The sixth stage of the Tour de France throws another challenge at the peloton Thursday, with a demanding 201-km trek from Bayeux to Vire Normandie. Les gars in France will face a jagged route through Normandy’s undulating interior—an energy-sapping day that could shape the race in more ways than one.
It’s just one of two stages on this year’s Tour that stretch beyond 200 km, and the difficulty ramps up with 3,500 m of climbing across six categorized ascents: five Category 3s and one final Category 4. Toss in a relentless series of uncategorized hills and there’s little chance to recover before the uphill finish.
On paper, it looks ideal for a breakaway. But so did Stage 4—until the general classification contenders hijacked the finale and Tadej Pogačar took the win. Because Pogi.
Whether the big names decide to go for it again remains to be seen. Thursday’s route is harder from start to finish, which could give opportunistic puncheurs the edge if the favourites hold fire. But with some riders still reeling from the previous day’s time trial, there’s also a chance we see more GC movement from those chasing back lost seconds.
The finale ramps up for 700 m at a punishing 10 per cent—perfect for punchy climbers or anyone with a little extra in the tank after a long day in the saddle. Van der Poel has had a brilliant start to his Tour, taking a win and the yellow jersey. He is sixth overall, just under a minute and a half behind Pogačar. If he got himself in a selection, coupled with bonus seconds, he could very well be in yellow again briefly before the Tour gets into the high mountains. But UAE and Pogi would have to allow that. You never know—the team may prefer another squad to defend yellow this early. The Orangeman looks good in yellow, so if his Alpecin–Deceuninck squad decides to go for it, watch out.
On Wednesday, Remco Evenepoel had some solid redemption after a tough start to his Tour de France. He scorched the 33-km TT, taking his first Tour de France stage win ahead of UAE Emirates’ Pogačar. The big news of the day was Jonas Vingegaard. The Visma–Lease a Bike rider had an uncharacteristically disappointing TT. The Dane lost 1:21 to Evenepoel and 1:06 to Pogačar—he is now sitting fourth, 1:13 behind the Slovenian. The world champion now has the green, yellow and polka dot jerseys.
Thursday’s stage is on FloBikes.com starting at 7:00 a.m. EDT. As always, check back to Canadian Cycling Magazine for a full…
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