Tour de France Tour de France 2025 Stage 10: Ennezat – Le Mont-Dore (165.3k)

[Oldman]

Yeah, let's just forget that stages 18 and 19 are the most insane stages, shall we?

Remco's climbing is not good this year. He's dropped like a sack of potatoes any time there's been a hard acceleration from Vingegaard or Pogi. Remco's climbing this year is comparable to Onley's or Lipowitz's climbing, not to Vingegaard's or Pogi's, and it's basically just a continuation of Dauphiné. Vingegaard will take minutes on Remco in the high mountains, just as he did to Valmeinier 1800. There's absolutely no chance that Vingegaard is finishing any worse than second.

It'll be over before 18 & 19. Eyeroll for your benefit....

As for Remco it was telling yesterday on the finish run in. Matteo took a dig, albeit mostly a ramp up in speed. Remco attacked from mid-group and got just clear of the front before Lipowitz and Co. brought him back; then he attacked with quick response from Pogacar. He jumped, Jonas got on but looking farther down the line you could see Remco pull out of pursuit. Serious contenders sat on him and really identifed the first victim was Remco. They made him pull most of the way to recover that time gap to P & J.
RBH at least is making him their prime target with their attention on stage 10. They need to with the TT after Hautecam adding to his lead but that just sets up stage 14 for them.
I think Matteo, though he's primarily working for Jonas (unless the TT goes horrible for Vindegaard) will try to put time into Remco who will have put full effort into the TT to stay in the picture. Remco may already know that his climbing is not going to get him on the podium and ride stage 12 to be fresher for a chance at the TT win. The other players: Vauguelin, Onley, Florian and Primoz will pile on to any weakness they can exploit.

 

[perico]

It might be true for the majority of riders, but not for Pogi. He doesn't need it now but at the end.

Exactly

Its not really up for debate, its been the norm for decades.
Being in yellow on rest day is one of the biggest intermittent goals in the Tour de France, and having all the buzz, that is paramount for any team and its sponsors and its visitors.
Your not dropping a yellow jersey before rest day with purpose.

no rider who was in Tour winning form over the last 40 years I have watched gave two craps about having the yellow jersey on the first rest day.

Armstrong always tried to give it away if he had it in the first week after the prologue or TTT. Contador never took until the 2nd or 3rd week. Froome would always wait until the first big mountain stage, which almost always took place after the 1st rest day, Having it that long requires your team to use up that much energy. Nobody wants it before the mountains begin.

For a rider like Pogacar or Jonas, they are more concerned with the strain it puts on their teammates having to control the race. Indurain may be the only rider who would carry it for through the first rest day to Paris and that was because of the years where they had an early long TT and there were massive gaps.

The only year LeMond had it during the first rest day was in 1989, and he lost it multiple times before winning it. In 1990 he didn’t take it until the next to last day because he gave a break such a big margin and had no idea Chiappucci’s special coffee had given him wings. In 1985, I can’t remember when Hinault took the jersey, but in 1986 Hinault didn’t take the jersey until the Pyrenees after the 1st rest day.

 

[Breezy1985]

As predicted by most here the rest day is all about Pog despite nit being in yellow.

 

[AttaqueDeRolland]

It'll be over before 18 & 19. Eyeroll for your benefit....

As for Remco it was telling yesterday on the finish run in. Matteo took a dig, albeit mostly a ramp up in speed. Remco attacked from mid-group and got just clear of the front before Lipowitz and Co. brought him back; then he attacked with quick response from Pogacar. He jumped, Jonas got on but looking farther down the line you could see Remco pull out of pursuit. Serious contenders sat on him and really identifed the first victim was Remco. They made him pull most of the way to recover that time gap to P & J.
RBH at least is making him their prime target with their attention on stage 10. They need to with the TT after Hautecam adding to his lead but that just sets up stage 14 for them.
I think Matteo, though he's primarily working for Jonas (unless the TT goes horrible for Vindegaard) will try to put time into Remco who will have put full effort into the TT to stay in the picture. Remco may already know that his climbing is not going to get him on the podium and ride stage 12 to be fresher for a chance at the TT win. The other players: Vauguelin, Onley, Florian and Primoz will pile on to any weakness they can exploit.

This is a strong contender for the most nonsensical, clueless comment of the year.

The fight for the win might very well be over by stages 18 and 19, but that doesn't change the notion that Vingegaard will still put minutes into Remco on both stages, just as he did on Valmeinier 1800, where Vingegaard clearly wasn't even at his best.

The only thing that yesterday told us is that neither Visma nor UAE views Remco as a credible and serious threat to Vingegaard and Pogi. Neither reacted to Remco's move, and you could see why just minutes later, when a massive gap opened on Remco with basically two bursts of acceleration from Pogi. Remco even had trouble following Onley's and Lipowitz's wheels. Vingegaard and Pogi then rode the entire final kilometer essentially in zone 2, sitting behind a guy who'd been killing himself on every climb throughout the day, and even then, Remco couldn't catch them and ended up being outsprinted by Lipowitz and Jorgenson on the line.

You can keep living in your evidently weird and odd fantasy world - at this point, I can only assume that you have some weird hatred against Vingegaard - but Remco will have to fight for his third place, while Vingegaard and Pogi will, just as was the case in Dauphiné, be head and shoulders above everyone else.

 

[Oldman]

What will happen in the next week will confirm what the clues are and who has guessed them.

As for the personal (and very historically inaccurate) statement about prejudicial delusion; you haven't noticed anything about relevant JV opinions. I have no prejudice against any rider (except some of the wheel chopping opportunists that have taken out significant competitors) but I have a real preference for sensible tactics.

Today Jonas attacked on the final hill between other riders in an effort to shake Tadej, unsuccessfully. Everyone was there from the top ten. Jonas has shown an American crit-style chippiness for such attacks and, aside from potentially causing a crash; they accomplish nothing. Fortunately, when another rider took out Tadej in another pointless move; Ben Healy shut the group down for Pogacar's bridge back. Watching the Tudor guys and the Kazach team pretend relevancy by sprinting in that group was another example of pointlessly dangerous aggression around the GC favorites. All examples of pointless tactics IMO.

Remco is a superior rider but he will be tested and I fear separated from 3rd place in the next 3 days. He has not shown the recovery from the efforts he'll face and will ride to minimize losses as we've seen in the past. That is a prediction based on his repeated races this season and I hope he'll break through. Just don't think it's this Tour.

As for your projections about my personal profile, my world, fantasies and hatreds; that you need to include that says more about you than me.

Stay patient and watch the next week. I should be epic.

 

[AttaqueDeRolland]

Today Jonas attacked on the final hill between other riders in an effort to shake Tadej, unsuccessfully. Everyone was there from the top ten. Jonas has shown an American crit-style chippiness for such attacks and, aside from potentially causing a crash; they accomplish nothing.

This is absolute, next-level nonsense and just screams "American who pretends to understand cycling." 😂

Attacking over the top like that has won people Monuments. You can go and ask Bob Jungels about it. Vingegaard just didn't create the separation that he had hoped for. Vingegaard was also nowhere near causing any crashes, not even remotely close. And for the love of all things, stop trying to insert "American crit" into every debate. It wasn't remotely relevant when we were discussing Pogi's seated attacks, and it's not remotely relevant now.

Fortunately, when another rider took out Tadej in another pointless move; Ben Healy shut the group down for Pogacar's bridge back.

That wasn't Ben Healy "shutting down the group." Once again, you can pretend not to have any prejudices against Vingegaard, but this is unbelievably telling. Visma had Jorgenson on the front setting a slow pace, controlling the group.

Watching the Tudor guys and the Kazach team pretend relevancy by sprinting in that group was another example of pointlessly dangerous aggression around the GC favorites. All examples of pointless tactics IMO.

Another brilliant example of you just not understanding the sport. To teams like Tudor and Astana - it's Kazakh, by the way - every single UCI point matters, and to the former, every bit of prize money is also a really nice add-on. The latter is still very much fighting for survival in the WorldTour. They're not "feigning relevancy;" they're fighting for very important points and money.

Remco is a superior rider but he will be tested and I fear separated from 3rd place in the next 3 days. He has not shown the recovery from the efforts he'll face and will ride to minimize losses as we've seen in the past. That is a prediction based on his repeated races this season and I hope he'll break through. Just don't think it's this Tour.

Remco is not a superior rider to Vingegaard. The only thing he does better is classics and time trials. Vingegaard is far superior tactically, technically, and positionally. Go and rewatch stage one if you need confirmation for the last point. He's a vastly superior GC-rider. Since Vingegaard's breakthrough, Remco has only ever beaten him once in a GC, and that was in Itzulia in 2022, when Vingegaard was still playing second fiddle to Roglič. In the Tour last year, Vingegaard beat Remco by three minutes, riding on a month and a half's worth of preparation. The only place where Remco is the superior rider is in your imagination, which, I will cede, is evidently a very vivid one.