivan Romeo (Movistar) is suited to this course, likewise team mate Pablo Castrillo. Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto-Intermarché) is a breakaway specialist but this is a hilly day and he’s not a prolific winner nor is his team. By contrast Georg Steinhauser (EF) can win from here but will he be needed to defend Baudin’s yellow jersey, likewise Ben Healy? The course suits Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) and Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

	Cosnefroy, Van Aert
	Godon, Simmons
	FF-B, Romeo, Matthews, Kron, Govekar

Weather: sunshine and 25°C along the way but with a good chance of a downpour and thunderstorm towards the finish.

TV: KM0 is at 11.30am and the finish is due for 5.00pm.

Postcard from Saint-Félicien
Midway today there’s the Col Robert Marchand, a mountain pass named in tribute to Robert Marchand who among many things, set an hour record at the age of 102. He was a racer from the start, as a boy he had to pretend he was older in order to be able to start his first race.

As an adult he took up gymnastics and became French champion in one discipline. A firefighter, time spent in Venezuela and the Caribbean planting sugar cane, a lumberjack in Canada, he led a colourful life. But it was in retirement that he became famous when he took up cycling again at the age of 67 and started doing various long distance cyclosportif events.

One of these was the Ardèchoise where he made his debut at the age of 88 and he became a sort of mascot of the event. Such that he got to enjoy a mountain pass being named after him in 2011. But the moment was spoiled when riding to the commemoration as a truck clipped the Ardèchoise’s co-founder Gérard Mistler, who swerved and took out Marchand. The 99 year old fell hard needing 17 stitches. He resumed cycling but after the crash decided to limit himself to 100km a day.

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At the age of 100 and then 102 he set hour records on the track, reaching 26.925 in 2014. This was a side-project, born out of a challenge to see how far he could ride on a static bike in his home on his 100th birthday. He kept on riding for more years and considered a fresh attempt at hour record at the age of 107 but this was not an official attempt, in part because the UCI did not want to be responsible for an event with a 107 year old and any health issues… but he still lapped the velodrome and in front of big audience. He died in May 2021 at the age of 109. Gérard Mistler put his longevity down to “physical upkeep, mental upkeep and optimism“.

The Col Robert Marchand climbed today was easy to rename. It is not a new road, instead it had long been Col du Marchand, literally “Merchant’s Past”, suggesting a long-established trade route to and from Saint-Félicien. It doesn’t show easily in the photo above but squint and you can see the old Col du Marchand sign on the left and on the right, set in fresh concrete, is the Col Robert Marchand sign. It’s a fitting tribute – especially as he was born in 1911 and the pass sits at 911m – but also opens up the possibility of renaming other mountain passes. But it’ll be a while before we get a story as remarkable as Robert Marchand.

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A tough stage to start that borrows from three mountain ranges.

The Route: 140km and 3,200m of vertical gain. Is this a mountain stage? Yes, and sure it only a warm-up compared to what awaits next weekend but this takes in three mountain ranges in a day and some tough climbing.

After Vizille it’s into the Vercors mountains with a drag up to the intermediate sprint – on Paul Magnier’s home roads – and then where the Col de l’Arzelier looks soft at 5.7%, stare at the profile more and you’ll see the flat section mid-way. The first kilometre is savage with 12-15% and then two thirds of the way up there’s more steep sections.

The “Côte de Quaix” is the hard part of the Col de Palaquit in the Chartreuse Alps, complete with 12% sections on a narrow road before crossing to the Col de Vence, the Dauphiné and Tour have been here before. The descent to the valley is on a bigger road.

The final climb of the day is notable because it’s consistently steep, 8km at over 7%.

The Finish: a ride into Saint-Ismier, a suburb of Grenoble and flat.

The Contenders: who attacks where? Today could see a select group of the GC contenders coming into contest the win. The best climber and descender? Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) fits the bill here, one thing we’ve yet to see is how he sprints in a small group. Isaac del Toro (UAE) is another comparative pick.

Today’s climbs are Alpine but shorter in length so Netcompany-Ineos pair Oscar Onley and Kévin Vauquelin find terrain to suit… and to see which is the better bet for July.

Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-Quickstep) is unlikely to be winning overall but despite the waif-like build he’s a hustler for sprint finishes.

For riders unsure of winning outright summit finishes this is a big chance, so Santiago Buitrago and Pello Bilbao (Bahrain) come to mind.

The early breakaway has a chance if the big teams look to each other rather than trying to lock down the race. So Ben Healy (EF), Marco Frigo (NSN) and team mates Ivan Romeo and Diego Pescador (Movistar) are longshots but normally they won’t get much space in 140km.

	Seixas, Del Toro, VP-P
	Onley, Buitrago
	Bilbao, Healy, Vauquelin, Romeo, Van Gils

Weather: sunny and 25°C.

TV: KM0 is at 11.15am. The last 90 minutes live on TV and an early finish forecast for 2.50pm CEST.

Postcard from Grenoble
The race will begin today with a brief tribute to Thierry Cazeneuve who was the organiser from 1988 to 2009. He died in January earlier this year at the age of 74.

Georges Cazeneuve was one of several ex-resistance founders of the Dauphiné libéré newspaper in 1945. His idea to launch a bike race to boost sales in 1947 was a great idea. His nephew Thierry took over the race in 1988 after joining the newspaper in 1973, and as a boy he’d sold newspapers to the crowds at the race.

Becoming organiser was no gilded inheritance, the newspaper got bought by outsiders in the early 1980s and one of the first thing the new owners and their accountants spotted was the big loss from running a bicycle race. They were going to pull the plug on the race only for the news to leak – from where or who, we can imagine – and letters flooded in from readers asking for the race to be maintained.

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Thierry Cazeneuve was the Dauphiné organiser for a week in June and all the meetings and calls that were needed before and after but his main job was a journalist on the sports desk at Le Dauphiné libéré. He covered rugby during the winter and cycling in the summer. He had more the rugby player’s build, bolstered by a passion for cooking at home.

His position as a race organiser made him an insider in the sport but he compartmentalised this and every July became a suiveur of the Tour de France, “a follower who deserves to be followed” quipped Antoine Blondin. The Dauphiné libéré’s own obituary for him says the culinary Michelin Guide sometimes mattered more than the Roadbook when on the Tour, for him it was all about the journey and story-telling. As in sharing what he saw, he cautioned several times about inventing myths and urged writers to stick to the facts.

He took over writing the official Tour de France history books from Pierre Chany and also became president of the Ligue nationale de cyclisme, France’s governing body of professional cycling, between 2003 and 2007 too.

He sounded like terrific company for a long lunch, especially if you let him pick the place. All these hats but he’s best remembered as the race organiser, reviving the event and prolonging it for as long as possible. His death at 74 was too early, he’d have loved to see Paul Seixas in action again but you dread to wonder what he’d have made of the race dropping the Dauphiné label.

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The Dauphiné, the Tour of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes… or the Tour de l’Avenir? This race does feel futuristic as the last two Avenir winners Isaac Del Toro and Paul Seixas are set to duel here and for years to come. There are other challengers including 23 year old Juan Ayuso and 21 year old Jørgen Nordhagen, and a tough course ahead.

The Route
It starts this Sunday and goes to the following Sunday. There’s a more in detail in January’s stage-by-stage look when the route came out. The summary is that the opening day could be a GC day, there’s only one flat sprint stage but two other chances for those that can handle the hills. There’s a 28km team time trial under “Paris-Nice rules” as a dress rehearsal for the Tour de France and three summit finishes that get increasingly hard. No solo time trial and no time bonuses.

The Contenders

UAE bring João Almeida and Isaac del Toro. Almeida missed his big goal of the Giro with illness and his form is unknown, he’s said he’s not at his best and is rebuilding for the Vuelta rather than planning to do the Tour de France. That’s downplaying expectations but he’s not here to make up the numbers. If his quest is to win a grand tour, he’s a proven winner in one week stage races and can aim for a result to lengthen his elongated palmarès.

Del Toro has won Tirreno-Adriatico and the UAE Tour this season and is now after a big win, a triumph here would show he can master the Alps and crucially this is a rare chance at team leadership in such a big race, of all the contenders he’s the one for whom this week matters most. We’ll see how he fares in the high mountains, the assumption is brilliantly but this is a frontier for him as he’s been so good in hilly races and capable in the mountains but not yet decisive. 20 year old Pablo Torres is one to watch too. The team time trial is a challenge, despite all their talent this discipline is a persistent concern, see how they were eighth in Paris-Nice, within seconds of being beaten by Groupama-FDJ and Cofidis and so need to show reliability here.

Home hopes rest with Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) and he’s not playing down his chances with open talk of going for the win. An encouraging eighth last year, his progress since has been fulgurant. This season he’s won the Itzulia Basque Country with an extravagant performance, taken the Flèche Wallonne by riding the field off his wheel and was the only rider who could follow Tadej Pogačar up La Redoute on the road to Liège. Since then he’s been to altitude which seems as important for his confidence as his physiology and the form is here going by his Strava KOM on the Tourmalet and if context such as wind and drafting matters, it shows he’s not struggling. Daan Hoole and Stefan Bissegger strengthen the squad for the team time trial but the team look top-5 rather than winners so it’ll be on Seixas to out-climb the field. All this and he’s now in the spotlight with le Seixasmania on the up, everyone will want a piece of him this week, his every move studied. They’ll be an inquisition if he loses, as in finishes second, but it’d be no bad thing to moderate expectations.

Lidl-Trek are having a dire season and have just sacked management, Cofidis-style. But a lot of the poor performance was down to injury and among them Juan Ayuso. No staff changes could prevent him crashing out of Paris-Nice while wearing yellow. He makes his racing return and where to set expectations? Here’s here as a GC contender and a podium finish ought to satisfy on his comeback at it’ll confirm he’s on track for the Tour. He’s got backing for the team time trial and Mattias Skjelmose as a second option for GC as the Dane arguably needs a result more as he risks being recategorised as a domestique… or shopping for a new team.

If Lidl-Trek’s management shake-up got the headlines, Netcompany-Ineos’s CEO John Allert has just left although he wasn’t a public figurehead. There’s a wider point about a team with grey jerseys searching for a project and identity and it won’t be solved this week. In the meantime they have a great squad for the team time trial and if they win this puts them ahead. The test will come in the mountains and if they win the TTT whether Oscar Onley, Carlos Rodriguez and Kévin Vauquelin can defend their lead for three straight days. Each has a point to prove. For Onley just repeating last year’s fourth place at the Tour de France is a big ask but with experience and a better-resourced team he’s expected to improve, a similar story for Vauquelin too although for both this need not mean instant results this week. For Rodriguez, the sizzle has stopped but the underlying talent is there and a week of good weather is a useful pre-Tour test.

Visma-LAB have Matteo Jorgenson and Jørgen Nordhagen. Jorgenson’s been second here before and has shown he can win week-long stage races like Paris-Nice but how to win? This year’s route has steep, long climbs up the Grand Colombier and to the Plateau de Solaison which don’t suit him as well, he’s excellent on 20 minutes but 40 minutes is harder but this is relative, at his best he’s capable. Nordhagen is more the pure climber or to use a lazy shortcut, the “new Vingegaard” as he’s a similar build and Scandinavian but wiser view is he’s out to define himself and due a result soon. They’ll enjoy the team time trial with Van Aert, Affini and Armirail as engines.

Uno-X come with Tobias Halland Johannessen, another Tour de l’Avenir winner and sixth in the Tour de France last year and never outside the top-10 in three world tour stages this year he’s becoming more consistent but not sparkling.

Movistar are quietly improving and Cian Uijtdebroeks is their leader. A win would be surprise, now in his fifth season as a pro he’s only won the Tour de l’Ain. The team looks coherent for the team time trial.

Dani Martinez (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) leads the team in the absence of Remco Evenepoel and was second in Paris-Nice thanks to making the split on the rainy day in the Morvan but never bothered Vingegaard. Luke Tuckwell and Callum Thornley are here for experience and worth watching.

Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain) is here after leaving the Giro after the Stage 2 crash. A great rider but an infrequent winner, he’d surely settle for a stage this week.

Finally Luke Plapp (Jayco) is here with some gentle GC ambitions. Third place in the UAE Tour and fifth in Romandie shows his stage racing abilities but now has a test on a trickier course where descending and positioning will count for more.

	–
	Del Toro, Seixas
	Ayuso
	Almeida, Jorgenson, Nordhagen
	Onley, Rodriguez, Vauquelin

TV: It’s on the same channel you watch the Tour de France. For locals and VPN users see France3.

The good news is that no clash Roland-Garros tennis means more normal timing except for this Sunday’s opener which finishes at 3.00pm CEST. Mid-week it’s 5pm every day, the following Saturday is 4.00pm and the final stage is at 5.00pm. The bad news is that we get light coverage with often only the last 90 minutes but more for the final weekend.

Weather: mainly warm and sunny but with this the chance of thunderstorms later in the day, and caution that it’s hard to rely on predictions this far out.

The post Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

The Critérium du Dauphiné is now the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The change was announced last year but will need time to feel right.

The new name is like a mouthful to say and a handful to type but the real problem is not the name change, more that it should have happened long ago.

History
Georges Cazeneuve was one of the founders of Le Dauphiné Libéré newspaper which was launched in 1945, its name evoked the Dauphiné area in the Alps and the newly-liberated France. The first edition appeared on 7 September 1945, the front page mentions Hiroshima.

The newspaper had local competition and Cazeneuve hit on the idea of a bike race to promote his paper. In 1947 the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré was launched. Critérium gets used today to mean an urban bike race lapping a short circuit but the original meaning was a selective race. The stunt worked, the paper and race thrived.

Dauphiné?
The Dauphiné was an old kingdom and principality that has long since vanished. Its capital was the city of Grenoble. It lives on as a vague name and local identity. There’s the newspaper with its HQ in Grenoble and a few old street names, plus it’s also used for some regional branding, for example the local crops of walnuts can be branded Noix du Dauphiné. It roughly overlaps the Isère department.

Over the years the race went further the Dauphiné region and beyond where the Dauphiné Libéré paper is sold. But Grenoble has hosted the race more than anywhere else with 45 stage starts and 60 stage finishes, double that of any other location. Later run by Thierry Cazeneuve, nephew of Georgesf and also a journalist, he would organise the race in June and by July revert back to covering cycling at the Tour de France from the press room.

Takeover
In 2010 Tour de France organisers ASO took over the race from the newspaper and renamed it the Critérium du Dauphiné. Chopping “libéré” made sense as the newspaper has nothing to do with the race, it was probably a condition of the deal.

Regional change
In 2016 as part of a regional government reorganisation the Rhône-Alpes region merged with the Auvergne region to form a mega region, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The enlarged region is vast, comparable in size to Ireland, the UAE or Sri Lanka; more than 1.5 times the size of Switzerland; bigger than two Belgiums.

The enlarged region took to sponsoring the race. It makes sense as the route can help knit together these two areas and with this sponsorship the race has ranged wide. The map below shows the whole region with the yellow outline for the Isère and Drome departments being a proxy for the ancient Dauphiné area.

Indeed lately the race has spent so much time in the Auvergne it’s barely visited the Dauphiné. In recent years there have been editions where it’s probably spent thirty minutes in the Isère department. All those visits to Grenoble over the years? Only twice in the past 10 years. Today the race’s wide remit means a loss of identity, it ranges so wide that there a changes in architecture, geology, vegetation, it almost feels rootless and certainly hasn’t looked like the Dauphiné.

The result is the Dauphiné-race long stopped racing in the Dauphiné-area. This is a pity as it’s a great place for cycling. You could hold a week long stage race in this area and have everything from sprint stages to high mountain passes, tiny backroad climbs and ski resorts like, all in a scenic spot, with a defined identity and enough variety with plenty of mountain passes; plus fewer transfers.

If there was a campaign to relocate the race back to this region, this blog would be posting about it, raving about the roads in the Vercors and Champsaur, and linking to the petition. But that’s not happening. So if the race is not in the Dauphiné that’s a good reason to bin “the Dauphiné” label.

Also the Dauphiné is an old region that few know. Maybe you know it thanks to the cycling race? But it’s not easy to find out what it means today. If the whole point of the race at the start was to promote a newspaper, having a name today that only evokes a Ye Olde Kingdom is defunct.

Conclusion
The race doesn’t take place in the Dauphiné any more but it’ll be hard to stop reflexively calling it the Dauphiné. In an ideal world the race would still be the Dauphiné, and it would race exclusively in the Dauphiné region. Since it doesn’t, better to reflect where it does visit. The surprise is that after a decade of roaming the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes under the region’s patronage is that it’s taken so long to change the name.

The Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is a mouthful to say and a handful to type, and if that’s just for one week of the year for cycling fans, imagine it for locals? Instead many have solved it by calling their region “Au-RA”. If you wanted a better name than the Dauphiné, how about the Aura Tour?

The post Adieu Dauphiné, Bonjour Aura first appeared on The Inner Ring.