There is no rest day to go across France from the Alps to Catalonia. This block of stages will see the first real mountain climbs, starting with with 2 half-Andorran stages. But the block actually opens on Wednesday with a flat Team Time Trial.
Standings after stage 4
General
- D. Gaudu 🇫🇷 FDJ
- J. Vingegaard 🇩🇰 Visma – s.t.
- G. Ciccone 🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek – 8″
- E. Bernal 🇨🇴 Ineos – 14″
- T. Pidcock and 19 other riders – 16″
Points
- M. Pedersen 🇩🇰 Lidl-trek – 78 pts
- E. Vernon 🇬🇧 IPT – 76 pts
- J. Philipsen 🇧🇪 Alpecin – 75 pts
- G. Ciccone 🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek – 67 pts
- J. Vingegaard 🇩🇰 Visma – 65 pts
- D. Gaudu 🇫🇷 FDJ – 62 pts
Mountain
- J. Nicolau 🇪🇸 Caja Rural – 11 pts
- S. Quinn 🇺🇸 EF – 9 pts
- A. Verre 🇮🇹 Arkéa – 8 pts
- L. Vervaeke 🇧🇪 Soudal-QS – 8 pts
- J. Vingegaard 🇩🇰 Visma – 5 pts
Teams
- Visma 🇳🇱
- UAE, Astana and Soudal – 2″
(Except for Visma, I wouldn’t have given those team names if I had been asked; it’s a bit of a surprise.)
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Stage 5: Wednesday 27, 16:37–18:05 → 17:00–18:30
A 24 km Team Time Trial.
The last TTT I remember was on Paris-Nice (slightly longer, a bit harder). Visma won, but there weren’t large differences overall.
Who are the good TT riders for this tour?
There are many good TT riders, but this is a team time trial, so it’s a different discipline. You need team cohesion and timing more than pure strength, a too strong pull by a good TT rider will pull the team apart.
Ah I missed that it was TTT - who do you think has form? Alpecin were mighty on stage 1 for the lead out but I dunno how useful Philipsen is in TTT
Odds say Visma, UAE, Ineos. But TTTs are so rare that it’s always a bit hard to predict. Lidl also have a strong TT team and usually good cohesion, though I know they haven’t looked so convincing the past couple of days.
No significant time differences on this TTT either.
Only among the outsiders, Jayco (O’Connor), Soudal (Landa, Lecerf) and Picnic (?) lost 45 seconds or a bit more. Except Astana who lost over 1mn30, I don’t know what happened to them.
Stage 8: Saturday 30, 13:40–13:52 → 17:20–17:40
After 2 mountain stages that GC riders basically refused to ride, back to a sprinters stage.
Nothing to see today.
Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-trek) scored points at the Intermediate Sprint, behind the breakaway, but failed again (out of top-10 before possible relegations) in the final sprint. Overall he only adds less than 20 points to his account, while Vernon (🇬🇧 IPT), who had also scored at the I.S. finished 3rd and comes back close to him. Philipsen (🇧🇪 Alpecin) winning the stage also comes close (despite not going for Intermediate Sprints). Pedersen 117, Vernon 108, Philipsen 105. The GC guys (Ciccone, Vingegaards) are in the 70s.
Stage 6: Thursday 28, 12:35–13:12 → 15:15–17:45
The first real mountain climbs.
Stage 7: Friday 29, 11:55–12:17 → 17:10–17h50
Leaving the cyclists’ tax haven to pursue our journey westwards with another mountain stage.
Despite the lack of real fight these last two days, Gaudu (🇫🇷 FDJ) and Tiberi (🇮🇹 Barhein) are out of GC race, for good, as they only crossed the line 15 minutes after the winner today.
The GC rider and climber Gaudu is apparently now a puncher and only a puncher. As soon as there are longer climbs, no matter at which level the race is raced, he disappears more or less significantly.
Not a great day for Astana boys either. Fortunato🇮🇹 lost a good part of what he had won through the breakaway yesterday.
Today’s Intermediate Sprint was likely the most difficult (so far, and among the most difficult ones overall) to reach for a non-climber. Seeing this, Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) decided it would be the day he would pick to go on a breakaway. Luckily, he succeeded to reach the I.S.
Stage 9: Sunday 31,
This last stage of the first block, before the rest day on Monday, consists of a hilly course ending with a final climb to a ski ressort in the Sierra de la Demanda (located on the other side of the Ebro, it is not a part of the Pyrenees).
Perhaps will the GC riders finally attempt something (the next day being off), despite the strange slopes of the final climb: the opposite of a ramp, it starts hard but gradually gets easier, to the point that it finishes as a false-flat.
Funny enough, Vingegaard today said that he hadn’t done his homework and didn’t know he attacked so far out, so when he saw the 10 km sign he was like ‘what did I get myself into?!’. Pretty convincing victory, though!
Mmmyeah… well, it’s hard to believe he hadn’t viewed any profile; profile indicating that the only hard hard slopes were in the first kilometres of the climb, therefore it was the only place to make a difference in solo.
Would he have been caught later on, it shouldn’t have been a great problem as he would only have had to stay in the wheels of a group until the finish line. So I don’t even consider it a risky move, as situations were likely to mellow out after the first part.
It was the one place to attack, and the risk of backslash was very limited. The only concern was to do all that and gain little out of it, which is more or less what happened. Well, “little” over Almeida (and Pidcock) but still a significant gain over Ciccone and others.
Classic Ayuso on this stage…lol
Yeah, he’s not in a hurry to work as a domestique for Almeida, as the commentators on Danish HBO Max stated diplomatically.
