Tour de France Rest Day #1 Reflections

Breaking down what we’ve learned so far at the 2025 Tour de France & where the GC will go from here

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After the opening ten stages of the 2025 Tour de France, fan-favorite Ben Healy may officially hold the Yellow Jersey due to his heoric rides through the first ten stages, but Tadej Pogačar is the leader in the clubhouse after jumping out to a commanding early lead over his key GC rivals, even with the subdued terrain of Northern France making up a vast majority of the first ten stages. However, with a weaker-than-expected UAE Team Emirates squad behind him, and the presence of a strong Visma-Lease a Bike team with the dual threat of Jonas Vingegaard and Matteo Jorgenson closely behind, Pogačar and UAE’s march toward the Yellow Jersey will undoubtedly be challenged in the coming stages. Let’s take a look at how we got here and what to expect in the coming weeks:

Current GC Top Ten:
1) Ben Healy (EF Education‑EasyPost) +0
2) Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates‑XRG) + 29
3) Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick‑Step) +1′29
4) Jonas Vingegaard (Visma‑Lease a Bike) + 1′46
5) Matteo Jorgenson (Visma‑Lease a Bike) + 2′06
6) Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa‑B&B Hotels) + 2′26
7) Oscar Onley (Picnic‑PostNL) + 3′24
8) Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull‑BORA‑Hansgrohe) + 3′34
9) Primož Roglič (Red Bull‑BORA‑Hansgrohe) + 3′41
10) Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) + 5′03

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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 what I consider to be the four most potent potential winners took or lost time so far. I’ve isolated every stage where these four key contenders have won(+) or lost(-) relative to each other so far.

Stage 1 Sprint Stage
Tadej Pogačar +0
Jonas Vingegaard +0
Matteo Jorgenson +0
Remco Evenepoel -39

Stage 2 Uphill Finish
Tadej Pogačar +0
Jonas Vingegaard -2
Matteo Jorgenson -6
Remco Evenepoel -6

Stage 4 Uphill Finish
Tadej Pogačar +0
Jonas Vingegaard -6
Matteo Jorgenson -13
Remco Evenepoel -13

Stage 5 Time Trial
Remco Evenepoel +0
Tadej Pogačar -16
Matteo Jorgenson -1’19
Jonas Vingegaard -1’21

Stage 7 Uphill Finish
Tadej Pogačar +0
Jonas Vingegaard -4
Matteo Jorgenson -12
Remco Evenepoel -12

Stage 10 Medium Mountain Stage
Tadej Pogačar +0
Jonas Vingegaard +0
Matteo Jorgenson -3
Remco Evenepoel -6

Course Type Where Time Was Won/Lost Relative to Pogačar

Time Trials
Evenepoel +16 (won)
Jorgenson -1’03 (lost)
Vingegaard -1’05 (lost)

Bonus Seconds
Vingegaard -12 (lost)
Evenepoel -26 (lost)
Jorgenson -26 (lost)

Hills
Vingegaard +0
Jorgenson -8 (lost)
Evenepoel -11 (lost)

Crosswinds
Vingegaard +0
Jorgenson +0
Evenepoel -39 (lost)

Three GC Rest Day Reflections

The last two reflections are slightly altered versions of the premium members-only newsletter that went out following yesterday’s Stage 10

1) Tadej Pogačar Has Taken Efficient Early Time Gains Through the First Ten Stages: Considering that Pogačar holds the co-title of the world’s best one-day Classics rider (alongside Mathieu van der Poel), it isn’t shocking to see him taking time on the lumpy parcours of Northern France that resemble the one-day Classics he excels at in the Spring.

• However, the fact that he is leading by a minute, or more, over his key GC rivals, despite the race not having a climb of longer than five kilometers in length so far, and Pogačar only taking a handful of seconds on the limited climbs featured so far, is somewhat surprising, and should have his rivals concerned.

  • For example, the flat Stage 5 time trial was generally considered to be the worst GC set piece for Pogačar, who lost time to all three of Vingegaard, Evenepoel, and Jorgenson in the individual time trial at the recent Dauphine, and a stage he would have to survive before looking to take gaps later on.

    • But, instead of ceding time, he took over a minute on the only rider capable of matching him on the climbs, Vingegaard, and limited his losses against flat time trial specialist Evenepoel. Generally, taking time when you are expected to lose it is beneficial in stage racing.

      • And, highlighting the importance of Pogačar’s Classics skills, he was able to more than double the amount of time Evenepoel took on him in the time trial by simply positioning himself in a better spot in the crosswinds near the end of Stage 1.

        • This is particularly valuable time gained since it allowed Pogačar to withstand these TT losses, which Evenepoel had to invest significant energy to take, while actually expending less energy than Evenepoel due to better pack skills.

          • The numbers laid out above also go a long way toward dispelling the narrative that Pogačar is expending too much energy for too little gain. In fact, he has taken roughly the same amount of time we’ve seen exchanged in the high mountains in recent Grand Tours by leveraging his time trialing form, and contesting as many stage wins as possible, which net significant time bonuses in exchange for relatively short bursts of power, while forgoing the longer range attacks and sprints for minor placings we’ve seen from him early in past Tours.

2) Visma Continues to Invest Heavily in Loading Pressure & Fatigue on Pogačar: A common sight throughout the first ten stages was Visma-Lease a Bike regularly deploying domestiques to make the race hard and attempt to catch out Pogačar. But, allowing two key domestiques to expend significant energy on yesterday’s Stage 10 to contest the stage win from the breakaway was still somewhat shocking, and raises questions about their goals and focus at this Tour de France.

• Additionally, seeing Visma deploy their most important support riders in Matteo Jorgenson and Sepp Kuss to attack Pogačar in the GC group on a stage with no climbs longer than 5 kilometers in length, and then continue to pace with Pogačar comfortably in the wheel, was somewhat baffling, especially since the team continues to insist that their advantage lies in the high mountains.

  • Even if we assume Vingegaard has an advantage on Pogačar in the Alps (Pogačar’s performance at the 2024 Tour de France would not suggest this), if Visma continues to burn matches at this rate on stages with mild climbs, they may be successful in loading up Pogačar’s legs with fatigue, but their support team will be on their knees by the time the climbs arrive, which means there will be nobody to set up a Vingegaard attack and exploit Pogačar’s tired legs.

    • Also, if they continue executing their coordinated attacks as they did on Stage 10, it won’t matter if Pogačar is isolated, since Jorgenson lacks the explosive acceleration to escape the defending champion.

      • Moreover, when Jorgenson sets the pace on the front, his large frame offers Pogačar an ideal slipstream to follow.

    • The question I have is that if Visma truly believes Pogačar is vulnerable on Stages 16, 18, and 19 due to their sustained, high-altitude climbs, wouldn’t it make more sense to sit back, preserve their domestiques, and force UAE to control these stages, which, in turn, might actually load more fatigue into UAE’s legs due to the attacking that could kick off without the presence of Visma on the front?

      • While it is theoretically great to isolate and attack a rival in order to weaken them over the course of three weeks, the issue with this strategy in reality is that while Vingegaard might get stronger in the third week, his team won’t, and they could be on their knees by the time they arrive at the stages where he could actually make a time difference. This could set up a situation where even if Vingegaard could potentially drop Pogačar in the high mountains, he might have no team to set up an attack, allowing Pogačar to simply sit on his wheel.

3) Meanwhile, Pogačar Looks Completely Unbothered By Visma’s Attacks Despite Weakness in His UAE Team: One major reason Visma may have felt empowered to press the issue is the weakness emanating from Pogačar’s UAE team, with their key climbing support rider João Almeida leaving the race on Stage 9, and Pavel Sivakov, another climbing ace, appearing to struggle with an illness on Stage 10 (which does present the non-zero chance Pogačar gets sick in the coming days).

• However, while Visma proved in the Massif Central that they can isolate Pogačar when they want to, whether or not they can isolate Pogačar proved to be the wrong question; the far more important one was, what do you do once you have him alone?

  • After all, due to being the strongest rider in the race, he can simply increase the pace on any climb to strip Vingegaard of his Visma teammates at will, which instantly levels the playing field in terms of team support and leaves Vingegaard vulnerable to Pogačar’s explosive power.

    • This fact makes the decision to burn so many matches so early in the race, and on terrain that suits Pogačar perfectly, seem ill-advised. Instead, it would stand to reason that Visma would want to go all-in on attacking Pogačar on the longer, less-explosive climbs to come.

      • After all, illustrating just how pointless it is to burn matches to isolate Pogačar on these stages, Pogačar was so at ease on Monday and so unbothered by the prospect of Visma and Vingegaard’s attacks, he rode his far-heavier Colnago Y1RS aero bike on a stage with the fourth most vertical meters gained in the entire Tour.

        • However, it is essential to note that, in relation to the Visma strategy, we begin to enter a zone where, even if they execute perfectly, they may appear to be needlessly wasting energy. After all, if Pogačar is undroppable, they are essentially trying to find the answer to an unanswerable question, and could be left simply waiting for Pogačar to get sick or injured.

Stage 11 Preview

Tomorrow’s post-rest day stage both begins and ends in the southern French city of Toulouse, but, instead of the usual straightforward sprint that we’ve seen here in recent years, we have a series of steep hills placed inside the final 20 kilometers that will make this a battle between the stage hunters, sprinters and perhaps even GC contenders.

• While in a vacuum, these climbs wouldn’t be an issue for top sprinters, the fastmen could struggle to get up and over with the front group coming out of a rest day following ten tough days of racing.

• Prediction: Wout van Aert gets Visma’s second consecutive stage win after the 10% average gradient of the final climb dispatches the faster sprinters. All the top GC riders finish together, and Ben Healy holds the race lead.