Tour de France 2025: Stages 6 through 10
Hello, and welcome back! I hope you’ve been enjoying the race! You may have noticed that with the Grand Tour Race comes the Grand Tour Gossip News Cycle. This time we have:
Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-LAB)’s wife/
momager/manager desperate to call Jonas out sick from cycling so they can have a day at home as a family!Team Visma-LAB trying to figure out if picking a fight with Jonas’ wife is better or worse than a GC leadership crisis!
Cofidis threatening to sue everyone for saying Bryan Coquard intentionally injured Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) in Stage 3. Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) remains unavailable for comment!
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) swearing he’s not going to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe this time either!
Gosh, I love the first week of a Grand Tour! Let’s get started!
Leaderboard Update!
After the first five stages, here are our leaders:
Yellow Jersey (GC): Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirates)
Green Jersey (Sprinter): Well, would you look at that? It's Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirates) again.
Polka Dot Jersey (Climber): OH BIG FUCKING SURPRISE this is also Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirates).
White Jersey (Young Rider): Remo Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step), who is somehow still eligible for best young rider despite having been a pro rider for a decade!
Honorable mention goes to: French beauty Kévin Vauquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels) for his third place in the GC chapeau to you Kev; and best-name-haver Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) for daring the Red Bull DS to throw the weight of the team behind him instead of his teammate Primož Roglič.
And dishonorable mention goes to: Team Visma-LAB, who has the embarrassing distinction of landing in first in the team competition on the same day that Jonas Vingegaard dropped more than a minute behind Remco and into 3rd in GC; and perpetual disappointment NBC Sports/Peacock, for not having anyone who could hold a candle to Orla Chennaoui and the Eurosport cycling team. #PhilLiggettRetireBitch
Stage Breakdowns
Stage 6: 201.5km of Hills from Bayeux to Vire Normandie
Stage 6 starts in Bayeux (of tapestry fame1), and is the second-longest stage this year with 201.5kms. There’s also 3,350m of climbing over 5 Category 3 climbs and one Category 4, with plenty of uncategorized climbing in between. The first Category 3 climb, at Mont Pinçon at 35.5kms, is the highest place in northwestern France, so Stage 6 is nothing to sniff at.
I hope the peloton is rested and the breakaway riders (AHEM Ben O’Connor [Jayco–AlUla]) are ready to dig in for a tough day.
Stage 7: 197km of Hills from Saint-Malo to Mûr-de-Bretagne Guerlédan
Stage 7 starts in the absolutely hideous city of Saint-Malo:
The end of Stage 7, in Guerlédan, on the shores of the lake by the same name, should end in fireworks. In the last 15kms, the peloton will climb the Mûr-de-Bretagne twice. Don’t be fooled by the fact that this is a Category 3 climb; it’s still 2kms long and the first half of each climb is just under 10% incline. After all that climbing, the riders may want to indulge in Mûr-de-Bretagne’s local specialty: a savory galette with dough made from mashed potatoes!
Stage 8: 171.4km Flat from Saint-Méen-le-Grand to Laval Espace Mayenne
Stage 8 might be the snoozer of the stages in this group, I’m afraid. Maybe Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) will find a way to wrench the green jersey out of Tadej Pogačar’s skinny hands and will make the finish in the charming town of Laval an exciting sprint moment.
Stage 9: 174.1km Flat from Chinon to Châteauroux
Jesus Christ, another flat stage? Maybe the fact that there’s a sprint point at 20kms means that Stage 9 will get off to an exciting start in Chinon, and the scenery through the Loire Valley should be incredible, what with all of the chateaux:
The good thing about ASO scheduling two flat and likely boring stages on Saturday and Sunday is that I’ll be away this weekend, so I wouldn’t be able to watch even if the stages were exciting.
Stage 10: 165.3km of Mountains from Ennezat to Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy
Here we go, it’s finally mountain time and we have 4,400 meters of climbing ahead of us! Stage 10 will start in Ennezat in the Puy-de-Dôme department in central France. There’s a Category 2 climb at Côte de Loubeyrat at 11.8kms, folks. Then, after the sprint point at 44.4kms, there are four Category 2 climbs, a Category 3, and then two more Category 2 climbs, including the finish atop the Puy de Sancy. Oh, and did I mention that Stage 10 is on Bastille Day?
You can imagine that if a Frenchman wins Stage 10, a good amount of France will be severely hungover on the rest day on Tuesday.
That's it for today because I'm short on time and Stage 6 starts in less than 12 hours! Don't go to law school, kids! I’ll see you next week!
FYI you only have a few months to see the tapestry in situ in Beyeux. It will be on loan to the UK through 2027, which is fair since the Anglo-Saxons were the losers in 1066. I’ve never seen it, despite being a 1066-head, so I guess I’ll have to put Bayeux on the travel list for 2027.
I must disagree with your choice of best name-haver. It’s clearly Remco Evenepoel because he sounds like a Tour team all on his own. Cycling equivalent of a law firm name.
Hon mention to former rider Richie Porte, because the first year I watched the Tour I kept hearing Phil Liggett ask “rich or poor?” and I didn’t understand why he’d talk about one of the riders that way.