The Side-questrian: three days in Catalunya

It’s not all about Tadej and Jonas (even when it is)

Caja Rural returned the Le Tour and were first off the ramp on stage 1

Welcome subscribers old and new, to the first of my Tour de France recaps – hope you like the temporary title. It’s a throwback to my preview post, in case you missed it. I’m attempting to find the bits and bobs from the Tour that might otherwise escape notice, as part of my round-up of each stage. For those new to the newsletter wondering what atrocity of an image I’ve led with, it’s the return of a feature known as ‘terrible screenshots of my laptop’. Blame the WBD group for making it impossible to screenshot properly.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re drowning in these kinds of emails (I know I am) so if you choose to take the time to read this one, know that I truly appreciate you. If you’d like to support my solo quest to bring you a different kind of coverage, paid tiers are discounted throughout the race, just click the button below!

Stage 1: When is a team sport not a team sport?

The stage was set. The sun baked down on the streets Barcelona as this year’s race began somewhat uniquely, with a team time trial. Only the second time in the race’s history has the discipline kicked off the Tour, and not since 1971. Cycling is already the most curious of sports when it comes to team versus individual, but the last remaining bastion of securing a team result could arguably have been retained in the team time trial. A chance for a team to succeed together; an honest challenge of a unit. This time, though, the nuances of the UCI’s rule changes concerning finishing times mean that the spirit of the TTT, for the purists at least (me) was compromised.

The strategy is perhaps a more intricate beast, and offered interest in the early stages. But the simplicity of the old ways - the job of having to get four riders over the line before the clock stops - is what kept the discipline honest. Hamstrung GC leaders with less specialists on their team, forced teams to decide who had enough to go all the way to the finish. While those with time trialists aplenty could enjoy a temporary advantage, and give the rest something to work against. Now, while the team can stay intact if it’s beneficial, in most cases the team’s leader will launch towards the end of the course profile, and finish the job alone, almost rendering the team element moot.

It’s still a spectacle, undoubtedly. Watching eight riders flow together, even if only for a short while (and despite the array of ridiculously shaped helmets), is a beautiful thing. Observing the different strategies of teams with different strengths was illustrative: for teams like Red Bull, with a rider like Remco Evenepoel, hiding their leader away was not an option – to secure the best possible time, Remco had to do a fair whack of the work himself. At the other end of the spectrum was the Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling approach – essentially delivering Tom Pidcock to the final climb via a seven-man lead-out – the diminutive Brit used his team to stay out of the wind and preserve all of his energy for the final effort.

To the race itself, and Groupama-FDJ United surprised many by setting the early high water mark, despite losing two riders to a nasty crash – Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet and Clément Berthet crossed the line bloodied, but newly crowned French champion Romain Grégoire stormed up the Montjuïc climb to win the honour of a stint in the hotseat for the French team.

It was a turbulent day for Netcompany-INEOS. Pictured before the race taking an inventive approach to cooling, they waited for their slot with their forearms and hands resting in tubs of ice water. It was an odd illustration of just how hot it was out there. Despite being widely tipped to take the win, they didn’t have the easiest of times. Egan Bernal indicated he was done early with a clear thumbs down signal – whether by design or simply running out of legs; almost simultaneously, the team’s most likely GC candidate Kévin Vauquelin suffered a puncture, stripping a major time trialling engine from the unit. In the end, Filippo Ganna and Tobias Foss were left, a duo of national champions storming into the foot of the Montjuïc climb, and Ganna powered solo to the finish line, supplanting the former leaders on the hotseat – a very, very hot seat indeed, given the conditions, and the number of bodies forced to share it.

Later on in the day, the major GC hopefuls launched with their teams, and most of them employed a similar tactic: sending their leader into the foot of the climb with two helpers, before hammering their way to the finish line alone. By contrast with some of the other teams, Decathlon CMA CGM are not gifted with time trialling machines. In fact, their TTT unit looked pretty funny, given they brought four tiny climbers to the race. The one bigger guy among them, former Dutch national champion Daan Hoole, stood out a mile. They were one of the most interesting teams to watch in the finale; Tiesj Benoot and Matthew Riccitello accompanied Paul Seixas, Benoot swinging out of the saddle while Seixas maintained a beautiful position, finishing his team off and charging for the line.

As I predicted Lidl-Trek put on a strong display, and were neck-and-neck with Ineos – they sent Derek Gee-West and Mathias Vacek with Juan Ayuso, and the young Spaniard finished just 7 seconds down on Ganna. Meanwhile, UAE and Visma certainly lived up to their billing. Visma in the space helmets may look ridiculous, but it clearly works for them. Looking like a mad alien makes you quick, apparently.

Remco Evenepoel looked sharp in his all white rainbow skinsuit – he had Maxim Van Gils and Florian Lipowitz for support heading into the final climb. UAE were down to six before the first time check, losing Adam Yates and Nils Politt, but it made no difference to Tadej Pogačar; he and Isaac Del Toro attacked the final climb and eventually, Pogi launched for the summit alone, clocking the fastest climbing time of the day to clinch the KOM jersey outright.

(The irony is not lost on me, after my appeal for the polka dots to belong to someone other than the GC leader).

In the end though, courtesy of his team’s speed and a strong final climb, Jonas Vingegaard took the race’s first yellow jersey. Due to the individual timings, the top ten after the stage already resembled what we might imagine the final top ten to look like. Yes, the podium was a dream scenario for the race organisers. But where’s the weird order and the GC favourite who’s halfway down the standings due to carrying a few too many passengers? Nowhere, is where. It’s just a convenient way to let the guys who are going to be up there anyway take control of the race from day one. Give me back the four-man rule.

A word for Egan Bernal, who despite dropping relatively early, was the first across the line at the intermediate sprint point, and ended up in the green jersey for the first time in his career – Egan in green is the absolute definition of a side quest. It also meant that of the four special jerseys awarded after stage one, three were on the shoulders of previous winners of the race, which after just one stage, was pretty remarkable.

Stage 2: A Vulgar Display of Power

The first road stage of the Tour was never going to be one for the breakaway, with a punchy finish on a familiar circuit that would be a mouth-watering prospect for a wide range of riders, from GC favourites to Classics guys.

A trio of riders made it clear and although one of my tips for breakaway shenanigans, Baptiste Veistroffer, tried his luck, he wasn’t able to make it across to the leaders. There were a smattering of early crashes, including one for Biniam Girmay. And though Visma had the yellow jersey already, they didn’t trouble themselves driving the pace, with Pinarello Q36.5 giving it the beans for Pidcock.

The crash for Bini clearly didn’t phase him as he won the first intermediate sprint and we were treated to our first sighting of the sprinters turning the legs – they will have to wait until stage 5 to go for their first chance at victory.

After that, UAE Team Emirates ruled the roost. They pushed the pace on the biggest climb of the day, setting out their stall like a team already riding in the maillot jaune.

Speaking of yellow things…

Two of the young riders in the spotlight had mechanical issues – Isaac Del Toro and Paul Seixas both needing bike changes, which were both botched in different ways, taking longer than they should have.

The breakaway was down to two and with just under 40km to go, the pair shook hands, expecting to be subsumed by the bunch; little did they know they would be kept dangling by a bunch waiting to strike for another seven whole kilometres. Awkward. A bit like when you say goodbye to someone at a train station, then realise you’re both waiting for the same train home. And it’s delayed.

Finally though, they hit the Montjuïc circuit and UAE went to work. Brandon McNulty was the hero of the day, setting an infernal tempo which saw big names popping off the back - Kévin Vauquelin, Antonio Tiberi, Julian Alaphillippe, Cian Uijtdebroeks all suffering at the hands of one determined American.

There was a Colombian flag catastrophe for Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ United), who was forced to dismount and disentangle the flag from his spokes. The trials of Arnaud De Lie continued, the Belgian rider under the weather once again and suffering at the back of the bunch. He would later be spotted keeping the broom wagon company, though he did make it over the line in time at the end of the day.

It was a typical UAE tactic at the front; keeping the pace high to thin the group and prevent attacks, yet the damage was still all being done by one man: Brandon McNulty doing a monster turn, taking the ever-diminishing bunch into lap 2 and with the tension off the charts, still no-one dared to attack. Seixas rejoined the group, and bunch of total idiots clouded the road with smoke flares.

Meanwhile, other UAE riders popped up and disappeared again, Remco did all his own riding, because he has massive all consuming FOMO, and amazing riders were shelled from the group at pace – Mathieu van der Poel, Romain Grégoire – riders who’d you’d ordinarily rate at this sort of finish. All gone.

Tiesj Benoot’s attack may have given us hope for a different outcome if it hadn’t later turned out to be a mistimed one: Seixas talking into the radio was misconstrued (by me) as him chomping at the bit to attack; it later transpired he wasn’t ready yet following his efforts to make it back to the group. So Benoot’s expenditure was in vain, and it ramped up the post-race questions marks surrounding Decathlon’s communication, after a difficult day for the 19-year-old debutant.

The first to really break the entente cordiale was Uno-X Mobility’s Tobias Johannessen, followed by Richard Carapaz – both of them were quickly regathered, and Matthias Skjelmose tried his luck, and actually found a gap off the front for a brief moment. Del Toro chased him down and then the final selection roared towards the summit of Montjuïc one final time. It was the young Mexican who led the charge, and in his wheel, the world champion. Pogačar was watchful, checking over his shoulder several times for the whereabouts of Vingegaard and Evenepoel, who weren’t far behind. Once he was satisfied with their gap, however, with the finish line in sight, his motive became clear. He hung back as they crossed the line, delivering the most precious of gifts. Del Toro took an individual stage victory at the first time of asking, on debut. It was magnanimous, from the Slovenian, but also smart. Del Toro is one of the in-form riders on the planet and though he clearly idolises his leader, there’s no harm in Pogačar investing in his loyalty early on. It lifts the team as a whole and strikes an ominous blow to the morale of UAE’s rivals, and indeed the rest of the peloton.

For a rider so hellbent on winning, it felt almost out of character. And yet it was the ultimate compliment to his young protegé, who had been riding with the aim of leading out the world champion, not realising he would be allowed to continue on to take glory for himself. A mark of respect, and acknowledgement of his prodigious talent. It was a classy move, despite how galling it must have been for the rest to witness. And it paid off, almost immediately…

Stage 3 – Here we go again. Again.

I took notes dutifully today, even though Mondays are my busiest day. I spoke on Track Radio about the weekend stages while the breakaway antics were already underway, and didn’t catch back up until I was cooking a family dinner, having been out all day. Finally I’m sitting down at my desk, ready to put a full stop at the end of the ‘Grand Départ’ section of the race and ping out my first official 2026 Tour de France newsletter. The race passed onto French soil for the first time today and the race is still young. Yet writing about the day’s stage, I feel about a hundred years old.

There’s been much made of the unorthodox structure to this year’s race route. As if in some way, by shuffling the deck of types of stage, ASO thought they could somehow make an impact upon the all-consuming juggernaut that is UAE Team Emirates. However you roll the dice – with the possible exception of making the Tour into 21 sprint stages – there’s one inevitable outcome. This year, he wears rainbow stripes and has a dyed blonde buzzcut. He can give out stage wins one day, and take his own the next. When everyone said the route was backloaded, and the GC might end up as a cliffhanger, he sent them into battle anyway, even on a stage many had pegged as a breakaway, because really, the likes of Pogacar and Vingegaard don’t really want to be bothering themselves with yellow jerseys just yet. Who are we kidding? As if Pogacar was expected to sit back and wait for his turn.

Three stages in, two wins for UAE, one for Visma, three yellow jerseys, split between the two riders who have dominated the race for the past five years. Despite the backloading, and the intrigue constructed around the route setting, we have landed slap bang at the end of the race, and it’s barely even begun.

It’s too early for me to be losing hope, and I promised to bring you the joy of side quests – but with UAE stifling everything on the first two road stages, I’m already at something of a loss. Anyway. On with the day’s action.

The sufferfest

Watching the breakaway formation is always a joy in and of itself, and we had a prime example today, with 60 kilometres of battles before Visma finally decided they were content to let the group go. Ironically, the team that were leading the race taking so long to let anything form played directly into UAE’s hands. They had little to do with the policing, but reaped the rewards later in the day.

With wildfires in the area causing the race organisers to close off the final section of the course to fans, climate change’s impact on Europe was clear to see among the peloton too, as the searing heat continued to pick off riders throughout the day, with the worst affected still poor Arnaud de Lie. Baptiste Veistroffer – my pick for one of the riders to watch in breakaways – was tasked with staying with the beleaguered sprinter and they soon achieved the dubious honour of their own separate group timer in the on-screen data. The time from the leaders slipped further and further back throughout the day and despite his admirable efforts, De Lie was eventually forced to abandon the race. A terrible shame after everything he went through to get to this point; and before a sprint opportunity had even arisen.

There were also worrying signs for Cian Uijtdebroeks, who was seen battling to stay with the main group, and Matthew Riccitello and Romain Grégoire were both seen struggling at points through the day - the heat and illness will undoubtedly take their toll as this race progresses. A nasty crash through a town slowed almost the entire bunch; three Netcompany-INEOS were involved but it was Visma’s Bruno Armirail who came off worst, his knee clearly causing him significant pain as he struggled to continue.

After a turbulent opening, the attacks began afresh, with MVDP popping his head up for a go, and Richard Carapaz a pink whack-a-mole, relentlessly trying to make it clear - a situation that Visma were clearly unhappy about.

After about 60km a move of around 20 riders finally started to gain traction. They were given the nod and built up a lead of about two minutes but were being reeled back in before long. The problem with these long protracted breakaways from a neutral perspective is that it leaves less work to do for the big teams – by the time it was finally established, UAE saw the opportunity to pick off another win and set to work. Raul Garcia Pierna was the first to strike out from the breakaway as behind the rest struggled with cohesion, presumably wondering what was the point of it all really.

A group of six came together on the most significant climb of the day, a more cohesive group with six different teams represented. Alex Baudin took the maximum points at the KOM; the French rider stood to gain from the day if they breakaway were to remain away – at just 1:07 he was the closest rider to the lead of Jonas Vingegaard and the word on the street was the bees would be happy to hand over the jersey for a while – but UAE had other plans.

With the peloton bearing down Baudin struck out with 33km to go, and Decathlon’s Nicolas Prodhomme was able to ride with him for a while, before calling off the effort in favour of loading up on bottles to wait for the incoming Paul Seixas. Baudin was free to claim the penultimate set of KOM points, and ensure we would have another rider wearing the polka dot jersey as its outright owner. And a Frenchman to boot. Small victories.

Heading into the final climb, as the metres ticked down and the group reduced, the result looked inevitable. Yesterday the recipient of a bountiful gift from his leader, a green-clad Del Toro was more than happy to repay the favour, and Pogacar punched away from the rest and took the spoils, his 22^nd stage victory at the Tour. Equal on time with Jonas Vingegaard, he gains control of yellow by dint of finishing positions.

This era will pass; superpowers in sport come and go. I’ve reasoned in the past about my personal lack of connection to this kind of dominance, and don’t feel the need to defend my corner anymore – I’m feel flat about this Tour so far, but there are still 18 stages to go so I won’t give up hope that some of my side quests might yet come to fruition, or that more might appear unexpectedly. Until they do, I’ll just keep taking terrible screenshots of my laptop, featuring cycling fans dressed as bananas. What else is there?

Oh wait – there’s the world’s most unlikely duo – Dexter Holland, lead singer of The Offspring, hanging out with Paul Seixas. If that’s not the ultimate side quest, then I don’t know what is.

See you next time.