Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2026 Tour de France Stage 15

Introduction

It’s upon us: the Grand Boucle. In case you’re new to the Tour, “Boucle” is French for “Boucle.” This is far and away the most important bike race there is, blah blah blah. Even still, it’s taken me a while to muster up enough gumption to wake up early and blog it live—for the simple reason that it’s generally the most boring race on the calendar. But don’t leave! I’ll breathe life into this report, I promise! It’ll be like improv! Also, this blog is your one-stop-shop for Tour news because during the lulls in today’s action I’ll fill you in on what’s been going over the last couple weeks. (Two-word synopsis: pretty boring.)

Why is the Tour boring? Two words: Tadej Pogacar. Probably even NASCAR fans have heard of him by now. Pogacar is the extraterrestrial rider who wins almost constantly, usually by just riding away from everyone, soloing for 30,40, 50 kilometers at a shot, over any kind of terrain. He might as well be a major league ball player who returns to Little League, or a heavyweight boxing champion beating up junior high kids. Pogacar rides for the well-stocked UAE Team Emirates XRG team, headed up by one of the greatest villains in modern cycling, Mauro Gianetti, who was a known doper as a racer, and who as a director is known for his not-normal protégés like Riccardo Riccò, Leonardo Piepoli, and Juan José Cobo. If you haven’t heard of these guys, here’s the ultra-short bio they all share: all eerily strong, and all got popped for doping. So anyhow, if I seem less than psyched to see Pogacar dominating another Tour it’s because I’m not. (And is he dominating this Tour? Spoiler alert: yes, completely.)

Is it fair to cast aspersions on Pogacar based on the person running his team? Decide for yourself but consider this: Pogacar’s weird ultra-short haircut, the color of chicken Top Ramen, looks a lot like Riccò’s back in the day. Coincidence? Decide for yourself.

Still, anything can happen in this sport, including a tight battle for second place, or some cataclysm that reshapes things, or riders getting in a fistfight, or maybe even a podium girl wardrobe malfunction (as the Tour has resumed the podium girl tradition, albeit with only one girl per podium, oddly enough). Read on for what might possibly be a diverting blow-by-blow report of the 184-kilometer (114-mile) mountain stage finishing atop the hors categorie (i.e., “too difficult to classify”) Plateau de Solaison.

(Why do I call this a “biased” blow-by-blow? I refer you to my description of Gianetti above and the pall I feel that casts over Pogacar. A professional journalist would bite his tongue so as to seem impartial, whereas I say: why be impartial to a rider who hugs a monster like Gianetti after the finish line? If you agree with me, read on. Otherwise, just scroll down and leave an indignant reply below, showcasing your high dudgeon, and then go read some other coverage by a craven, declawed writer who needs to earn a living at it.)

Tour de France Stage 15 – Champagnole to Plateau de Solaison

As I join the action, the riders have 57 kilometers to go and are nearing the base of the third-to-last climb, the Category 1 Col de la Croisette. “Croisette” doesn’t translate literally to English, but it’s kind of like a small, sweet croissant, the French equivalent of a cronut. (Yeah, I made that up.) There’s a breakaway off that has just under three minutes. The commentator Tejay van Garderen is predicting that Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma - Lease a Bike), who sits second on GC, is planning a long-range attack. This would be exciting for sure and also very surprising, because if you’re not Pogacar, all you get to do in this Tour is be on the ropes—you don’t get to dictate the trajectory of a mountain stage. You might as well try to commandeer a city bus. But who knows, perhaps Vingegaard could try something like that, so that only Pogacar could catch up (easily, while breathing through his nose) but not Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull - Bora - Hansgrohe), who sits third on GC and is the main threat to Vingegaard’s second place overall, which is the only GC ambition he can realistically have.

Since nothing interesting is happening on the road right now, I’ll brief you on what’s gone down in this Tour so far. It started out well, with a team time trial, one of my favorite events. Team Visma - Lease a Bike rode a sweet race, putting Vingegaard in yellow. Pogacar was only third, because the Netcompany Ineos team also rode very well and their fastest time trialist, Filippo Ganna, went four seconds quicker. (The race no longer counts the time of the fifth rider in a TTT; now it’s the first, so when a team feels they’re close enough to the line that their leader no longer needs them, he solos. This matches the overall modern ethos of humankind, I think. All for himself and none for all!)

Now the riders are on the base of the climb. The gap is down to 2:37. Riders are going out the back of the peloton one after the other. Up in the breakaway, Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) leads ahead of Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek).

And what’s this? Simmons gives a high-five to a devoted, flag-wielding superfan!

It’s the best day of this fan’s life! Look at him shouting encouragement.

Check out that hair, that tank top. You know what? I don’t care whether this is an insane local or one of my countrymen: ‘Mer’ca!

So of the 24 members of the original breakaway, it’s down to eight. The two Visma - Lease a Bike riders have been dropped, so either they’re putting a “satellite” strategy into play (i.e., they’re dropping back to help Vingegaard with an attack) or they’re just dropped. If we apply the “Occam’s Razor” notion to the situation (i.e., the simplest explanation is the most likely one), I’d say the latter.

Back in the peloton, Visma leads the chase. They’re keeping the gap pretty stable.

And what’s this? Simmons attacks the break! OMG, he must have been inspired by that superfan!

He’s suddenly got a huge gap! Freakin’ crazy!

This is amazing. I just went and woke up my daughter. She’s gotta see this (and quick, before Simmons is reeled in!). He’s got 17 seconds and might just be the first American to lead a stage over a major climb since, well, gosh, probably Sepp Kuss (Visma - Lease a Bike) five years ago.

Simmons continues to power the pace. He’s not exactly built like a climber. In fact, he looks a lot like the guys at the Golds Gym I went to in Santa Barbara back in ’90.

Man, the throng of fans is incredible, so many of them! I can’t tell what they’re yelling, but it’s probably something along the lines of “USA! USA!”

And Quinn takes maximum KOM points over the summit!

I’m not sure Simmons has any interest in the KOM competition (though surely many enemies of freedom would be glad to stop having to see his stars-and-stripes jersey). He’s only in 30th place in the KOM competition. He must have ambitions for the stage win, bless his heart.

They’re on the descent now, with the group gradually reeling in Simmons. So I’ll get back to my recap. Stage 2 was a bit hilly but not a mountain stage, but that didn’t stop Pogacar and his top domestique, the young Mexican sensation Isaac del Toro, from launching a blistering attack near the end that was so devastating to the others, Pogacar was able to sit up at the end and gift the stage to del Toro. This cut Pogacar’s GC deficit in half so he trailed Vingegaard by an insignificant six seconds. Pogacar then bided his time and—wait, no, he didn’t bide his time. He won Stage 3 in a sprint and took the yellow jersey. Stage 4 was actually kind of interesting, with a big breakaway that took over four minutes out of the GC favorites and was won by Mads Petersen (Lidl-Trek), the former world champion who’s largely a sprint specialist. Simmons, his teammate (who led him out) took second. The GC lead was taken over by Torstein Træn, whose name sounds pretty funny if you say it three times fast. Stage 5 was for the sprinters and was won by Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM Team), whom nobody in the entire peloton had even met before. Træn kept yellow, and the American Sean Quinn (EF Education-Easypost) stayed in second overall.

Getting back to the action, Visma leads the chase in the peloton. Why? Commitment. They made a commitment to lose another Tour, and by God they’re gonna honor it.

The breakaway, five riders now, is at the base of the Category 3 Cote du Mont, 2.1 kilometers long at 8.3%. Simmons is back in the fold.

Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is on his race radio, perhaps asking, “Why is Visma being so nice? I thought we were gonna have to help pull this break back! Am I supposed to tip these Visma guys?”

Simmons takes a bottle. Or, well, tries to—he fumbles it. D’oh!

Returning to the recap, Stage 6 was a disaster all around with Træn crashing hard and losing yellow. Quinn (who otherwise would have taken the yellow jersey, the first for an American in twenty years) lost almost five minutes to Pogacar, who did this annoying thing where he soloed to victory and took 2:38 out of second-place Vingegaard. The Tour became officially boring at that point. Stage 7 was a sprinters’ stage, won handily by Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step). Merlier won again the next day, and then Stage 9 was pretty interesting with a four-up breakaway that just managed to stay away, with Mathieu Van der Poel leading out the sprint like a boss and holding the other three off. Things got boring again in Stage 10 when Pogacar had another solo victory ahead of a splintered chase group. This stage was slightly noteworthy for two reasons. One, Vingegaard faded at the end, losing ten seconds to the second place finisher Evenepoel. Two, Evenepoel really rallied to win the sprint over the chase group after having been dropped on the last climb. I’ve not historically been much of an Evenepoel fan, but I have to admit, he showed real grit to claw his way back during the final descent and then beat all the dudes who’d dropped him.

Now the break is nearing the summit of the climb, with Pidcock back in the lead. A couple more riders have made it back on. 

Back in the peloton, Victor Campanaerts drives the pace for UAE Team Emirates-XRG despite actually being on the Visma - Lease a Bike team. It’s an inspiring bit of generosity in a sport normally known for its professionalism. Perhaps Visma’s directeur sportif saw one of those bumper stickers encouraging random acts of kindness.

To wrap up the recap, Stage 11 had an exciting finish when the unknown Uno-X Mobility rider Soren Waerenskjold launched his sprint way early and yet held everyone off. His smile was big enough to cover at least two standard-sized human faces. Stage 12 was another sprint stage and Merlier won again, with a crazy long sprint starting from way too far back that really showed how amazingly strong that dude is. Stage 13 ended with a two-up breakaway, and the winner, Mauro Schmid (Team Jayco Alula) won by enough margin to pop a pretty sweet wheelie over the finish line. The narration of the replay was rather odd, in the NBC/Peacock coverage: Phil Liggett said, “Watch the way he smashes his bike on the finishing line just to make sure.” Huh? Make sure of what?

Anyhow, yesterday’s stage was another yawner, with Pogacar soloing again and taking another 44 seconds out of Vingegaard, who again faded at the end and finished fourth. And again, Evenepoel was dropped toward the end but fought his way back and finished just four seconds behind Vingegaard, and a couple seconds ahead of his (Evenepoel’s) teammate Florian Lipowitz, who shares the team leadership with him and finished third in last year’s Tour. Maybe today will be the really bad day for Evenepoel where he loses lots of time. (This happens every year.) For now, Evenepoel sits third overall, half a minute behind Vingegaard who is four and a half minutes behind Pogacar.

Speaking of Schmid, he has been in the breakaway (I guess I should have mentioned that) and has now dropped the others to go it alone on the descent. Not much will happen in the next few minutes so I’ll (finally) get around to listing the breakaway riders, which is kind of sad since they’re most likely doomed. So along with Schmid, Pidcock, and Simmons, we’ve got Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Einer Rubio (Movistar Team), Ewen Costiou (Groupama-FDJ United), and Yannis Voisard (Tudor Pro Cycling Team).

Okay, this is embarrassing. I didn’t realize, until I did my roll call, that Yates was in the break. This would explain why UAE can reasonably refuse to help with the chase. So it is left to Visma to take it up, to defend Vingegaard’s second place on GC.

And now Shmid, still solo, does a huge bunny-hop just out of sheer exuberance, or perhaps (to adopt Liggett’s theory) to “smash his bike” on the asphalt “just to make sure.”

Oh, crap! There’s a big crash in the main bunch! Daaaamn, it’s Vingegaard!

He’s on the ground and his shoulders are rocking, he’s obviously in agony. The impact knocked his chain off and the guy holding his bike isn’t bothering to put it back on. I think it’s clear to everyone, already, that Vingegaard is not going to get up. The medic comes over. Somebody is giving him a consoling pat on the back. It’s all over for him.

Sure enough, now they slowly help him to his feet and lead him to a van. What a shame.

As my daughter just astutely pointed out, the polite pause of the peloton has allowed the gap to the breakaway to go back out, to almost three minutes (after having been down to 2:20). Any show of ambition by UAE at this moment would look kind of untoward.

They’re showing a replay of the crash. Pogacar just barely missed getting caught up in it. Phil says, rather uncharitably, “It was Vingegaard’s own fault, nobody ran into him or anything.” Well yeah, but his front tire washed out for no apparent reason—as sometimes happens, disconcertingly enough (don’t tell my wife!). It’s just bad luck.

Back in the front, Schmid has somehow extended his lead out to 25 seconds over the rest of the break. I’m trying to get a photo but the camera bike is in the wrong place. “This is the only sport where much of the footage is of the athletes’ butts,” I say to my daughter, who replies, “Or lack thereof.” True, true.

With Vingegaard out, the top of the virtual GC is a bunch of youngsters including Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek, age 23), del Toro (age 22), and Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM Team, the 19-year-old French wunderkind who now sits third overall in the virtual GC). My daughter asks, “How old is Evenepoel?” I reply that he’s a … summer chicken. (Is that a thing?) (He’s 26, which is ancient for a gymnast but not for a stage racer.) (My daughter, reading this as I write it, asks if it’s okay to have two parentheticals in a row. I see her two and raise it to three.) (I could do this all day.)

It’s only 9 kilometers to go and Simmons is reeling in Schmid! Schmid’s look back is the kiss of death for his solo move.

My goodness, now Simmons has totally dropped Schmid! He’s on fire! And he’s got 1:41 over the chasers so it’s just barely possible he could win this! Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Daaaaamn, he’s suddenly got ten seconds on the chase group! It’s unbelievable!

Now the peloton’s chase is being led by Red Bull - Bora - Hansgrohe. They’re trying to defend Evenepoel’s (virtual) second overall. I really don’t know who, up the road, would be a threat on GC anyway, but whatever.

The gap to Simmons is dropping, but not very quickly—he still has 1:37. But it’s over 7 kilometers to the finish … that’s an awfully long way on this gnarly climb. Just look at the profile:

Oh dear. Pogacar takes the front. “He’s now in a group of just three riders, including himself,” Phil says cryptically. Only del Toro and Evenepoel can keep up. Or is that Lipowitz? The gap to Simmons is already down to a minute. Okay, it’s Evenepoel in this group. Pogacar looks almost bored. Evenepoel looks composed. Del Toro has a look in his eye that would send a chill down any competitor’s spine.

Simmons still looks good but the gap is down to 26 seconds. Yates has dropped back from the break and is now on the front drilling it for Pogacar. The break has completely dissolved. The gap between Simmons and the Pidcock group is actually going up and sits at 39 seconds (not that that helps or anything). In theory Simmons could latch on to this trio and contest the sprint later, except—Pogacar.

Now the yellow jersey group is in the lead. The camera was pointed elsewhere at the moment they came past Simmons. Ah, here’s the replay.

Man, they just blew by him like he was a bit of road furniture. And now Yates completely detonates and goes out the back, having done a great job helping to pummel Evenepoel, who (admirably) is still there. So it’s down to three leaders again, and Evenepoel must be defecating cinder blocks right now. (That’s gotta hurt.)

Speaking of hurt, del Toro really looks like he’s suffering. Evenepoel, on the other hand, looks really collected. Or does he just have a good poker face?

In theory, del Toro would be setting the pace here to help his leader, but that’s not how the sport works anymore. Pogacar is too strong for that, and obviously doesn’t need any help. It’s only a matter of time before he attacks, to pad his 5-minute GC lead over Evenepoel.

Weirdly, Liepowitz has been no help to his teammate Evenepoel. He’s off the back with the Seixas group, which has dropped Pidcock and is actually only a duo now.

Del Toro’s shoulders are really rocking, he’s clearly suffering. They have just 2 kilometers to go. If somehow Evenepoel could stay with Pogi when he attacks, it’s just barely possible he could outsprint him at the end. I mean, you have to dream big for a non-boring outcome in this race, right?

My best guess at Evenepoel’s strategy right now is hoping Pogacar forgets to attack.

But what’s this? It’s del Toro who attacks! In the time it took me to try to grab a snapshot (with my phone camera, since Peacock blocks screen captures), del Toro was caught and sat back down. Not sure why he made that doomed move, and now he’s staying on the front setting tempo. Really mysterious behavior for someone who’s clearly hurting and should just be sitting on to improve his GC position. You know what? I’m going to chalk that attack up to a muscle spasm.

But now del Toro goes again! Dang, I failed to get a photo because I thought it was a replay of the first attack. Evenepoel is right on him! It’s as though del Toro has forgotten what team he’s on! He’s setting Evenepoel up perfectly for the sprint!

Evenepoel begins to come around del Toro!

He’s got the jump on Pogacar!

Evenepoel closes in on the line and Pogacar, sitting on, just might get vanquished!

And Evenepoel has got the win!

For some reason the press isn’t following the riders after they come across the line; who knows where they’re being corralled. So it’s nothing but replay footage for a while until they corner Mauro Gianetti, head of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG team. They interview him.

INTERVIEWER: Was this the strategy for today, to set up del Toro?

GIANETTI: No, that wasn’t really the plan, but you adapt the plan as you go along. Pogi didn’t need to drive hard for more time, so it was good to get Isaac as close to the podium as possible.

INTERVIEWER: How does it feel to have a new Golden Boy, after your past protégés Riccardo Riccò, Leonardo Piepoli, and Juan José Cobo? You’ve clearly mastered the art of “marginal gains.”

GIANETTI: Why are you giving me a hard time?

INTERVIEWER: Well, a former teammate of yours once said to the media, “Doping is so ingrained in certain managers, like Gianetti, that they can't conceive of cycling any other way.” When I pair that with Pogacar’s absolute dominance of the sport, it rankles.

GIANETTI: Did you guys not get the memo, after Chris Froome was mysteriously exonerated despite his positive drug test? Doping control is over. It’s game-on. You should look the other way like everyone else.

INTERVIEWER: Gosh, it would be so cool if this were an actual interview instead of a complete fabrication by an unapologetically biased blogger.

Here’s the stage result.

Now they’ve located Evenepoel and interview him.

INTERVIEWER: How does it feel?

EVENEPOEL: I’m literally trembling right now.

INTERVIEWER: I don’t see you trembling. You appear calm and your body is motionless.

EVENEPOEL: Well, I was speaking kind of metaphorically.

INTERVIEWER: But you literally said you were “literally” trembling.

EVENEPOEL: Well, sure, but the way “literally” is used in the modern vernacular, it doesn’t literally mean “literally.” It’s just used for general emphasis, like “totally.”

INTERVIEWER: You’re a bike racer, not a linguist. Can you really argue this point with any authority?

EVENEPOEL: Look, I’ll give you an example. Remember when Google went down for a few hours back in 2022? Someone tweeted, “OMG, I cannot BELIEVE Google is down. I am LITERALLY using Bing right now.”

INTERVIEWER: Touché.

Here is the new GC:

Now the Peacock commentator Steve Porino is interviewing Matthew Riccitello (Decathlon CMA CGM Team):

PORINO: What can you tell us about the race?

RICCITELLO: Let me turn that around: what can you tell me? Why do you even have a job? You know nothing about the sport, you never raced, and your voice is annoying.

PORINO: That really hurts my feelings. I thought you might appreciate the opportunity to be on camera for no apparent reason.

RICCITELLO: Project much?

(Yeah, I fabricated that entire interview. Nothing coherent was actually said by either party; it was stillborn as Riccitello was pulled away after like five seconds.)

Simmons gets a little photo-op with Pogacar.

That’s Simmons’ dad who snapped the photo. I guess facial hair runs in the family.

They interviewed Pogacar but it was mostly boring. The only interesting thing he said (which I am not making up) was, “We had doping control at 2 a.m., and when your sleep is ruined maybe you’re less concentrated on the descent. Maybe these events [the doping control and Vingegaard’s crash] may be a little bit connected so it’s sad to see.”

Simmons wins the Combativity award for the day.

Now they interview him:

INTERVIEWER: Well, you were really close to a stage win!

SIMMONS: Not that close. [Chuckles.]

INTERVIEWER: You must be happy with your form, anyway.

SIMMONS: I always come better and better in the race, I start off really hurting in the first week, now I’m getting stronger each day. I’m fully here to support Mads, it’s clear that’s the team’s priority and they write my paycheck so I’ll do what I’m told. If I can help him win the green jersey I’ll be happy.

INTERVIEWER: That’s a very humble thing to say. Given your resemblance to General Custer, I expected something along the lines of, “There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry.”

SIMMONS: Who are you?

INTERVIEWER: Literally nobody. A fictitious character. A figment of a blogger’s imagination.

(Note: some of that interview was fairly accurate. You get to guess where I started freestyling.)

Well, I think that’s enough for today. Check back this Saturday because I’ll cover the queen (and penultimate) stage featuring three hors categorie climbs and finishing atop the legendary Alpe d’Huez! If Evenepoel is still sitting second on GC at that point, Stage 20 will be either his finest hour, or his Waterloo…

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Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2025 Tour de France Stage 14

Introduction 

This year’s Tour de France started off really well, with an exciting first couple weeks. I’ll recount those as part of today’s albertnet coverage of Stage 14, a day of massive climbing in the Pyrenees. I’m not going to lie: Tadej Pogacar (UAE – Team Emirates XRG) is once again making the GC (i.e., overall) competition boring AF. (If you’re not familiar with the abbreviation “AF,” go ask a teenager.)

If this is your first time reading one of my blow-by-blow reports, be advised that I am not a professional journalist, which means I don’t worship brevity, I don’t always stick to the point, I never bite my tongue when a rider is doped or being dopey, and I’m not bitter about being poor. And today, during a lull, I plan to have the uncomfortable conversation (okay, monologue) about whether Pogacar could possibly be clean.

Tour de France Stage 14 – Pau to Luchon-Superbagnères

As I join the action, Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) is cresting the hors categorie (i.e., goes-up-to-11) Col du Tourmalet, solo. You can tell he’s a great climber because a) he’s rocking the polka-dot jersey of best climber, and b) he’s first atop the Tourmalet, duh! He’s either starting to put his jacket on, or plans to ride the entire stage no-handed as a stunt, determined to make this Tour interesting.

The big news the announcers are recapping is that the rider sitting third on GC going into today, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), was dropped and decided just to abandon the Tour. This is called grit. This is called humility. This is what it means to have a work ethic. Wait, I’m getting confused. Actually this is the absence of these things, obviously. In this replay, Evenepoel waves off the cameraman.

Rumor has it Evenepoel is abandoning because I hurt his feelings in my coverage of the Dauphiné last month. Is there anything to this rumor? Well, it’s been well established that most of these riders do read albertnet, some of them even while riding or racing. (By “well established” I mean I assume this to be the case.)

Behind Martinez, a couple minutes back, is a group of sixteen riders including the American Sepp Kuss (Team Visma - Lease A Bike) and Valentin Paret Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step). As Martinez takes this wet descent very cautiously, Kuss and Peintre drop the rest of the chasers and start closing the gap to Martinez pretty quickly. I guess descending no-handed just isn’t very aerodynamic.

Martinez reaches the base of the Col d’Aspin, still riding no-handed. You gotta admire his pluck. He must have made a bet with someone he could pull this off, and is sticking to it even at the risk of losing the stage.

The two chasers are working well together and have the gap down to less than a minute now.

Just over a kilometer from the summit of the Aspin, Martinez  is still riding no-handed.

Back in the main peloton, Pogacar’s UAE team sets tempo at the front, keeping this gap down. They’re apparently worried about Tobias Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility), the highest-placed rider on GC, who sits in eighth place overall, “only” 10:36 behind Pogacar. Is it that that’s not enough of a gap to protect Pogacar’s yellow jersey, this group being about four minutes behind? Or is it that UAE has decided Pogacar needs to win every single remaining stage of this Tour, just to further ridicule the sport after his total domination of this Tour, the Dauphiné, and the classics season?

Martinez summits the Aspin and gets max KOM points, plus a €9,000 bonus.

Kuss and Paret-Peintre catch Martinez on the descent and the three begin the Peyresourde. Martinez has evidently given up on his bet, and has his hands on the handlebars for the first time all day. He looks pretty dejected. Meanwhile, Kuss fights with something stuck in his teeth. I hate it when this happens. Your tongue gets all sore trying to get that food particle out. It’s distracting.

Most of the rest of the chase group has caught the three leaders. Not far behind is Simon Yates, one of Kuss’s teammates.

Now Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) attacks the group! Only Martinez and Johannessen can stay with him. And now they’re dropped.

Back in the main bunch, UAE continues to drive the pace, with their rider Pavel Sivakov really suffering. They’re bringing down the gap to the chase group considerably.

Arensman takes the summit solo, unless you count my cat who is clearly jealous of the attention this race is getting.

Martinez beats out the others for KOM points, experimenting with riding one-handed to see how fast that might be. Seems to be working for him.

Behind, the chase group has split in two, with Kuss in the second group.

As the riders take the final descent before beginning their assault of the Luchon-Superbagnères climb, I’ll fill you in on what’s gone down in this Tour so far. Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won the first stage, which was one designed for the sprinters. Stage 2, also a sprinters’ stage, was incongruously almost won by Pogacar, whose lust for wins is insatiable. Only Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was able to best him, and barely. Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) won stage 3, and then in stage 4—a lumpy route that should favor a breakaway—Pogacar overhauled Van der Poel in the final sprint and won, which isn’t at all weird for the best climber in the world. Stage 5 was a 33-kilometer (20.5-mile) time trial which Evenepoel handily won, with the big news being that Pogacar took second, just 16 seconds behind, utterly destroying his main rival (to the extent that he even has one), Team Visma - Lease A Bike’s Jonas Vingegaard, who finished all the way down in 13th, 1:21 behind the winner. This result put Pogacar in the yellow jersey. The next stage was won by Ben Healy (EF Education-Easypost), who is a total baller. Pogacar won again on stage 7, just ahead of Vingegaard. Stage 8 was flat and Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) took it. Stage 9 was also flat, and unexpectedly exciting because Van der Poel broke away with a teammate over 100 miles from the finish, and then went solo with, I don’t know, ten miles to go. He almost held off the chase but was caught less than 700 meters from the line. Heartbreaking! Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) took that stage.

Things got interesting on stage 10, with a group of five riding clear and staying off to the finish. Its best-placed GC rider, Healy, couldn’t manage a second stage win but took enough time to snare the yellow jersey, becoming the first Irishman since Stephen Roche in 1987 to wear it. Simon Yates (Team Visma - Lease A Bike) won that stage. The commentators were questioning why Yates didn’t drop back to help Vingegaard in the GC battle behind, but I think the answer is obvious: nobody can beat Pogacar anyway, so the team might as well go for stage wins when it can. This is of course sad, for a team built around the GC, but it’s the reality of the sport right now.

Stage 11 was cool too, because a two-man breakaway barely managed to hold off the peloton, in addition to Van der Poel, who went after them solo and very nearly overhauled them in the last kilometer but fell tragically short. You should check out the finale not only for its nail-biting finish (my spoiler notwithstanding) but also because the Eurosport announcer yells, “A stupid, stupid person on the left!” referring to some crazy fan who ran out into the road waving a flag, and who gets chased out of the way and then full-on tackled by a race official. It was one of the real high points of this Tour. Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) took the stage, a first for his rinky-dink Norwegian team.

Back to the action: as Arensman tackles the final climb solo, Mark Soler (UAE) drives the pace for Pogacar. They’re not far behind the chase group now, and on a climb this long they may well catch everybody, so we can be treated to another boring and devastating attack from Pogacar. It’s almost impossible to imagine Vingegaard even trying to attack him … the Dane hasn’t had the legs at any point during this Tour. That’s not a dig against him, by the way. His legs are great, they’re just not superhuman-space-alien.

Getting back to my recap, Stage 12 was the official start of the boring AF phase of this Tour, with Pogacar predictably attacking and soloing to victory. Remember how that used to be exciting? Before it became rote? He took over two minutes out of Vingegaard but it might as well have been twenty. The next stage, a 10.9-kilometer (6.8-mile) uphill time trial, was super boring, with Pogacar winning again, taking another 36 seconds out of Vingegaard, who not only showed the futility of his GC hopes but wore a breathtakingly ugly helmet.

This helmet became the big news of the day. Lamenting it, I texted my online race correspondent, “Vingegaard needs to be punished for that awful TT helmet. What a disgrace.” My correspondent replied, “Loser helmet.” I responded, “Yes, and a failing rider. Sad.” Then a friend emailed our bike team saying how his wife, seeing a bit of the race footage, “said [Vingegaard’s] helmet reminded her of a cartoon character from Fat Albert , which show she watched as a kid,” and attached this photo:

Another guy on our club replied, “That character is Dumb Donald.  And, well, Jonas looks dumb in that helmet.” Fair point. That being yesterday’s stage, this concludes my recap. 

And now the yellow jersey group has both chase groups in its sights, and will surely catch them. I’m not sure 2:33 will be enough of a gap for Arensman by the end, if things heat up in the GC battle.

The chase groups now merge, with only 20 seconds on the main group.

It’s time to talk about doping. Could Pogacar possibly be clean? Last year he won both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, which is generally considered impossible in the modern cycling era; the last rider to achieve this was the famously doped Marco Pantani all the way back in 1998. This year, Pogacar rode a full classics schedule, winning the Tour of Flanders, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, La Flèche Wallonne, and taking second in Paris-Roubaix, second in the Amstel Gold Race, and third in Milan-San Remo (a true sprinter’s race). Then he absolutely dominated the Critérium du Dauphiné, taking the overall and three stage wins and making it all look easy. His improvement since 2023 has been astonishing. This year he did the Hautacam climb almost a minute and a half faster than Vingegaard did it in 2022, and only 30 seconds off the all-time record set in 1996 by Bjarne Riis (aka “Mr. 60%,” referring to his ski-high EPO-fueled hematocrit). My rule of thumb is: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

But that’s not my entire case against Pogacar; for that we need to look to his UAE team director, Mauro Gianetti, who was investigated for doping as a rider after having a major health breakdown during the 1998 Tour of Romandy and spending ten days in the ICU. A teammate of Gianetti’s at that time, Stéphane Heulot, speaking to a reporter ten years later, spoke candidly about Gianetti, who had retired and moved on to managing the Saunier Duval team: “Doping is so ingrained in certain managers, like Gianetti, that they can't conceive of cycling any other way.” Ironically, Heulot asserted this while serving as the PR manager for the Saunier Duval team. (Presumably not for much longer.)

As described here, Saunier Duval’s results bear out Heulot’s skepticism: “In 2008, [Gianetti’s] team’s rising star, Riccardo Riccò, was arrested after testing positive for EPO, the blood-boosting hormone. Gianetti’s Saunier Duval team quit that year’s Tour and Riccò landed a 12-year ban.” Another rider on that team, Leonardo Piepoli, who’d already been kicked out of that Tour for “ethical violations,” tested positive for CERA the next year. Then, in 2011, Gianetti managed the Geox-TMC team, whose unsung leader Juan José Cobo came out of nowhere to win the Vuelta a España (beating no less a doper than Chris Froome), only to have his victory stripped years later due to “irregularities in his biological passport.”  So you do the math: a rider whose exploits seem extraterrestrial rides for a team whose manager had been investigated for doping as a rider and went on to head up two different famously doped teams. Hell, Gianetti even looks like a villain.

Okay, back to the coverage. Félix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) attacks the yellow jersey group! It’s a good move, but unfortunately he looks like a jackass because his handlebars are so narrow. It’s like something you’d see in a cartoon.

Gall goes straight past the chase group.

Gall sits ninth on GC, 11:43 behind Pogacar. So UAE might give him some leash, if they decide they can’t set up Pogacar for yet another stage wine. Did I mean win? Yeah, but I’m going to leave it. Even the word “win” has become boring. Adam Yates leads the chase for UAE.

Gall has 26 seconds on the group behind. He’s about two minutes behind Arensman, with five kilometers (three miles) left. He may have a shot … Arensmen looks like he’s really suffering, shoulders rocking.

One of the commentators just mentioned how strong Arensmen is on the long climbs, citing his “diesel” engine. This is commentator shorthand for how diesel engines, designed for compression ignition, utilize a much higher compression ratio (typically 14:1 to 25:1) compared to gasoline engines (8:1 to 12:1). This higher compression is crucial for igniting the fuel without spark plugs. Glow plugs, however, are typical in diesel engines. The metaphorical implication for cycling ought to be fairly obvious to just about anyone.

Back in the GC group, Vingegaard attacks!

I’m not sure it deserved an exclamation point because he’s already looking back, just assuming Pogacar easily handled it. You can always tell when an attack is in vain, when the attacker is looking behind instead of ahead.

Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull – BORA – Hansgrohe), who started the day in fourth overall, is trying to match the pace. Lipowitz is a baller, having taken third overall in the Critérium du Dauphiné last month and getting second in this year’s Paris-Nice. And with Evenepoel out, he’ll most likely make the podium and get the Best Young Rider award in this Tour.

Lipowitz is dropped, and Pogacar takes the front. And just like that, the two GC contenders overhaul Gall. Gall must have detonated.

Now it’s a matter of Arensman hanging on for the win. He should do it, as he’s got plenty of time, and if Pogacar is content to sit on Vingegaard, the two will just blob along until the end and not make up so much time.

As Arensman reaches the 1-kilometer-to-go kite, it looks like he’s peeing.

Arensman gets the win and does the “I can’t believe it” victory salute.

Now Pogacar will wait for the right moment to crush Vingegaard, who continues to look back.

Ah, and there Pogi goes. He easily overtakes Vingegaard and demolishes him in the run to the line.

Now Vingegaard is being interviewed, before he’s even had a chance to climb off his bike and put on a big puffy sweatshirt.

INTERVIEWER: Well, you attacked at least, which I think is kind of cute.

VINGEGAARD: To be honest, it was a hard day. One of the hardest mountain stages I’ve ever done.

INTERVIEWER: What do you mean “to be honest”? Do you normally lie during interviews? And would you expect me to doubt your assertion that it was hard?

VINGEGAARD: Congratulations to Arensman, he had a great ride today, and it’s nice to see somebody distinguish himself in some way, as opposed to what I did, which was just a half-assed attack with a lot of looking back, which you can see is all I’m capable of.

INTERVIEWER: Since you referred to today’s winner by his last name, instead of “Thymen,” I’m gathering you two aren’t friends? Would you say you lack for friends in the peloton in general? Kind of an introvert? Do the others bully you?

VINGEGAARD: If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to go find a big puffy sweatshirt.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, go be alone now. Go find an armchair and a throw blanket and bury your face in a literary novel.

If you’re new to this blog, I should caution you that I tend to play fast and loose with these interviews. When they become boring, I tend to ad lib a bit. But Vingegaard really did say “to be honest, it was hard,” and did congratulate Arensman. Though not to his face. So maybe he is shy.

Now they’re interviewing Arensman.

INTERVIEWER: So, you won today. Obviously. How did you do it?

ARENSMAN: Well, I had good preparation—

INTERVIEWER (INTERRUPTING): Meaning you doped.

ARENSMAN: It’s my first Tour, I had to be patient, it was already amazing to be second on the Andorra stage—

INTERVIEWER (INTERRUPTING AGAIN): No it wasn’t.

ARENSMAN: Come again?

INTERVIEWER: It wasn’t amazing when you got second on that stage. It was perfectly inevitable. Somebody always wins, somebody is always second, etc. Had you won, I guess that would have been, well, remarkable, though really probably not amazing. Now, Martinez trying to do the whole stage no-handed, and managing to move into the KOM lead in the process … that’s amazing.

ARENSMAN: That’s not even true. You talk dog farts.

Here are the stage results. You can see Pogacar took four seconds out of Vingegaard in the final sprint.

And here is the new GC. Everyone moves up a spot because of Evenepoel abandoning. Lipowitz is now solidly in third, having taken around 40 seconds out of Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL) today.

Now Arensman mounts the podium. I have noticed that the ASO is gradually returning to the podium girl tradition. For a good while, there would be just one podium girl, usually a fairly plain one in a very modest outfit, and not very close to the podium, with a dumpy middle-aged man on the other side, closer to the podium. It was like the organizers were distancing themselves from the tradition. But they’ve been gradually moving the podium girl closer to the stage, and putting a male model on the other side. This podium girl is watching Arensman and trying not to look perplexed, but he’s just standing there, not knowing what to do … she’s surely thinking, “Dude, aren’t you going to put your arms up?”

For the most part, they’ve also abandoned the tradition of the winner getting kisses from the podium girl. The rider instead just accepts the flowers with an awkward little head nod. The exception is Van der Poel, who either didn’t get the memo or can’t be bothered to comply. Each time he’s been on the podium in this Tour he’s given the podium girl kisses, and she hasn’t seemed to mind, and has in fact looked, to me, pleasantly surprised. The last time this happened the cameraman, thinking quickly, panned to a flashy blond woman in the audience, presumably Van der Poel’s girlfriend, to get her reaction. She was pretty chill about it.

Pogacar gets another yellow jersey and another stuffed lion. This podium girl is a real professional, managing to look legitimately happy when she must be freezing her arse off in that sleeveless dress while the podium dude is in a wool suit and Pogacar has a nice thermal cap.

And now Lipowitz gets his white jersey for Best Young Rider. I hope he doesn’t get signed as a domestique by UAE or Visma … I’d like to see him challenging the perennial favorites in the years to come. Note the mismatched blue of the podium guy’s suit vs. the podium girl’s dress. Funny story there: that’s actually a bridesmaid dress she almost threw away but saved for some reason, and now she got to wear it here!

Now they’re interviewing Pogacar.

INTERVIEWER: It looks like you practically phoned it in today, until your sprint where you once again humiliated Vingegaard.

POGACAR: The team did a super good job, I’m really really happy.

INTERVIEWER: When I asked you last year about carbon monoxide rebreathing, you denied any knowledge of it and replied, “I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m just uneducated.” But then a day later, after your team admitted doing it, you seemed to suddenly remember and said, “I didn’t quite understand the question. It’s not like you’re breathing exhaust pipes in a car. It’s just a simple test to see how you respond to altitude training.” Doesn’t that seem like backpedaling?

POGACAR: Arensman deserved this victory with a super good race.

INTERVIEWER: I see you’re not going to answer my question. Next I suppose you’ll be talking about the weather.

POGACAR: If my nose were a little less clogged I would be really happy with today’s weather but when you’re a bit under the weather it’s kind of, this kind of weather, it doesn’t help, but always, when it’s like this, I have the legs.

INTERVIEWER: Are you literally claiming to be absolutely dominating this Tour even while you have a cold? Seriously?

POGACAR: I think I hear my mom calling.

Obviously I made up a lot of that, but a journalist really did investigate Pogacar’s (and Vingegaard’s) practice of carbon monoxide rebreathing, and you should click that link above. Note that in this case I recorded Pogacar’s words as close to verbatim as I could (until the end). He really did say he’s under the weather. Sheesh.

Well, that’s about it for the 2025 Tour … barring some catastrophe, Pogacar will win it in boring AF fashion. Best case, Vingegaard can at least get a stage win. Or a stage wine. Or maybe just another stage whine.

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