Tour de France Tour de France 2025 Stage 9: Chinon – Châteauroux (174.1k)

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The main complaint this year is how late that is. So if you ignore that by design, you don't engage with the criticism.

When you say "it has been a great first week", would that really only be compared to the first three stages last year and not the gravel stage??

No, but it subscribes to the condition that they start in the north of France which puts a natural constraint on the possibility of inserting mountain stages early on the route. I think they have done a terrific job to solve that problem with the design (okay, you could probably have gone for a Massif Central stage more today) and the way it has been ridden has made it even better than 2015 and 2018 which had the same issue and even included cobbles.
 
No, but it subscribes to the condition that they start in the north of France which puts a natural constraint on the possibility of inserting mountain stages early on the route. I think they have done a terrific job to solve that problem with the design (okay, you could probably have gone for a Massif Central stage more today) and the way it has been ridden has made it even better than 2015 and 2018 which had the same issue and even included cobbles.
2022 started further north and had a better first week. That they needed to visit Bretagne is debt from previous years, but entirely self-inflicted.