Tour de France Rate the 2025 Tour de France

[Devil's Elbow]

How did nobody open this thread yesterday?

Either way, discuss.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

saved by great break action and winners from such and some minor GC placements battles.
The Poggi vs Vinge drama petered out pretty quickly after taking a major hit after the first ITT.
Barely 6.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

If we compare it to the other recent GT that was decided on the first mountain (Giro 2024), I have to put this one a bit higher. Compared to that race, Vingegaard/Visma at least put up some semblance of resistance, there was some tension for third place/white, and stage action was definitely better.

That being said... it was still pretty terrible. The first week had a grand total of one meaningful attack that wasn't on a HTF and even that one got shut down in the end, and then the race ended on the first mountain stage. The neutralisation yesterday was also a shame, although the stage action was arguably the best of the Tour (the other candidate being the breakaway battle on Ventoux).

Overall it stays just ahead of the all-time awful GTs like the 2012 Tour, 2023 Giro and 2024 Giro, but that's about as much praise as I have to give. It was still a bad enough race that I have a hard time taking anyone giving it a high grade seriously. For me, it barely ekes out a 3 rather than a 2 courtesy of yesterday's stage.

 

[Barnacle Bill]

I'm usually far more optimistic in these than the average forum dweller, but now I guess I'll go in the other direction as for some reason this year's tour disappointed me more than seems reasonable and I came close to tuning out - and I'm someone who managed to keep watching every stage during the Sky and Lance years. The overall result was even more predictable than last year and by the end I was as depressed as Pogi appeared to be. Philipsen going out early took out most of the tension in the green jersey contest, and just when mvdp appeared to be a backup option he went out too. Remco went home, so press conferences became even blander and sadly lacked references to racing balls. Last mountain stage neutered, GC on final stage rendered irrelevant. Many teams did next to nothing, even getting in breaks appeared beneath them. Super teams on another planet as expected.

Added an extra half point for yesterday's stage and another for Rogla avoiding bandages, bringing it up to 2.

 

[Peter von]

Gave it an 8.

GC action on many stages, Pogi only blew everyone out of the water on some stages.

fun little stories, I am a sucker for the redemption stories of O'Connor, Thymen and Wut

 

[Peyroteo94]

The question is: This Tour was consistently better than the Giro but the Giro had 3 epic stages and this changes everything.
First week was very good (miles better than the Giro). Second week was good too (miles better than the Giro again) but the third week was awful. We didn't have a fight for the win basically.
I gave it a 5 because the Alps were horrible.

 

[SafeBet]

Wout winning on the Champs-Elysees skyrocketed my rating from 1 to 10.
Now come at me PWU. I'm ready.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

It didn't even arouse genuine negativity out of me. I couldn't even get upset or angry about it, the way I could about historically bad GTs like the 2009 Tour or 2012 Giro. It was a better race than either of those two, but I have to give it an equally bad rating because it aroused the one feeling that is even worse: total apathy. I realised in the final week that I actually didn't care what happened in significant stages because it all felt so meaningless. I've already forgotten who won most of the mountain stages after Hautacam, other than that Thymen Arensman won a couple of them. It felt like the first 11 days had some decent action that ultimately didn't mean anything because they were just jockeying for position before the mountains began, but then after Hautacam the race was entirely dead, and even some decent stage battles didn't really feel like they meant anything because pretty much the whole field had been rendered irrelevant to proceedings and we learned that Pogačar could reel in any of those breaks by himself if he could be bothered to.

 

[Rackham]

I think the abuse Jordan Jegat received from Velasco for getting into Saturday's breakaway pretty much sums up what I think about the TdF these days: bitter and fake, with many participants who act like wonderful role models in front of the cameras and on social media for pr reasons when the reality is far different. This is just me but I can't take the sugarcoated Eurosport version of the sport when riders act like garbage. And stuff like Lenny Martinez and his sticky bidon antics just makes a lot of auxiliary stuff aside from the main protagonists also a bitter experience.

I didn't enjoy it and beyond all the major problems (such as too much control by sprint teams in flat stages and GC teams in mountain stages) there wasn't that big Giro Finestre type dramatic stage to make me overlook the usual problems.

It wasn't a good Tour. It was cold as well (literally the coldest July I can remember), which didn't help matters.

 

[Kaptain Kool]

Gave it an an 8 in honor of Pogacar's record breaking 8th TdF victory. I know some people for "reasons" don't view Armstrong's 7 as legit but IMHO that just makes Pogacar more impressive.

Even without the record, it was definitely up there with 2009 and 2012 as one the top 25 or 30 Tours of the 21st century.

 

[Gigs_98]

The battle for the top 2 was of course horrible but the more I think of it, I don't actually think this was a historically bad GT or anything like that. It missed the truly great stages of last year but it was never formulaic, saw a lot of very good gc action for the minor places and the breakaway battles as well as stage 21 were actually pretty good.

The problem is of course that this is not what I'm watching GTs for and a gc battle that only starts on stage 12 and is over after stage 12 just cannot be rated very highly. Ventoux was alright but in general I found it disappointing that Vingegaard never really exposed himself trying to drop Pogacar after they seemed evenly matched there. Yeah he attacked on the Madeleine but he didn't dare to attack again before the top with no helper in front of him. Then he didn't try early on Courchevel and on stage 19 he had already given up entirely. That sounds more like what I expect from Nairo Quintana than from Jonas Vingegaard. It's a race that reminds me a lot of 2014 and 2021, where you have a dominant rider who makes the battle for victory very boring but at least the racing in general was not as stale as during the Sky train days.

 

[Red Rick]

There were some individually cool moments within an ocean of apathy for me. I'm more happier that it's over than that I got to watch it.

 

[Valv.Piti]

7. Almost every stage was raced very hard and it was an extremely demanding race as it should be. 11 riders only made it into the hour of Pogacar, and the average speed was off the charts. Vingegaard gave up only after Madeleine which is halfway through stage 18, so there was some tension about the overall win and not a total foregone conclusion as in some other years, but obviously the GC isn't what elevates this race, but rather stages like Rouen, Toulouse and many other of these great hillier, hard to control stages that the ASO have increased a lot this year to see more action. That has worked.

7 might be generous, but I kinda knew going on that it would be extremely difficult to do anything to Pogacar, so I put my expectations accordingly. We saw some huge and extremely impressive raids by Arensman and O'Connor, a lot of good breakaway action, hard racing on the hilly terrain in northern france, a great stage into Paris and still some memorable duels in the mountain between the best on Hautacam and Ventoux. Lipowitz rode a 70 km time trial to Col de la Loze, Roglic put in some fun attacks in the Alps, Vaquelin trying to fall back as slowly as possible and Jegat fighting through 3 weeks with everything he got to get into top-10. That was magnificent and I was really glad once O'Connor capitulated on stage 20. Great stage as well btw.

It was unfortunate that Remco wasn't at a proper level as we really needed a third man to try to capitalize on the stop-go racing we saw too much of this year. Thats a bummer. So was the fight for the polkadots and the green jersey. They need to do something with the polkadots, idc if a lesser rider wins it if there's a proper fight. The green jersey was a damp squib with Phillipsen and MVDP out, but thats bike racing for you. Stuff happens.

I really enjoyed Lipowitz who is a rider I really follow, great for German cycling and putting them on the map again. Enjoyed his raid, but unfortunately he was too gassed after chasing the lead group up and down Madeleine. Onley I honestly didn't care much for - hugely impressive, but ultimately just hanging on. There wasn't much of a duel for white either, it was clear Lipowitz was way stronger. I really felt for Gall on stage 18, you could tell how frustrated he was not being allowed in the fuga de la fuga by Jonas, but ultimately a 5th is a great result for a pure climber like him even without hitting his highest of highs.

I enjoyed Healy a lot. Unfortunately he got into the GC and so wasn't allowed to do his usual shenanigans, but he is a gift to every race. So is Abrahamsen, two incredibly strong riders, and along with Simmons who unfortunately didn't get to win a stage, three of the strongest in the race.

So not a lot of fighting over the jerseys, but if you look at the stages individually, I think lots of them have A LOT going for them, being really hard fought from the gun and often taking several hours to form a break - for example stages to Vire Normandie, Toulouse, Carcassone and Ventoux. I know some people don't tune in until later, but I usually watch the whole thing apart from sprinter stages.

Also finally enjoyed to see a great MVDP, which in turn is also is due to Gouvenou and ASO. Great stuff until his DNS. And Wout winning the stage into Paris is probably why it was a 7 and not a 6 or even 5 for me. Great stage overall, great winner.

 

[OlavEH]

7. The GC was at best a 4 or 5, but this has to be one of the best GTs in history in terms of none GC stages.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1949541713271238906

View: https://x.com/friebos/status/1949541713271238906

 

[iBanesto]

Some hot takes:

• The last week's tactics was so chaotic and bizarre, which made it memorable in its own way.
• Pogacar became a tactical and conservative rider in the 3rd week.
• Vingegaard was as ever too cautious to put it on the line.
• Lipowitz is the new the diesel climbing machine.
• Roglic lost his mind and risked a podium and white jersey for RB.
• Healy vs V. Paret-Peintre battle on Mont Ventoux was a classic mountain battle
• Evenepoel doesn't have what it takes to compete with Pogacar and Vingegaard in a grand tour.
• Arensman was courageous and deserved his two stage wins.

 

[slim charles]

Wasn't great. Aside from white jersey, other competitions weren't that interesting. There was, as always, suspense when it comes to yellow jersey, the potential for something to happen but there was no contest really.
Last year Pogačar's domination was greater but I found that race significantly more entertaining.

This one had a fantastic last stage, though, great way to close these 3 weeks.

 

[Red Rick]

Some hot takes:

• The last week's tactics was so chaotic and bizarre, which made it memorable in its own way.
• Pogacar became a tactical and conservative rider in the 3rd week.
• Vingegaard was as ever too cautious to put it on the line.
• Lipowitz is the new the diesel climbing machine.
• Roglic lost his mind and risked a podium and white jersey for RB.
• Healy vs V. Paret-Peintre battle on Mont Ventoux was a classic mountain battle
• Evenepoel doesn't have what it takes to compete with Pogacar and Vingegaard in a grand tour.
• Arensman was courageous and deserved his two stage wins.

There's like one lukewarm take in there and the rest is ice cold.

 

[iBanesto]

There's like one lukewarm take in there and the rest is ice cold.

Don't be that way because of your endless love for risk adverse Vingegaard.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

2/10. Awful race as the tour often is.

Gc basically decided on stage 5 and categorically decided on stage 13. Alpes were a waste of time. The battle for third was also over really quickly and the rest of the gc reads like a ruta del Sol result.

No good or interesting fight for green

No good or interesting fight for kom

No real charismatic figures making a mark on the tour. Alaphilippe tried a bit

No good echelons, no superstar sprint battles, no cobbles or gravel. Same teams always controlling.

Not an interesting route

The positives - no horrific crashes, and probably 3 good fights for stage wins in breakway prevent this from being a 1. Stage 11 to Toulouse, stage 16 to ventoux, and the last stage in Paris. Great stagewin battles

I'm literally happy that it's over so that I can watch some good races again .

 

[Red Rick]

Don't be that way because of your endless love for risk adverse Vingegaard.

No I find the Roglic lost his mind take lukewarm considering Lipowitz lost his mind much more and Roglic' motivation and Red Bull's policy of "let them do their own race" actually align. It just ends up looking stupid.

 

[Red Rick]

Wout winning on the Champs-Elysees skyrocketed my rating from 1 to 10.
Now come at me PWU. I'm ready.

A great betrayal of one of the founding members of the Petulant Whiners United

 

[iBanesto]

No I find the Roglic lost his mind take lukewarm considering Lipowitz lost his mind much more and Roglic' motivation and Red Bull's policy of "let them do their own race" actually align. It just ends up looking stupid.

Lipowitz is young and has made tactical mistakes in other races recently. Got to give him some rope for his lack of experience.

Good that Lipowitz was able to back it up on La Plagne after that brain snap the day before.

End of the day it was bizarre from Red Bull.

 

[Rackham]

No good or interesting fight for kom

Someone needs to do something about the KOM jersey. It's an aberration at this point.

Lenny Martinez farming it like it's a video game level up system on the first cols of every mountain stage - only to then drop back into the bunch and the leave the Tour empty handed anyway - is just a joke.

 

[Valv.Piti]

7. The GC was at best a 4 or 5, but this has to be one of the best GTs in history in terms of none GC stages.

This is basically how I feel about the race. I think too many people are too focused on the GC, and obviously that is the most important, BUT there's so much more than just the GC in a race. This race was great in that regard and gave opportunities for everyone, and they certainly took it. Great racing.