Tour de France Tour de France 2025: How does the first week rank?

[Danskebjerge]

Perhaps a bit off-topic, but when people criticize the "boring" first ten days, they may forget what the alternative might have looked like: a GC with an even bigger time gap between Pogacar and the rest. With one or two major mountain stages, Pogacar could have gained minutes on Vingegaard, reducing the suspense significantly before the second half of the stage race.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Perhaps a bit off-topic, but when people criticize the "boring" first ten days, they may forget what the alternative might have looked like: a GC with an even bigger time gap between Pogacar and the rest. With one or two major mountain stages, Pogacar could have gained minutes on Vingegaard, reducing the suspense significantly before the second half of the stage race.

I see this way of thinking way too much and I never understood it. I'd much rather see big stages and potentially big time gaps early on instead of just postopning it. It opens up the race, some teams have to look for different options after realizing their GC-rider aint hot, some riders and teams need to go long etc etc. As long as there are no time gaps, everyone still believe they have a shot and will defend what they have until proven otherwise.

Also, riders can be drastically weaker or stronger in stage 19 compared to say stage 5. I think every race should have as many hard stages early on - hard hilly parcours, time trials, mountains if you can, gravel etc. to break the stalemate and get the race underway.

 

[topcat]

Of course it's been terrible. But I've enjoyed it more than other years. I go for a 20km run and then I settle in and watch the last 45 minutes or so. I'm too tired to be annoyed by anything. Today was different: I watched the whole stage because it was Bastille day and I thought Visma would try something. I regretted that decision.

 

[Gigs_98]

Going through this list makes me realize the first weeks of recent years have actually been decent. I enjoyed this week and I think it's among the worst of the list. But honestly I don't see how anyone ever expected much more before today anyway. The real race starts on Thursday.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

I can't be the only one who doesn't remember any of the first weeks? I'm a bit of a giro specialist I guess

2016: don't remember a thing
2017: Dusseldorf valverde crash and stage 9 mont chat Richie port crash
2018; everyone crashes except g Thomas, degenkolb wins, gaviria on fire
2019: alaphilipe, loads of sprints
2020: Hirschi, roglic
2021: Pocagar had already won, van Der poel and alaphiliphile good and everyone else crashing
2022:just visma I think
2023: amazing Basque start, crazy Pyrenees stages, by far the best
2024: I do not remember a single thing from this race except bardet winning the opening stage and that was quite nice
2025: booooooooooring but a few nice sprints

 

[Danskebjerge]

I see this way of thinking way too much and I never understood it. I'd much rather see big stages and potentially big time gaps early on instead of just postopning it. It opens up the race, some teams have to look for different options after realizing their GC-rider aint hot, some riders and teams need to go long etc etc. As long as there are no time gaps, everyone still believe they have a shot and will defend what they have until proven otherwise.

Also, riders can be drastically weaker or stronger in stage 19 compared to say stage 5. I think every race should have as many hard stages early on - hard hilly parcours, time trials, mountains if you can, gravel etc. to break the stalemate and get the race underway.

I might have agreed a couple of years ago. But since we have a rider who is miles stronger than the rest, cycling has a serious problem with lack of suspense. Of course, some dedicated fans enjoy the racing no matter the time differences, but the fact is that sport is mainly about suspense, and the organizers should take this into consideration. Luckily, as one of the good things about cycling, there is actually things that can be done to make the competition more interesting. (This would be harder in football when one team leads by four or five goals at half time in every match.)

 

[Red Rick]

Going through this list makes me realize the first weeks of recent years have actually been decent. I enjoyed this week and I think it's among the worst of the list. But honestly I don't see how anyone ever expected much more before today anyway. The real race starts on Thursday.

Most of the expecting more of singular stages would have been basically "lol Tour decided on a Cat 3 on day 2 of the Tour" moments anyway.

In that regard the Tour has been pretty good, apart from Vingegaard dropping a big fat deuce during the time trial.

 

[Red Rick]

Perhaps a bit off-topic, but when people criticize the "boring" first ten days, they may forget what the alternative might have looked like: a GC with an even bigger time gap between Pogacar and the rest. With one or two major mountain stages, Pogacar could have gained minutes on Vingegaard, reducing the suspense significantly before the second half of the stage race.

Well when the better alternative is quite boring that's not really a good thing is it?

 

[yaco]

To be perfectly honest I had fallen completely out of love with cycling before being drawn back in (harder than ever) by the Danish Grand Depart, but this first week is far and away below 2022, 2023, and 2024 in my opinion.

The Danish Grand Depart was full on boring racing.

 

[Netserk]

The Danish Grand Depart was full on boring racing.

The flat stages actually had breakaways and it was a pretty good opening ITT despite the changing weather and the start order.

 

[Red Rick]

The flat stages actually had breakaways and it was a pretty good opening ITT despite the changing weather and the start order.

The talk about possible echelons in Denmark was just as exciting as the talk of craziness to happen yesterday

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Honestly just really bad, maybe 2018 is comparable? Don't really remember to be honest, everything from this decade has been better.
And no, that's not a knee jerk reaction, it's just a meh route in the first week that got raced even worse. Biggest problem is that apart from MVDP these punchy finishes are basically GC/Pogacar days in this age of cycling which just diminishes the variety we used to have. At least in 2021 we had Van Aert, Alaphilippe and MVDP to mix it up, now we basically had sprint stage - GC puncheur stage - sprint stage at repeat. The two breakaway stages also offered less than what could've been in terms of breakaway formation and stage finish.
The ITT was relatively entertaining within the context of an ITT - just with the wrong outcome GC wise.
Green Jersey and Polkadot battles have been an absolute letdown, intermediate sprints and breakaway tactics have barely played a role and the polkadot has basically become a mockery with UAE playing hotball and GC rider trying to avoid it.

 

[Red Rick]

Honestly just really bad, maybe 2018 is comparable? Don't really remember to be honest, everything from this decade has been better.
And no, that's not a knee jerk reaction, it's just a meh route in the first week that got raced even worse. Biggest problem is that apart from MVDP these punchy finishes are basically GC/Pogacar days in this age of cycling which just diminishes the variety we used to have. At least in 2021 we had Van Aert, Alaphilippe and MVDP to mix it up, now we basically had sprint stage - GC puncheur stage - sprint stage at repeat. The two breakaway stages also offered less than what could've been in terms of breakaway formation and stage finish.
The ITT was relatively entertaining within the context of an ITT - just with the wrong outcome GC wise.
Green Jersey and Polkadot battles have been an absolute letdown, intermediate sprints and breakaway tactics have barely played a role and the polkadot has basically become a mockery with UAE playing hotball and GC rider trying to avoid it.

Tbh the green jersey is never entertaining anyway. It's always just there.

 

[Danskebjerge]

Well when the better alternative is quite boring that's not really a good thing is it?

It's choosing between two evils.

Like if you have to choose between a flat race with no chances for a breakaway and a hilly race where Pogacar goes solo 100 k from the finish. Both options are bad, but I would pick the first one.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Perhaps a bit off-topic, but when people criticize the "boring" first ten days, they may forget what the alternative might have looked like: a GC with an even bigger time gap between Pogacar and the rest. With one or two major mountain stages, Pogacar could have gained minutes on Vingegaard, reducing the suspense significantly before the second half of the stage race.

We are 47,6% of the way through the race and we have only just had our first cat.2 climbs of the race (most of which were rather generously categorised, too), certainly there is something to be said for not going overboard with front-loading the race, but that doesn't mean back-loading is automatically good because it keeps suspense. After all, reductio ad absurdum says we could have 19 sprints on stages 1-19 and an MTF on stage 20 and that would give us heightened suspense all the way to the end, but it would also be absolutely dreadful to watch.

Or hell, a sprint stage is a microcosm of the "keeping the tension to the end is a good thing" argument. The last few kilometres of a sprint stage are usually pretty exciting, with the battle for position, the tension of whether there will be crashes, etc. - but the rest of the stage is usually unwatchably dull. Some races where the winner is decided early, like when Pog just rides away from the field and they all concede defeat and ride for 2nd there and then and he solos in from 40-50k, can be boring, sure, but sometimes they turn into races like the Amstel Gold Race did, and that's a lot better than not having any action until late on in the name of maintaining suspense imo.

 

[Danskebjerge]

We are 47,6% of the way through the race and we have only just had our first cat.2 climbs of the race (most of which were rather generously categorised, too), certainly there is something to be said for not going overboard with front-loading the race, but that doesn't mean back-loading is automatically good because it keeps suspense.

Create some drama in the beginning, but maintain suspense until the last third. That works in movies as well as in racing.

After all, reductio ad absurdum says we could have 19 sprints on stages 1-19 and an MTF on stage 20 and that would give us heightened suspense all the way to the end, but it would also be absolutely dreadful to watch.

But it would still be better than if the top favourite created a five minute gap on stage 1. To mention the opposite absurd example.

sometimes they turn into races like the Amstel Gold Race did, and that's a lot better than not having any action until late on in the name of maintaining suspense imo.

I don't know. It's two evils. GC battles are simply boring when one rider is very dominant. I try to find other aspects of the race that I can get excited about. At the moment, the sprinters are quite even, so that's a good thing, although sprint stages are low on drama (I don't sit and watch a sprint stage from start to finish - who does?).

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Create some drama in the beginning, but maintain suspense until the last third. That works in movies as well as in racing.



But it would still be better than if the top favourite created a five minute gap on stage 1. To mention the opposite absurd example.



I don't know. It's two evils. GC battles are simply boring when one rider is very dominant. I try to find other aspects of the race that I can get excited about. At the moment, the sprinters are quite even, so that's a good thing, although sprint stages are low on drama (I don't sit and watch a sprint stage from start to finish - who does?).

A five minute gap from stage 1 may well be boring, but there are enough counterexamples in history of a seemingly comfortable appointed winner with a sizable lead then collapsing or becoming vulnerable later on in the race. And not just the cases of guys like Isidro Nozal and Ben O'Connor, but examples like Simon Yates in the 2018 Giro or Primož Roglič suffering the consequences of Visma's "minimise gains today to maximise losses tomorrow" strategy in the 2020 Tour. Christ, we just saw it happen in the 2025 Giro not two months ago. Hell, there's always the chance of a crash, an illness or a 1999 Pantani or 2007 Rasmussen incident to come up, which isn't the case in the "no action to hold tension until the last day" example.

GC battles can be boring when one rider is dominant, true - but then there are examples like the 2011 Giro which was relatively well received despite the ease of Contador's (on-the-road) victory. But saying "GC battles can be boring when one rider is dominant" is not a justification for having no GC battle at all, solely for the purpose of delaying when the GC battle starts just in case one rider or team is dominant. Because then if one rider or team is dominant, you end up with the 2004 or 2009 Tours, and get the worst of both worlds. And if no rider or team is dominant or the big anticipated stars all crash out before the battlegrounds arrive like in the 2014 Tour, you just shot yourself in the foot in terms of the spectacle.

Nobody is saying that we need to have a Mont Ventoux MTF or a Sestrières 1992 monolith on stage 3 or anything. But there's a reason for the "sort the contenders from the pretenders" climb in week 1 usually - you know, the reason why Red Rick has praised the first weeks that had the much-reviled Planche des Belles Filles. Because for whatever its issues may be in terms of overuse and saturation (and the unnecessary extension), in that role as a week 1 leg-tester, meaning that the GC guys need to manage form for three weeks rather than one-and-a-bit, it was well-suited. The gaps it creates are not so big they are unrecoverable, but the time gaps are solid, usually 30-45 seconds for the top 10 or so, and it enables riders who don't have the form to recalibrate their goals, or riders who are targeting the second half of the race to approach it from a deficit. That's actually been done just fine this year with the ITT, the only problem is that the only remaining TT is an MTT, and that ITTs are, unfortunately, just not as good a spectacle with audiences as mass start GC stages, which has been part of the reason for their marginalisation in recent times.

I know there's not a lot you can do about the geographical limitations of France, with Nord being far from any mountain ranges and with the route going anticlockwise towards Brittany, you're left a long way from mountains at that stage, but pacing the race so that you have two pan-flat transitional stages - and the two least interesting designs of the whole week - on weekend days is a massive own goal; while the summer location and proximity to Bastille Day helps with the domestic audience, the weekend days are the best captive audience days for the worldwide audience, and serving up the absolute dreck (seriously, ASO have actually been doing pretty well in terms of maximising their flat and hilly stages in recent years, but they put the absolute dirt worst of them on the days with the highest audience share, and then go full shocked Pikachu face when audiences dip out to watch something like the Giro Donne, Formula E, Moto GP or the Wimbledon finals instead, the dedicated audience flicks back in for the last half hour or so, and they can't hold the casual audience's interest the way they can on mountain stages.

 

[Danskebjerge]

A five minute gap from stage 1 may well be boring, but there are enough counterexamples in history of a seemingly comfortable appointed winner with a sizable lead then collapsing or becoming vulnerable later on in the race.

It's basically about expectations and probability.

 

[Gigs_98]

The talk about possible echelons in Denmark was just as exciting as the talk of craziness to happen yesterday

That *** bridge where everyone knew it was gonna be full on headwind like a week in advance and people still pretended it was gonna be the craziest echelon action in history. Still driving me mad.

 

[Red Rick]

That *** bridge where everyone knew it was gonna be full on headwind like a week in advance and people still pretended it was gonna be the craziest echelon action in history. Still driving me mad.

Media: "It's gonna be crazy here"

Sepp Kuss' Strava: "Best I can do is 60 watts"

 

[Libertine Seguros]

It's basically about expectations and probability.

And the probability of there still being a GC battle on day 20 if you have an in extremis 19 flat stage route may be high, but the probability of the race being absolutely miserable is a lot higher than if you have a dominant guy with a 5 minute GC lead. As mentioned, the 2011 Giro was actually pretty well received considering how easily Contador won it.

We shouldn't WANT the days of Cipollini's train or the 2004 Giro parcours to come back.

 

[pman]

It's the Tour de France, not the Tour de Southern France. I think the route was about as strong as it could be, given the terrain of the north and the basic fact that you can't ignore that part of the country every year. The flat time trial proved to create bigger gaps than some might have suspected while the Bastille Day stage was perhaps less exciting than some would have expected.

It won't happen but I think stage 5 showed how much fun a 50 k flat individual time trial would be. It would shake things up and make for more exciting racing.

Stage 10 looked great on paper, but you can't force them to race. It became pretty clear that Jumbo could break UAE but not Pog on a stage like that and just went for the stage win. For Pog, it was probably about more of a measured effort with an eye towards a nasty week 2 and 3. Still, that stage seems like it should have been more explosive.