Tour de France Final Rest Day Reflections

Breaking down where the GC contenders have won/lost time so far during a scorching fast Tour de France, and what it means for the race's final week

After two weeks of scorchingly fast racing and an arduous trip through the Pyrenees, Tadej Pogačar has stamped his authority on the 2024 Tour de France with two historically fast climbing performances that distanced his biggest GC rival, Jonas Vingegaard, and left everyone but the current overall podium, Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel hopelessly adrift behind. While there is still plenty of racing between today’s rest day and the race’s conclusion in Nice at the end of the week, Pogačar appears to have finally raised his level enough to solve the previously unbreakable riddle that is Vingegaard to reclaim the Tour de France throne. Let’s take a look at how we got here and what to expect in the coming week:

Current General Classification (GC) Top Ten:
1) Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) +0
2) Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) +3’09
3) Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) +5’19
4) João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) +10’54
5) Mikel Landa (Soudal QuickStep) +11’21
6) Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) +11’27
7) Adam Yates (UAE) +13’38
8) Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) +15’48
9) Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) +16’12
10) Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain-Victorious) +16’32

Time Changes Between Top Three Since First Rest Day
Tadej Pogačar +0
Jonas Vingegaard -1’54
Remco Evenepoel -4’46

KOM (Polka Dot) Jersey Top Three
1) Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) 77pts
2) Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) 58pts
3) Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) 42pts

Points (Green) Jersey Top Three
1) Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) 363pts
2) Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceunick) 277pts
3) Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) 147pts

Catch Up Quick (become a premium member to receive full access to daily stage breakdowns):

• Stage 1: Romain Bardet wins with a late, well-executed raid to take Yellow

• Stage 2: Kevin Vauquelin wins from the early breakaway, Pogačar attacks the GC group

• Stage 3: Biniam Girmay wins a bunch sprint

• Stage 4: Tadej Pogačar wins after attacking over the top of the Galibier

• Stage 5: Mark Cavendish wins a bunch sprint

• Stage 6: Dylan Groenewegen wins a bunch sprint

• Stage 7: Remco Evenepoel wins time trial

• Stage 8: Biniam Girmay wins a difficult sprint

• Stage 9: Anthony Turgis wins from a reduced sprint from the early breakaway, GC attacks play out on the gravel behind

• Rest Day #1 Reflections

• Stage 10: Jasper Philipsen gets his first stage win with a bunch sprint victory

• Stage 11: Jonas Vingegaard beats Tadej Pogačar with a bike throw in the Massif Central

• Stage 12: Biniam Girmay wins a bunch sprint

• Stage 13: Jasper Philipsen wins a sprint on a tough day marked by crosswinds

• Stage 14: Tadej Pogačar wins atop Pla d'Adet after aggressive tactics from his UAE team

• Stage 15: Tadej Pogačar drops Jonas Vingegaard to win atop Plateau de Beille with a dominating climbing performance

BTP's Tour de France Coverage is brought to you by RedWhite Apparel®

RedWhite makes Long Distance Bibshorts and their goal is to become your Go-To bibshort supplier. RedWhite is laser-focused on bibshorts and doesn’t produce any other product.

• RedWhite Apparel®’s signature bibshort, The BIB, contains a heat-molded pad that stays plush mile after mile. The BIB is the go-to option for riders doing AUDAX rides over 600 miles in length.

• Get your pair at www.redwhite.cc (free worldwide express shipping)

• Use their Sizing Helpdesk to get a personalised size recommendation

• BTP Testimonial: The RedWhite Long Distance Bibshort was more than comfortable during a recent 5+ hour BWR gravel race

---

Where Time Has Been Won/Lost So Far

To discern how the GC race will play out in the coming weeks, let’s look at where each of the top four took or lost time up to this point. I’ve isolated every stage where the top three have won/lost time relative to each other and how much time they won(+) or lost(-).

Stage 4 Mountains
Tadej Pogačar +0
Remco Evenepoel -45
Jonas Vingegaard -50

Stage 7 Time Trial
Remco Evenepoel +0
Tadej Pogačar -12
Jonas Vingegaard -37

Stage 11 Mountains
Jonas Vingegaard +0
Tadej Pogačar -1
Remco Evenepoel -34

Stage 14 Mountains
Tadej Pogačar +0
Jonas Vingegaard -43
Remco Evenepoel -1’16

Stage 15 Mountains
Tadej Pogačar +0
Jonas Vingegaard -1’12
Remco Evenepoel -2’57

Looking at these stages broken out, what sticks out the most is that the raw number of days that have produced time gaps between the top contenders isn’t particularly large, while the time gaps are massive. In just five days of racing, Pogačar has built up a significant lead on the second place Jonas Vingegaard and over a five-minute lead on second place Remco Evenepoel.

Course Type Where Time Was Won/Lost Relative to Pogačar

When looking at the course types where the other major GC riders have won/lost time relative to Tadej Pogačar, we see a picture of a rider riding a wave of absolute dominance, with him extending his lead nearly every time the race has gone uphill. He has only ceded time to TT world champion Remco Evenepoel on Stage 7’s time trial, and even then, he successfully limited his losses. With more summit finishes awaiting in the third week, this data would suggest that Pogačar will only extend his lead in the coming days.

Mountains
Vingegaard -2’24 (lost)
Evenepoel -5’01 (lost)

• Summit Finishes

  Vingegaard -1’47 (lost)
  Evenepoel -4’26 (lost)

Time Trials
Evenepoel +12 (won)
Vingegaard -25 (lost)

Time Bonuses
Vingegaard -20 (lost)
Evenepoel -30 (lost)

Three Key Takeaways

1) Jonas Vingegaard May Not Be Struggling Due to His Crash but Just Being Simply Outperformed: As I outlined in yesterday’s Stage 15 breakdown, the performances Tadej Pogačar unleashed in the Pyrenees over the weekend were the best of his career and, potentially, some of the best of all-time:

• Pogacar’s Weekend Climbing Performances:

  • Saturday on Pla d'Adet (10.6km at 8%):

    • Time: 24:35

      VAM: 1,837
      Est. Power: 6.9w/kg (443w)

  • Sunday on Plateau de Beille (15.7km at 7.8%):

    • Time: 39:43
      VAM: 1,887
      Est. Power: 6.95w/kg (445w)

• Looking at these numbers, it appears that Tadej Pogačar has ironed out his previous weaknesses (struggling on long days over multiple massive mountain passes) to transform from a historically great all-around talent with some rough edges into an all-time Great Grand Tour contender.

  • Some important context is that while these numbers are incredible, instead of indicating some dramatic baseline improvement from Pogačar, they show that he has tweaked his training to allow him to ride closer to his functional threshold power (how hard someone can ride for an hour), which has remained roughly the same, for longer periods of time on demand.

    • In short, due to better and more thoughtful training and fueling, he can ride closer to his maximum more often while limiting his off days.

• Considering that Jonas Vingegaard is riding incredibly close to Pogacar as he unleashes these climbing performances, it isn’t clear to me that he is struggling as much as he appears to be, at least up to this point, due to his crash-disrupted pre-Tour de France training.

  • For example, Vingegaard’s climbing and power numbers over the weekend were slightly superior to his performance over the Tourmalet on Stage 6 of last year’s Tour and, while slightly below his 7.1w/kg climbing performance during the Stage 16 time trial, were performed at the end of a much longer and more demanding day of racing.

    • So, as Vingegaard and his Visma team have been cast as weaker than in previous years, this may be just an optical illusion due to the increased level and consistency of Pogačar.

2) Remco Evenepoel Has Proven Himself To Be a Viable Future Tour de France Overall Contender: Two weeks into the Tour de France, the 24-year-old Remco Evenepoel is quietly riding to the most impressive result of his young career. While his time loss management strategy might not sparkle like his stunning solo victories to win major one-day races like Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the World Road Race Championships, his rides at this Tour have been far superior when accounting for the competition in front of him and the effort required to keep pace.

• Evenepoel may be shot out the back every time Pogačar lifts the pace, but, after this initial distancing, he is climbing with a consistency and pace that he has lacked in the past, including during his 2022 Vuelta a España overall victory.

  • It is important to keep in mind that if Pogačar and Vingegaard were not at this race due to hypothetical injuries, Evenepoel would be leading the Tour by an even greater margin than Pogačar currently is.

• Considering his subpar form at the recent Critérium du Dauphiné, it is clear that his preparation for this Tour was oddly clunky and required him to shed significant weight in the two weeks before the race. This would suggest that if the rumors about his impending transfer to RedBull-Bora-Hansgrohe are true, and he is to get into a program with a much bigger budget and greater understanding focus on Grand Tour preparation, Evenepoel’s ceiling could be competing for the win at a future Tour de France.

  • While defeating Pogačar at his current level might not be possible, simply due to the time losses, even a peak Evenepoel would slowly suffer in the mountains, a slight disruption to Pogačar’s preparation, and a course with more flat time trialing could put Evenepoel into the hunt at the sport’s biggest race.

3) A Brutal Final Week Will Likely Produce Extremely Defensive Racing As Riders Look to Secure Their Top Ten Positions: It is important to remember that while the Tour’s trip into the Pyrenees produced tough racing and massive time gaps, the third week serves up a highly unusual cadence of stages and multiple brutal days in the Alps. With the elimination of the final ceremonial day in Paris and the final stage taking place in Nice, at the base of the Alps, the Tour has effectively added two mountain stages.

• After tomorrow’s likely sprint stage into Nîmes, every remaining day of racing could be classified as a mountain stage.

  • Stage 17 Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux to Superdévoluy with three classified climbs, an uphill finish, and 3,901 meters (10,141ft) of climbing.

    Stage 18: Gap to Barcelonnette with five classified climbs and 3,123 meters (10,246ft) of climbing.

    Stage 19: Embrun to Isola 2000 with two HC climbs and a finish on one Cat 1 climb and 4,512 meters (14,803ft) of climbing.

    Stage 20: Nice to Col de la Couillole with three major climbs and a finish on a Cat 1 climb and 4,700 meters (15,419ft) of climbing.
    Stage 21: Monaco to Nice: An individual time trial with 718 meters (2,355ft) of climbing crammed into just 34 kilometers.

• A historically brutal third week would typically have a chorus of teams and riders saying that the Tour has yet to begin, but with the peloton on its knees due to all-out racing nearly every stage through the past two weeks and everyone now afraid to poke the Pogačar bear.

  • Due to this, expect to see highly conservative racing as the GC contenders fall into line behind UAE’s pacesetting to preserve their current top ten positions while the few remaining riders with the strength to get into mountain-stage breakaways battle for stages and KOM points on the high-altitude Alpine passes.

Stage 16 Preview

Tomorrow’s 188-kilometer trip from Gruissan to Nîmes positions the peloton for their third-week Alpine challenge, and considering it is the last chance for every non-climber to take a stage win, expect to see a furious battle between the breakaway and the teams of the sprinters.

• This region of southern France is known for its high chance of crosswinds, so look out for another nervous day where the GC contenders and their teams huddle at the front and attempt to catch each other out.

  • With Biniam Girmay and his Intermarché wanting to defend their lead in the Green Jersey classification by allowing a breakaway to soak up sprint points at the intermediate point and finish, the challenge for the sprinters to control the breakaway will be tough.

• Prediction: Wout van Aert finally gets a stage win after winning a bunch sprint ahead of pure sprinters fatigued from two challenging Pyrenean stages.