Here is the Tour de France stage-by-stage guide with all the profiles on one page along with a summary of each stage.

From here through July you’ll find all the stage profiles at inrng.com/tour which can be found via the menu at the top of the page, which also has a all the relevant sports rules and regulation for the race including the new scales for the points and mountain competitions, both of which have changed this year and are explained quickly below here too if you want to scroll.

Route Summary
54,450m of vertical gain in total, the third most mountainous route in the last 20 years (average is 50,400m) but a lot of this climbing is away from the set-piece mountain stages and reserved for battles stages in the mid-mountains. There are seven summit finishes but some are mild like Les Angles and Gavarnie. One solo time trial with 26km makes it the third lightest for TT distance in the last 20 years (average 50km). The sprinters get five clear chances, the same as last year but those with range have a shot at more wins.

The start in Barcelona obliges an early visit to the Pyrenees and so these are more hors-d’œuvre than main course. Indeed the route seems designed to leave the reveal of the winner for as late as possible with mid-mountain stages that look promising for frantic breakaway days, although even better if the big names want to try too.

There’s no realistic course that could trouble Pogačar – a blend of 21 sprints and time trials could thwart him but it’s not a realistic prospect – and so even if we think we know the winner already, plenty of stages along the way offer amusement before the Alpe d’Huez finale.

Stage 1 – Saturday 4 July

A team time trial in Barcelona. Held in the evening, the time of each team is taken on their first rider across the line and all riders get credited with the time it takes them to complete the course. It’s on big boulevards at first where strong riders can propel their teams before two climbs in Montjuïc where team leaders will make their bids for the first yellow jersey.

Stage 2 – Sunday 5 July

A spin up the Mediterranean coast then turning inland to add some climbing in the hills before a finishing circuit in Barcelona with the finish again in Montjuïc. The finish line is in the same place as the first stage but the preceding climb is different, it’s steeper and was used when the Vuelta a España finished here in 2023. If it helps imagine the Volta a Catalunya finish, just harder.

Stage 3 – Monday 6 July

A mountain stage? It goes into the Pyrenees, there are 3,850m of vertical gain and the finish is just short of 1,800m above sea level so yes. The finish isn’t savage but has some hairpins and should give us a glimpse of form.

Stage 4 – Tuesday 7 July

2,700m of vertical gain and this looks like an ideal mid-mountain stage for the breakaway, especially if the yellow jersey after Barcelona and Les Angles wants to give it away to better reclaim it later. It’s all on scenic roads of the Aude and Ariège.

Stage 5 – Wednesday 8 July

The stage goes to Pau for the 77th time. It’s not totally flat but this is a day for the sprinters.

Stage 6 – Thursday 9 July

The Tourmalet awaits after the classic route out of Pau via Lourdes to the Col d’Aspin. So far, so déjà vu but the finish is novel with the climb to the village of Gavarnie. It’s a spectacular location inside a national park which explains why the race hasn’t been here before and if it works it opens up more routes that’s exciting as same road goes on to the Col de Tentes at over 2,200m but next time as that would be too much for the first Thursday.

Stage 7 – Friday 10 July

A sprint finish in Bordeaux. We’ll see if anyone attacks at all given the move is certain to be reeled in.

Stage 8 – Saturday 11 July

A sprint stage, this time arguably more scenic as it follows the Dordogne valley to Bergerac.

Stage 9 – Sunday 12 July

A day for the breakaway on hilly terrain with sapping rural roads that offer little rest. It’s likely more teams have spent more time analysing this stage than the Alpe d’Huez days as so many will want to go for the win on a day with plenty of uncategorised climbs. Expect a raucous first hour and more.

Stage 10 – Tuesday 14 July

Bastille day and it’s back to Le Lioran for the third time this decade after 2020 and 2024. Visitors to the ski station could be forgiven for thinking there’s only one road there as the same roads are used again: the steep Pas de Peyrol and the Col de Pertus leading to the Font de Cère. It’s no bad thing, a photofinish was needed to separate Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard last time.

Stage 11 – Wednesday 15 July

A flat stage to Nevers. When Paris-Nice came here in 2024 the team time trial found a steep hill to spice up the finish but this time it’s a day pledged to the sprinters.

Stage 12 – Thursday 16 July

Hillier than the previous stage, the sprinters will be desperate to take this as afterwards their opportunities vanish.

Stage 13 – Friday 17 July

The first two editions of the Tour de France did cross some small mountain passes and hills but in 1905 the Ballon d’Alsace was the first big mountain tackled by the race. Today it takes 150km to reach it which is a problem for the eventual stage winner as they’ll have to cope with pushing a big gear for hours before finding their climbing legs to make their winning move. Will the GC riders attack? Don’t bet on it given the next stage.

Stage 14 – Saturday 18 July

Only 155km and 3,800m of vertical gain but this is a crucial stage. The race has crossed the Col du Haag many times but in passing along the ridge of the Grand Ballon. Now it takes a new route up, a forest track that’s been paved to use as a cycle path and it’s steep and cycle-path wide in places, think an Alsatian version of the Col de Loze.

Stage 15 – Sunday 19 July

With luck we could have two races for the price of one as the breakaway goes clear to contest the stage win and the GC contenders battle it out. The stage opens in the Jura mountains and some gentle but persistent climbs. The “new” climb is Mont Salève, climbed via the direct route on the north-west flank and while the profile says it’s 4.7km at 11%, it climbs to the start making it 9km at 9% and the upper half has sustained sections at 15% so plenty will be dropped here. There’s still about a third of the stage left before the final climb to the Plateau de Solaison, 11km at 9% where Isaac del Toro just wrapped up the Aura Tour.

Stage 16 – Tuesday 21 July

A time trial on the shores of Lake Geneva. The hilly climb out of Evian is gradual, it climbs at 3% most of the time on a regular road before a trickier descent. What looks flat for the final 8km is twisty in Thonon.

Stage 17 – Wednesday 22 July

Plenty of jagged peaks and cliffs on the horizon but the route avoids the mountain roads. It still crosses the Massif des Bauges and climbs to the Col du Frêne before dropping back to skirt the start town of Chambéry and then take the Col de Couz before the route reaches the plains for Voiron which hosted the Vuelta’s French arrival last year. Sold as a sprint stage when presented last autumn, many will be tired now and this is a great day for a breakaway battle.

Stage 18 – Thursday 23 July

A ski station summit finish that avoids the high passes, the Col de la Festinière comes after Monteynard and no surprises before the finish in Orcière-Merlette, 7km at 6.5%. It featured in the 2020 Tour’s first week and the low gradient saw teams ride up in train formation and anyone who struck out was mown down. Coming in the third week means it should be different and a breakaway should be clear for the stage win.

Stage 19 – Friday 24 July

Just 130km. The Bayard and then Noyer climbs will sting early on as a move tries to go clear for the day. The Col d’Ornon is a gentle climb before a spectacular descent to Le Bourg d’Oisans. Then come the 21 hairpins – 23 if you actually count them – to the finish line in Alpe d’Huez, back after a four year hiatus. It’s famous for being famous but with 13km at over 8% it’s a decisive climb.

Stage 20 – Saturday 26 July

After the peloton’s had a rough night’s sleep at 1900m in Alpe d’Huez here comes the Queen Stage with 5,600m of vertical gain. The Croix de Fer is a big start and then comes the mighty Galibier, the high point of the Tour. The plot twist is rather than the descent all the way to Le Bourg d’Oisans at the foot of Alpe d’Huez, a right turn instead to tackle the Col de Sarenne which leads onto Alpe d’Huez via a backroad. The Sarenne has been used before but as a descent and the climb is tougher than the stats suggest.

Stage 21 – Sunday 26 July

It’s back to Paris with the Rue Le Pic and Montmartre making an encore after the thrills they supplied the last time. The Paris match will be slightly different this time with a longer passage along the Champs-Elysées in between to lengthen the laps and give some riders more chance to chase in between the ascents of Montmartre.

The Unmissable Stages
Do you really want to miss anything? Every stage is live from start to finish and with most of the best riders present and in peak form there’s an intensity and pressure only felt at the Tour.

The easy advice is to say watch almost everything but on the sprint stages tune in for the finish; but if you did that last year you’d have missed Jonas Rickaert and Mathieu van der Poel’s thrilling move.

• Stage 1 should look the part amid the landmarks of Barcelona and the team time trial is now a televisual event thanks to the rule timing riders individually
• Stage 2 should offer lively sport in the finish
• Stage 6 for the Tourmalet and Gavarnie finish
• Stage 9 for the breakaway battle, the first hour could be more thrilling than the last
• Stage 14 for the Vosges mountains and the Haag summit finish
• Stage 15 for the Plateau de Solaison finish
• Stage 19 for the Alpe d’Huez summit finish
• Stage 20 and the Alpe d’Huez encore, hopefully there’s some suspense left
• Stage 21 for the Paris match in Montmartre

Points and Mountains competition changes
If you’ve made it this far, some news too. For 2026 points competition sees more points awarded on flat stages, 70 for the winner instead of 50 and this should tilt the green jersey contest even more towards the sprinters. Similarly there are more points at the intermediate sprint too with 25 to the winner when it has been 20 before.

The mountains competition no longer awards double points for the highest climb. Obviously this should make the polka dot jersey less dependent on one moment, ie the Galibier on Stage 20 where it’ll be 20 points for an HC climb as usual, rather than the 40 points we saw awarded on the Col de la Loze last year.

The new scales for 2026 are listed in full at inrng.com/tour

The post Tour de France Stage Guide first appeared on The Inner Ring.

The Tour de Suisse starts in Italy today and there are only five stages. What was once the fourth biggest stage race on the World Tour calendar has now become the joint-shortest.

If Pogačar wins on Sunday he’ll add the Tour de Suisse to his palmarès where he’s got little else to win beyond the Vuelta and Olympics. If Primož Roglič wins he’ll add the only missing stage race, alongside the Tour of course. Missing because the Tour de Suisse has been held up as a week-long race to go alongside the Dauphiné, the Tour of the Basque Country, Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico and other pillars of the calendar. Now at five days nobody will put an asterisk next to the Tour de Suisse but it is not what it was.

The Tour de Suisse started in 1933. Despite the French name, it was organised by the Schweizerischer Radfahrer Bund, one of two cycling federations in Switzerland at the time and as the name hints, the one from the German-speaking cantons. Rather than being called the Schweizer Rundfahrt, French was for long the international language of cycling and the Tour de Suisse label was used to appeal outside of the country.

The race has shrunk over time. It used to have a mid-week start and finish. In 1986 it started on a Tuesday and after 12 days of racing finished on a Friday. In 2004 it settled on the weekend-to-weekend format, nine days from Saturday to Sunday. In 2021 it went to eight days, Sunday to Sunday.

Now in 2026 it’s been cut to five days. It makes the race is shorter than the Tour Down Under and the Tour de Romandie, and only matched by the Renewi Tour, five days too. Anything less probably wouldn’t be allowed as a World Tour stage race.

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Why the shrinkage? There’s some spin around this. The women’s Tour de Suisse is growing from three days to five so the men’s reduction has been presented as equalisation. It’s great that the women get five days. But what is also happening is the women’s race happens in the morning, the men in the afternoon and on the same course which allows for savings as the organisers have the same finish arch in place, the same staff on the ground. Putting the women’s race in the morning gives them low audiences compared to the men’s race in the late afternoon.

In an interview with newspaper HLN (paywall), Thomas Spiegel of race shareholder Flanders Classics (it bought in 2023) call it a facelift and say the race has been “condensed” to better accommodate riders wishing to dip and in out of pre-Tour altitude training camps.

Read the Swiss press and the message is blunt: the race has been shortened because it has had financial and logistical difficulties. News website Watson.ch says the Tour de Suisse budget last year was eight million Swiss francs (€8.7m), of which the women’s race was one million and it lost several hundred thousand francs. Now the budget is cut to six million, and putting on both races together saves money. But a shrinking race is less valuable, five days of content rather than eight.

Similarly the concept of having the start and finish in the same place each day has its merits, the idea is to create an event for the day rather than seeing the buses park, riders assemble then then ride away, host towns now get a lot more. But again this is not always by choice, another report suggest the race was struggling to find routes with locals and “growing opposition” to road closures.

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What happens in here though can happen elsewhere. The Tour of California came and went because it was financially unviable. The Volta Catalunya has needed emergency loans. The Tour de Romandie has financial troubles today. If wealthy Switzerland has problems running bike races, look at its neighbouring countries with high debts that are looking for budget cuts and sports funding by regional government is a soft slice. Meanwhile countries like the UK and Germany have disproportionately small races outside of the World Tour.

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None of this criticism is meant to be against the race. There’s the famous joke told by Woody Allen at the start of his film Annie Hall where he cites two women at a resort and one says “Boy the food at this place is really terrible” and the other says “Yeah, I know, and such small portions.” Today the only complaint is that the serving has shrunk but the dish remains mouthwatering. Give me more racing, give me the Sustenpass, the Furka, the Grosse Scheidegg, the Albula, the Gotthard and its Tremola cobbles, glacial lakes and landscapes that evoke the Sound of Music and Heidi, the Shangri-La for Alpine cycling, and all in the sublime June sunshine.

Conclusion
A diminished Tour de Suisse goes from eight to five days. Once heralded as the fourth stage race of the season, now its ranks alongside the Renewi Tour, although with far better scenery. Contrary to some reports, the shrinkage is because of financial losses.

The dual format of men and women will be interesting to watch, as will the circuits format but less from a sports viewpoint and more the insider perspective of logistics and event management. There’s plenty to enjoy, the wish is there was more.

The post The Shrinking Tour de Suisse first appeared on The Inner Ring.

A mid-summer look at the team standings now the Tour de France looms large.

UAE lead the rankings but the surprise is they’re not that far ahead. It’s easily explained by Tadej Pogačar not racing as much this season as before and their Giro being reduced to stage hunting but the result is they’re less than two thousand points clear when this time last year they were ahead by over six thousand.

A year ago too Lidl-Trek were in second place but now sit in sixth place, the result of their modest start to the season which has seen a management shake-up take place. Lidl now owns the team and so is able to directly hold managers accountable. But just as in football it’s easy – but expensive – to rotate management but this rarely guarantees change as a successful manager on a team is often the product of a system rather than a lone genius.

Visma-LAB sit third and a reminder that there’s still no replacement sponsor for the Norwegian IT firm. Ahead of the Giro Jonas Vingegaard said he was relaxed as if there’s no title sponsorship deal then the team will still be underwritten by Dutch billionaire Robert van der Wallen something the team was quick to tackle as the “we don’t really need a sponsor” message was not helpful and presupposes the generosity of Van der Wallen. As rich as he might be and with Visma keen to remain a smaller sponsor, there are millions to backfill quickly so it’s a concern there’s no news. Fingers crossed for a Tour rest day press conference with some good news.

Relegation candidates last time, Jayco are clear this time so something to cheer but their best scorer Mauro Schmid is off to Q36.5 next year and there’s no visibility for the team in terms of ongoing sponsorship. Having points is necessary to avoid relegation but not sufficient if the funding has dried up.

The grey line on the chart represents the border between 18th and 19th place. Notionally this is the relegation point at the end of the 2026-2027-2028 cycle. It’s far away, and also conditional on there being 18 teams in the World Tour. Still we can see a cluster of teams around this point. With Q36.5 and Tudor expanding and hiring more riders – points machine Arnaud De Lie is set to join Tudor – and Cofidis just doing alright it’s putting pressure on other teams. Romain Grégoire has extended his deal with Groupama-FDJ, something the team really needed as he’s been their best points scorer but as they unload other riders we’ll see who they sign.

20th placed EF have twin problems of few points and a sponsor search with no news. Officially the idea is to find a new sponsor to pour more money on top to expand the team budget but it’s also signalling EF is stepping off the team budget inflation train and in the absence of a new title sponsor budgets will be tight. All this goes together as the results so far may not be enticing new backers given as things stand they face relegation, although the Dauphiné helped for publicity and so will a good Tour de Suisse and Tour de France for points if Richard Carapaz thrives and the quality of the roster should help them score once injured riders find form. For now Alex Baudin is their top scorer on 933 points. A regular reminder that for this team and all others new sponsorship contracts needs to filed for the UCI’s soft deadline of October and so a deal ought to be signed already.

Poor Picnic-PostNL sit in 28th place. The lack of results is obvious, just one win this season but it’s so much worse than that with few placings thanks to a series of injuries, all on a squad with few stars beyond Fabio Jakobsen who alas seems to be heading for retirement. Beyond the results, doing daily previews here means downloading the official results sheets every evening and this technical document lists the results, standings in all the points competitions, any commissaire decisions for fines and yellow cards and more, including the order of team vehicles for the following day which is ordered by the position of the first rider from each team on the overall classification. Often the Dutch team is last – pictured – and it must weigh on staff as they sit so far from the action each day. There’s no end in sight with their best scorer Pavel Bittner nursing an ankle injury and uncertain for the Tour; their most talented rider Max Poole is still struck by post-viral fatigue and hoping to ride the Vuelta.

There’s the three year promotion and relegation cycle far away on the horizon but also the one year rankings. Bardiani-CSF now sit in 30th place and so are eligible, just, for an invite to the Giro next year because of the rule that says only teams in the top-30 can ride a grand tour. Note Modern Adventure Cycling have impressed by winning the Tour de Wallonie against World Tour opposition but the US team only has 906 points and 32nd place so far.

Kern Pharma are due to stop at the end of the season; plus there’s no news on a replacement sponsor for TotalEnergies but note if these teams vanish it does not advantage the remaining squads for next year. The rule is written such that the top-30 is based on the end of year rankings rather than the start of next season among ongoing teams; it ought to be revised.

Conclusion
Count the points today but watch the sponsors. Picnic-PostNL are into the relegation battle already thanks to a dire score but while they and several other teams aim to score, their survival is conditional on financial backing. Will Picnic renew, would another company be interested in taking over?

It’s early in the three year cycle to assess the other teams for the relegation contest due in 2028 but any crystal ball is clouded further by question of which teams are still around by then. The upcoming Tour de France will play its outsized role here, both in terms of results and VIP moments with potential backers.

The post UCI Team Rankings first appeared on The Inner Ring.

Isaac del Toro rides solo to the Plateau de Solaison. Third overall in the morning, he overtook Luke Tuckwell and Matteo Jorgenson to take the stage and the race overall, all with a comfortable margin.

Hurrah for the breakaways. Alex Baudin won Stage 1. Having gone clear in a breakaway, the move looked likely to be reeled in only for Baudin to strike out and profit from a stand-off among the GC contenders but no fluke, he held off the field. A big win for EF that is the second lowest-ranked World Tour team. The third lowest is Groupama-FDJ and Clément Braz Afonso was in the move too and if caught, he started to collect points for the mountains competition which he’d win, some cheer for his team.

Anthon Charmig won Stage 2 and the strongest rider in a lively final hour as the breakaway riders kept attacking each other. It was close for Henri-François Haquin in second place, for a team that’s only had one win this second place probably counts (NB he is listed everywhere as Henri-François Renard-Haquin but his real name is Henri-François Haquin).

Stage 3 was the team time trial and further proof the “Paris-Nice” rules format works as a televisual spectacle. Seeing Stefan Bissegger and Wout van Aert dropped prematurely was live drama rather than the team adjusting its speed in order to allow them to sit on the back. Visma-LAB won the stage and we can probably say Netcompany-Ineos lost it thanks to two unshipped chains and when Oscar Onley dropped his they all waited costing them the nine seconds that saw them finish second. UAE were ninth at one minute but with hindsight this was alright defensively given the poor form of João Almeida and this was not their Tour team minus Pogačar. EF did well to keep Baudin in yellow.

There was more breakaway action on Stage 4 with Quinn Simmons winning the stage. Most interestingly this was not the “early breakaway stays away” surprie – see Frederik Dvernes’s Giro stage win in Milan for a recent example – instead it was a tussle between the break and the bunch with a group of strong riders going clear knowing there were few sprint teams in the race and the battle went all the way to the final kilometre.

With Stage 5 finishing in a bunch sprint and a win for Wout van Aert you wonder if one or two teams missed a trick in not bringing their sprinter and a couple of workhorse riders as while this was a mountain race, having a shot at two World Tour sprints was an opportunity, especially for teams who knew they had little chance in the mountains. Seventh on the day helped Nadav Raisberg of NSN win 10 points on his way to taking the points competition at the end.

Stage 6 saw a 60-rider breakaway get away early. We didn’t get to see this as the TV coverage was typically for the final 90 minutes of each day. In the past the race clashed with the Roland-Garros tennis meaning FranceTV had few resources and schedule availability for the Dauphiné; this time there was no overlap with the tennis but the French state broadcaster is being asked to make big savings and many of the cuts are falling on its sports output so while we’d all want more, the worry is we might have less next year and if you watch Eurosport, Flo or whatever note this includes you as they rely on the host broadcaster. We did get to see Maxim Van Gils taking his second ever World Tour win, fully recovered from his tangle with Tom Pidcock in February’s Clásica Jaén to out-sprint Tobias Halland Johannessen. Behind Paul Seixas started to make up for lost time and only Isaac del Toro could match him but on the short climb to Crest-Volland the time gaps were small. Third on the day was Luke Tuckwell who took yellow to add to the cheer for Red Bull.

If Seixas was on the up, he was down the next day with a crash early on Stage 7 that saw him slide along the ground. It took him almost four minutes to get going but he’d chase and despite other teams paying him the compliment of riding to keep him clear he made it back, but with the injuries and effort he blew on the final climb. Juan Ayuso launched a move on the steep early slopes of the Grand Colombier only for the panache to turn to ache as he paid for the move and was overtaken by Del Toro.

The final day saw a strong breakaway of climbers but they were overhauled on the final climb. Del Toro struck out solo and finished a minute clear to take the stage and the overall win.

The Verdict
Regularly a highlight of the year, this vintage is unlikely to be a top pick, it was enjoyable for the breakaways but the overall race didn’t offer surprise.

This was an emphatic win for Del Toro, his biggest triumph so far. He might have lost the Giro a year ago but he now has an Alpine stage win to his name and he did this patiently and methodically, making moves that always delivered and overcoming his team’s weak time trial.

Extrapolating from the week to the Tour de France is often a fraught exercise. It works best or is just easier when taking incontrovertible evidence rather than a flash moment, for example last year’s podium here was also the Tour podium in Paris. So Del Toro’s consistency across the three mountain stages will be reassuring for him and depressing for rivals at the Tour de France as he could accompany Tadej Pogačar far, not just on a summit finish but to the podium in Paris.

Plenty leave the race with work to do but there’s only three weeks to fix things, very little. Remco Evenepoel showed it can be done, visibly losing a lot of weight in short space of time between the 2024 Dauphiné and the Tour.

Still Juan Ayuso was good but not sparking, but still ahead of Mattias Skjelmose who was more conservative but had less to show for it. Tobias Halland Johannessen was very good for Uno-X but he was fifth last year before finishing sixth in the Tour, would Uno-X sign today for this again? Matteo Jorgenson was good but when riding high on GC it always looked like the high mountains would be a challenge, does he settle for being a contender in week-long stage races and then folding in behind Vingegaard in grand tours? Cian Uitdebroeks was solid for Movistar but unspectacular.

All these riders fared better than those that left it earlier. Seixas crashed out, his injuries on Stage 7 saw him leave on Stage 8, if he only had abrasions it means rather than cruising for the next few days he’ll be swapping bandages and sleeping badly but he can take something positive from the race with his climbing to Crest-Volland.

With hindsight Netcompany-Ineos waiting for Onley in the time trial proved wrong as they missed out on the stage win and the yellow jersey. Of course they weren’t to know at the time. But they had a rough time in a race which they’ve used as a platform before the Tour de France, wins by the likes of Wiggins, Froome and Thomas here set them up for July. Only Onley crashed out, as did Josh Tarling and his start in the Tour is uncertain especially as he’s needed most on the first day for the team time trial, while Vauquelin underwhelmed and Carlos Rodriguez was the second best Rodriguez in the race to Christian of XDS-Astana.

Was Luke Tuckwell the revelation of the race? No, because he was the revelation of the Tour de Romandie, especially by out-climbing rivals to finish sixth overall. Going in the breakaway and holding out for third place this time is encouraging he then lost two minutes a day which shows the gap to close. Either way we’ll see more of him and he helped make this the youngest ever podium at the race.

Next up the diminished Tour de Suisse. With no overlap few riders from last week go to Switzerland. But it helps teams logistics as before they had to send separate crews of support staff and a fleet of vehicles to each race, this time many teams left France last night for Italy where the Swiss tour opens on Wednesday.

The post The Moment The Aura Tour Was Won first appeared on The Inner Ring.

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 way 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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