It's often mountainous or hilly, but with the type of climbs and the way they are located, it should be difficult to see many differences made. It also depends on how teams intend to race, of course. Last year, only a finish-on-top allowed to create a difference for GC; otherwise it always ended in punchy sprints; and it doesn't look like there is any finish-on-top this year.
They start the races, but then they are basically nowhere to be seen: they don't attack, they don't pull the peloton, they don't chase or help chases, most of them have disappeared from the head peloton / groups by the time TV arrives, and the remaining ones just hide in it. In the end, if it happens that there is 1 UAE rider left in a front group, he tries his luck (on one race, Christen tried to jump from 2^nd^ group to 1^st^ instead of relaying; Cosnefroy appeared in the last mile of 2 races), but that's it, they are not active.
And this is what is strange: last year they had no mercy for small races, they were actively trying to win about everything, even class 1 races, even with their C team.
One may hypothesise that they use those races as they used the GP of Québec: they simply hang around, considering them as a training session, without going far into the effort. Now... training for which objective?
It took a looong while to take off, though. But well, that's rather normal. An Evenepoel back in stupid mode certainly makes any race more entertaining 😆
BTW, in Montréal, almost nothing turned favourable to him: the way the split groups were composed, almost nobody ever had a personal or team interest in helping him.
I loved seeing Seixas ride away, but hated seeing him lose to Del Toro - because fuck UAE.
What makes Del Toro bearable is that he often rides without glasses (which now look more like bloody windshields). I am not sure it was on purpose today though, because while putting them aside in climbs is the right thing to do (I don't understand the 95% of riders who don't do it), he was also without spectacles in all the fast sections, which is very uncomfortable and can be handicapping for the rest of the race if some shit or insect gets in your eyes at fast speed, which isn't unusual. He is also more elegant on a bike than Seixas who looks like Froome with his too long limbs he has to bend and angle in various strange ways 🙂
He also very fairly relayed Seixas. He could have played the card "I have 2 guys just behind" and Seixas would either have had to exhaust himself in preserving a top-2, or we would have a reunion of a group of 6 (with 2 UAE), which may have then let Evenepoel come back (as he did) and win.
He’d have lost to anyone given that sprint error, though, maybe even Michael Woods ;)
Seixas told he was looking for the 200 m sign 😃 I noted on the Québec race that distance signs were not all present on both sides, but they alternated: the .00 signs on the right and the .50 on the left side of the road (or the opposite, anyway...). So he probably was waiting for a sign that never came on his side. 😄
I am still not sure it was a very useful thing to do when you have gone 16 bloody times (!) through the same place, though 🤣
I started cursing again when a group of top guys which included 3 UAE and Seixas🇫🇷 took off and was offered a 30-40 seconds gap over a sulking Evenepoel🇧🇪, but only took half-relays, so that the Belgian could come back.
Luckily, in the main climb of the next turn, Seixas🇫🇷 accelerated again and then, less expectedly, launched a nuclear attack. Only Del Toro🇲🇽 managed to join him on the top of the hill. Behind there was a group of 4 and Evenepoel🇧🇪 was relegated in another group of 4 behind, which allowed the Franco-Mexican duo to gain some 45 seconds, and therefore secure the first two places of the race.
Seixas🇫🇷 tried another acceleration in a minor climb, but Del Toro🇲🇽 followed his wheel easy-peasy. The Frenchman performed a ridiculous rookie mistake in the two-man sprint he approached in 1^st^ position, as he didn't notice the Mexican had started sprinting before he was passed him: by the time Seixas🇫🇷 reacted and gained speed, Del Toro🇲🇽 was already at least 5 bike lengths ahead 😄
The Mexican's race has nothing to do with how he was just 2 days ago. UAE is really acting strange on those races; well, they are also acting very weirdly in Italy...
Commendable performance by the retiree and team-less Michael Woods (🇨🇦 Canadian selection), who was still present when the 'peloton' was reduced to less than 20 riders! 👏 👏 👏
He didn't collapse later either, as I see he finished in this range of positions. Many active professionals riders on this race cannot tell the same...
First FDJ rider is Braz, 24^th^. He was in the severe crash that happened about 40 km from the line. It took a fair time before he could stand up, fix his bike and restart. Meanwhile there were 3 breakaway guys, very honest riders, who were giving all they had, and a decent chase by the peloton, and neither could either enlarge or reduce the small gap there was: none were musing. And yet, pow! he was back in the peloton, solo or with a teammate. I found that really suspicious.
Perhaps there will be a fine or penalty, we shall see. Or perhaps it was magic.
The day after the Pantani Memorial, we stay on the Adriatic coast but shift 250 km southwards to Pescara for the 5^th^ Italian fall classic in 8 days. This 1.1 is a pure circuit race.
And now, this Saturday, comes the race dedicated to the Enhanced Pirate Outlaw, the Memorial Pantani 🇮🇹 12/9/2026
This one is a 1.1, and we'll find again the same riders. While there is still a series of hills to climb, this time the race finishes with very long flat section (40 km) on the Adriatic coast.
Previous winners on the same style of course (it very often changes rather drastically) were Lutsenko🇰🇿 and Storer🇦🇺 (who will be there this year too).
I came when there was something like 45 km to go. I kept on cursing at the TV until after the line.
A bunch of idiots didn't relay after they had dropped Evenepoel in the climb.
A bunch of idiots let Evenepoel go 'alone' (with 3 riders + Bettiol who was ahead) on the flat.
This new bunch of idiots relayed Evenepoel, who dropped them one after another as laps passed.
The bunch of idiots behind let one single Visma rider do all the job, despite the presence of several domestiques from other teams.
Despite the fact that this rider had managed to keep the gap very small (10-15 seconds), that bunch of idiots then stopped everything (as it happens often on this race).
The only idiot remaining with the Belgian at the front waited until Evenepoel arrived at the exact distance he needed to place his usual acceleration that always brings the Belgian to the line.
Matthews (🇦🇺 Jayco), 6^th^, is probably the rider who optimised his (own and team) ressource the best. For example, when he felt a climb could be decisive, he would come at the front of group, so that he had the margin to go backwards if it was going too fast for him. This is his 10^th^ top-10 in 10 starts here! This is his race! 👍👍👍
(The Charmig case is disputable, as I consider him lucky to finish on the podium, thanks to both S. Simmons blowing up after his intense solo effort on the flat, and the idiocy of the group behind him).
UAE came as tourists (and Del Toro🇲🇽 wasn't good). But they often come as tourists here, to prepare for the Sunday race.
Seixas (🇫🇷 Decathlon) made many wrongly timed choice. It's Lapeira🇫🇷 who managed to to detach in a group of 4 or 5 in the final lap when, to save a little bit of the race for the race.
FDJ couldn't ride like idiots, as they never had anyone in the front groups 👍👍👍 🤣
I think it was Ayuso (🇪🇸 Lidl-Trek) who managed to crash in the sprint for the umpteenth place 🙄
This long stage present a set of medium climbs in its middle, followed by a big nothing (40 km of descent and flat), and then a very long final climb.
It took over 100 km for the breakaway to form, then the peloton let go and went into procession mode until 2 or 3 km from the line. Dunbar (🇮🇪 Q36.5) beats Buitrago (🇨🇴 Barhain) for stage victory. Same thing as usual for GC guys, who only reclaimed 2 minutes from the breakaway over a 19 km climb; the only small differences from the other days were that Skjelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) is more and more tired, and that Berthet (🇫🇷 FDJ) gets better every day (the procession helped him as well to resist longer), and that I slept well.
To sum it up, a relatively long climb is climbed twice, and the finish line stands almost 30 km after the last climb. Previous winners are Champoussin and Del Toro, followed both times by Storer.
There was action everyday on this edition: attacks, counter-attacks, splits, echelons, team attacks, and bad luck.
I didn't expect that. I had in memory Britain / Yorkshire Tours where there were breakaways of small teams (very small Contis that I basically wasn't seeing anywhere else, but races like Tour of Greece perhaps) almost everyday, with sprint finishes, and then the fate of the Tour was decided on the only day where they had found a hill and even then, with time bonuses.
I recommend this race especially for Grégoire🇫🇷's crash. He ended up standing on the right shoulder of the road without his bike. It looked like someone robbed it from under him 🙂. In fact, when he crashed in a dense peloton, his bike was hit by a rider, the shock propelled it forwards and leftwards, and the same happened with another rider, and again, and the bike ended up on the left shoulder and at a distance. Luckily, I think no one else hit the ground (one rider 'fell' on his feet, meaning that his bike went to the ground but not him).
To finish the week, we alternate again with another hilly stage. A bit of flat at the start, a bit of flat at the end in Cordoba, and 150 of hills in between.
Stage is shortened by 80 km
As there was a loop in the middle of the stage, I assume they cut it off, which would mean that the part between 50 km and 130 km of the original trace/profile is deleted.
This is supposed to be against the heat, about which riders have expressed growing concerns (just before deciding to go full speed for 150 km...). But it is the same stupidity we already saw elsewhere: in order to keep the same arrival time, the riders will start at 14:50 and thus enjoy the hottest hours of the day.
Back to a (short) mountain stage with a finish on top. There is no other difficult climb before that, but there is no flat at all, just uphill and downhill false-flats everywhere, with a couple of medium smooth climbs and a few little walls here and there.
The breakaway was even larger than yesterday (45 vs 30); it included climbers from yesterday, but not the Uno-X or most Visma riders who later broke away behind the peloton. Talking about Visma, Laporte🇫🇷 withdrew today; so he won't get his chance tomorrow or in 3^rd^ week now that his leaders are replete.
There was little action. Buitrago (🇨🇴 Bahrain) got the points of the first climb, but was surprised to see 2 Astana riders and Berthet (🇫🇷 FDJ) battle for the 2^nd^ climb. The reason probably was that today the time bonuses were attributed on the top of that pass, instead of being on the Intermediate Sprint that was at the bottom of the climb, and Berthet and C. Rodriguez (🇪🇸 Astana) were very close in GC.
In the descent of the first pass, Vermaeke (🇺🇸 UAE) went ahead solo; he gained 1 minute, perhaps 1′30″. After many miles, he was joined and dropped by an EF rider.
In the last climb, there were a succession of attacks at the front of the breakaway. I'll name a few: Aparicio (🇪🇸 Burgos), then G. Martin (🇫🇷 FDJ), Buitrago🇨🇴. In the end, a double group of 2 + 2 detached for good: Buitrago🇨🇴 and Brenner (🇩🇪 Tudor), C. Rodriguez🇪🇸 and I. Sosa (🇨🇴 Kern Pharma); V. Paret-Peintre (🇫🇷 Soudal-QS) was part of it, but not in the final stage.
The peloton had let the gap grow up to 8 minutes at some point, and nobody came to help Movistar, not even the teams concerned by the presence of Berthet🇫🇷 and C. Rodriguez🇪🇸 in the breakaway, who were only 11 minutes behind in GC this morning, as they had already won 2 minutes in yesterday's breakaway. As a result, those two guys gained around 4 minutes over GC top boys, and more over the rest. It means that they are now ahead of Kuss and Tejada, right on the heels of the 7^th^, Skjelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek).
Attacks were rarer in the peloton (well, the small group of GC guys). In the end, we find about the same results as usual; today, Gall🇦🇹 and Mas🇪🇸 didn't separate, and Roglitch🇸🇮 lost a little bit in the end. Not much but enough so that the Austrian is now 2^nd^ in GC, for just 4 seconds before the Slovenian.
🫒🏜🫒🏜🫒 Boy am I fed up with garrigue and olive trees! 🤣 And I suppose the remaining 7 stages won't differ much 😭
By chance, we may see Yorkshire at the same time 🙂 🥬 🌦 🍏
All the climbers and punchers who aren't in Spain appear to go to Italy: T. Pidcock, L. Martinez, M. Rondel, Storer, Jegat, R. Grégoire, Scaroni, Aranburu and others still.
They will perform various loop around Larciano, Tuscany. The climbs are located in the Monte Albano, the low mountain (or rather, hill) range that separates Lucca from Florence.
Once again, a stage with a climb at a distance from the line, 40 km here, before a flat finish. The originality is that first half of the stage is however pretty hard. If it were still to finish in some sort of a sprint, the last half-mile is uphill.
Mühlberger (🇦🇹 Decathlon), best and very close lieutenant of Gall🇦🇹, 9^th^ in GC, had to withdraw due to a crash early in the stage 😞
Sivakov (🇷🇺🇫🇷 UAE) also crashed and withdrew (or did he not crash? anyway he withdrew). How many UAE riders are still on the race?
A. Laurence (🇫🇷 Ineos) hit the ground in a street corner while he was leading the breakaway (classical Ineos style of losing the front wheel in curves taken too fast). No apparent damage on the rider, but the bike won't work and his car was still behind the peloton...
Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma) once gain went to take the points of the 1^st^ KOM before Buitrago🇨🇴.
He and Brennan🇬🇧 were in the first 2 groups, and once again, the Brit had to race so that the Belgian could finally win his own stage. It was absolutely whatever, both were always either pulling or chasing, or attacking, for 40 km, they had got good vitamins in their breakfast. Now that he's got his stage victory (on top of the Green jersey and a podium for the Polka Dots jersey), perhaps will he be less of a PITA for other riders?
Wait, I see that Lutsenko (🇰🇿 NSN) finished 4th? I never noticed him! 🤣 I remember he was on TV at some point, but in my idea, it was somewhere else, not among the last survivors, it couldn’t be… 😄
And this morning, he is DNS according to PCS ❓❓❓
Did he write a clause in his contract saying that if he scores a top-5 in a WT stage, he can retire at once? 😀
Tour of Abbruzo 🇮🇹 15–18/9/2026
No Italian classic in the middle of the week this week, but a 4-day Tour (2.1), from Tuesday to Friday.
Official site
PCS profiles
It's often mountainous or hilly, but with the type of climbs and the way they are located, it should be difficult to see many differences made. It also depends on how teams intend to race, of course. Last year, only a finish-on-top allowed to create a difference for GC; otherwise it always ended in punchy sprints; and it doesn't look like there is any finish-on-top this year.
They start the races, but then they are basically nowhere to be seen: they don't attack, they don't pull the peloton, they don't chase or help chases, most of them have disappeared from the head peloton / groups by the time TV arrives, and the remaining ones just hide in it. In the end, if it happens that there is 1 UAE rider left in a front group, he tries his luck (on one race, Christen tried to jump from 2^nd^ group to 1^st^ instead of relaying; Cosnefroy appeared in the last mile of 2 races), but that's it, they are not active.
And this is what is strange: last year they had no mercy for small races, they were actively trying to win about everything, even class 1 races, even with their C team.
One may hypothesise that they use those races as they used the GP of Québec: they simply hang around, considering them as a training session, without going far into the effort. Now... training for which objective?
It took a looong while to take off, though. But well, that's rather normal. An Evenepoel back in stupid mode certainly makes any race more entertaining 😆
BTW, in Montréal, almost nothing turned favourable to him: the way the split groups were composed, almost nobody ever had a personal or team interest in helping him.
What makes Del Toro bearable is that he often rides without glasses (which now look more like bloody windshields). I am not sure it was on purpose today though, because while putting them aside in climbs is the right thing to do (I don't understand the 95% of riders who don't do it), he was also without spectacles in all the fast sections, which is very uncomfortable and can be handicapping for the rest of the race if some shit or insect gets in your eyes at fast speed, which isn't unusual. He is also more elegant on a bike than Seixas who looks like Froome with his too long limbs he has to bend and angle in various strange ways 🙂
He also very fairly relayed Seixas. He could have played the card "I have 2 guys just behind" and Seixas would either have had to exhaust himself in preserving a top-2, or we would have a reunion of a group of 6 (with 2 UAE), which may have then let Evenepoel come back (as he did) and win.
Seixas told he was looking for the 200 m sign 😃 I noted on the Québec race that distance signs were not all present on both sides, but they alternated: the .00 signs on the right and the .50 on the left side of the road (or the opposite, anyway...). So he probably was waiting for a sign that never came on his side. 😄
I am still not sure it was a very useful thing to do when you have gone 16 bloody times (!) through the same place, though 🤣
I started cursing again when a group of top guys which included 3 UAE and Seixas🇫🇷 took off and was offered a 30-40 seconds gap over a sulking Evenepoel🇧🇪, but only took half-relays, so that the Belgian could come back.
Luckily, in the main climb of the next turn, Seixas🇫🇷 accelerated again and then, less expectedly, launched a nuclear attack. Only Del Toro🇲🇽 managed to join him on the top of the hill. Behind there was a group of 4 and Evenepoel🇧🇪 was relegated in another group of 4 behind, which allowed the Franco-Mexican duo to gain some 45 seconds, and therefore secure the first two places of the race.
Seixas🇫🇷 tried another acceleration in a minor climb, but Del Toro🇲🇽 followed his wheel easy-peasy. The Frenchman performed a ridiculous rookie mistake in the two-man sprint he approached in 1^st^ position, as he didn't notice the Mexican had started sprinting before he was passed him: by the time Seixas🇫🇷 reacted and gained speed, Del Toro🇲🇽 was already at least 5 bike lengths ahead 😄
The Mexican's race has nothing to do with how he was just 2 days ago. UAE is really acting strange on those races; well, they are also acting very weirdly in Italy...
Commendable performance by the retiree and team-less Michael Woods (🇨🇦 Canadian selection), who was still present when the 'peloton' was reduced to less than 20 riders! 👏 👏 👏
He didn't collapse later either, as I see he finished in this range of positions. Many active professionals riders on this race cannot tell the same...
First FDJ rider is Braz, 24^th^. He was in the severe crash that happened about 40 km from the line. It took a fair time before he could stand up, fix his bike and restart. Meanwhile there were 3 breakaway guys, very honest riders, who were giving all they had, and a decent chase by the peloton, and neither could either enlarge or reduce the small gap there was: none were musing. And yet, pow! he was back in the peloton, solo or with a teammate. I found that really suspicious.
Perhaps there will be a fine or penalty, we shall see. Or perhaps it was magic.
::: spoiler Spoiler This was the day of highly unlikely Spanish resurrections! :::
Trofeo Matteoti 🇮🇹 13/9/2026
The day after the Pantani Memorial, we stay on the Adriatic coast but shift 250 km southwards to Pescara for the 5^th^ Italian fall classic in 8 days. This 1.1 is a pure circuit race.
PCS profile
It may be broadcasted like all others on https://www.youtube.com/@legaciclismoprof/streams
And now, this Saturday, comes the race dedicated to the Enhanced Pirate Outlaw, the Memorial Pantani 🇮🇹 12/9/2026
This one is a 1.1, and we'll find again the same riders. While there is still a series of hills to climb, this time the race finishes with very long flat section (40 km) on the Adriatic coast.
Previous winners on the same style of course (it very often changes rather drastically) were Lutsenko🇰🇿 and Storer🇦🇺 (who will be there this year too).
PCS profile
I came when there was something like 45 km to go. I kept on cursing at the TV until after the line.
Matthews (🇦🇺 Jayco), 6^th^, is probably the rider who optimised his (own and team) ressource the best. For example, when he felt a climb could be decisive, he would come at the front of group, so that he had the margin to go backwards if it was going too fast for him. This is his 10^th^ top-10 in 10 starts here! This is his race! 👍👍👍
(The Charmig case is disputable, as I consider him lucky to finish on the podium, thanks to both S. Simmons blowing up after his intense solo effort on the flat, and the idiocy of the group behind him).
UAE came as tourists (and Del Toro🇲🇽 wasn't good). But they often come as tourists here, to prepare for the Sunday race.
Seixas (🇫🇷 Decathlon) made many wrongly timed choice. It's Lapeira🇫🇷 who managed to to detach in a group of 4 or 5 in the final lap when, to save a little bit of the race for the race.
FDJ couldn't ride like idiots, as they never had anyone in the front groups 👍👍👍 🤣
I think it was Ayuso (🇪🇸 Lidl-Trek) who managed to crash in the sprint for the umpteenth place 🙄
Stage 19, Friday 11
210 km, D+ 4000m
It took over 100 km for the breakaway to form, then the peloton let go and went into procession mode until 2 or 3 km from the line. Dunbar (🇮🇪 Q36.5) beats Buitrago (🇨🇴 Barhain) for stage victory. Same thing as usual for GC guys, who only reclaimed 2 minutes from the breakaway over a 19 km climb; the only small differences from the other days were that Skjelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) is more and more tired, and that Berthet (🇫🇷 FDJ) gets better every day (the procession helped him as well to resist longer), and that I slept well.
Stage 18, Thursday 10
Classifications after the ITT:
General time classification
Everyone performed more or less as expected. Roglitch did well, Berthet a bit better than expected, and Skjelmose disappointed.
Points
Romele and Coquard haven't given up about the podium seats.
Next one is the Coppa Sabatini 🇮🇹 10/9/2026
Again, about the same riders are coming, including Grégoire🇫🇷 who skipped the Tour of Tuscany the day before.
This one, which is classified as 1.Pro, is about a ton of short walls: PCS profile
Tour of Tuscany 🇮🇹 9/9/2026
This one is only a 1.1, and yet Bora sends Pellizzari🇮🇹, Lipowitz🇩🇪 and Hindley🇦🇺!
Other than that, we shall meet again many of those who were already in Italy on Sunday.
Italian broadcast (after 4 PM): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA3ja2YQ8eI
PCS profile
To sum it up, a relatively long climb is climbed twice, and the finish line stands almost 30 km after the last climb. Previous winners are Champoussin and Del Toro, followed both times by Storer.
It was a fall classic but not a classic fall. 😜
Here it was (in Italian): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-gfu2UT76A
The Grégoire épisode starts at 27:00 (32,3 km), when we discover him walking on the road side, then there are multiple replays from 2 or 3 angles.
There was action everyday on this edition: attacks, counter-attacks, splits, echelons, team attacks, and bad luck.
I didn't expect that. I had in memory Britain / Yorkshire Tours where there were breakaways of small teams (very small Contis that I basically wasn't seeing anywhere else, but races like Tour of Greece perhaps) almost everyday, with sprint finishes, and then the fate of the Tour was decided on the only day where they had found a hill and even then, with time bonuses.
🇬🇧 😍 🇬🇧
I recommend this race especially for Grégoire🇫🇷's crash. He ended up standing on the right shoulder of the road without his bike. It looked like someone robbed it from under him 🙂. In fact, when he crashed in a dense peloton, his bike was hit by a rider, the shock propelled it forwards and leftwards, and the same happened with another rider, and again, and the bike ended up on the left shoulder and at a distance. Luckily, I think no one else hit the ground (one rider 'fell' on his feet, meaning that his bike went to the ground but not him).
Stage 15, Sunday 6
190 km, D+ 3300m
Stage is shortened by 80 km
As there was a loop in the middle of the stage, I assume they cut it off, which would mean that the part between 50 km and 130 km of the original trace/profile is deleted.
This is supposed to be against the heat, about which riders have expressed growing concerns (just before deciding to go full speed for 150 km...). But it is the same stupidity we already saw elsewhere: in order to keep the same arrival time, the riders will start at 14:50 and thus enjoy the hottest hours of the day.
Stage 14, Saturday 5
155 km, D+ 4100m
The breakaway was even larger than yesterday (45 vs 30); it included climbers from yesterday, but not the Uno-X or most Visma riders who later broke away behind the peloton. Talking about Visma, Laporte🇫🇷 withdrew today; so he won't get his chance tomorrow or in 3^rd^ week now that his leaders are replete.
There was little action. Buitrago (🇨🇴 Bahrain) got the points of the first climb, but was surprised to see 2 Astana riders and Berthet (🇫🇷 FDJ) battle for the 2^nd^ climb. The reason probably was that today the time bonuses were attributed on the top of that pass, instead of being on the Intermediate Sprint that was at the bottom of the climb, and Berthet and C. Rodriguez (🇪🇸 Astana) were very close in GC.
In the descent of the first pass, Vermaeke (🇺🇸 UAE) went ahead solo; he gained 1 minute, perhaps 1′30″. After many miles, he was joined and dropped by an EF rider.
In the last climb, there were a succession of attacks at the front of the breakaway. I'll name a few: Aparicio (🇪🇸 Burgos), then G. Martin (🇫🇷 FDJ), Buitrago🇨🇴. In the end, a double group of 2 + 2 detached for good: Buitrago🇨🇴 and Brenner (🇩🇪 Tudor), C. Rodriguez🇪🇸 and I. Sosa (🇨🇴 Kern Pharma); V. Paret-Peintre (🇫🇷 Soudal-QS) was part of it, but not in the final stage.
The peloton had let the gap grow up to 8 minutes at some point, and nobody came to help Movistar, not even the teams concerned by the presence of Berthet🇫🇷 and C. Rodriguez🇪🇸 in the breakaway, who were only 11 minutes behind in GC this morning, as they had already won 2 minutes in yesterday's breakaway. As a result, those two guys gained around 4 minutes over GC top boys, and more over the rest. It means that they are now ahead of Kuss and Tejada, right on the heels of the 7^th^, Skjelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek).
Attacks were rarer in the peloton (well, the small group of GC guys). In the end, we find about the same results as usual; today, Gall🇦🇹 and Mas🇪🇸 didn't separate, and Roglitch🇸🇮 lost a little bit in the end. Not much but enough so that the Austrian is now 2^nd^ in GC, for just 4 seconds before the Slovenian.
🫒🏜🫒🏜🫒 Boy am I fed up with garrigue and olive trees! 🤣 And I suppose the remaining 7 stages won't differ much 😭
By chance, we may see Yorkshire at the same time 🙂 🥬 🌦 🍏
GP of Industry and Arts&Crafts 🇮🇹 6/9/2026 (1.Pro)
https://ciclismolarcianese.it/edizioni/48-gran-premio-industria-e-artigianato-anno-2026/
All the climbers and punchers who aren't in Spain appear to go to Italy: T. Pidcock, L. Martinez, M. Rondel, Storer, Jegat, R. Grégoire, Scaroni, Aranburu and others still.
They will perform various loop around Larciano, Tuscany. The climbs are located in the Monte Albano, the low mountain (or rather, hill) range that separates Lucca from Florence.
Stage 13, Friday 4
193 km, D+ 3300m
Mühlberger (🇦🇹 Decathlon), best and very close lieutenant of Gall🇦🇹, 9^th^ in GC, had to withdraw due to a crash early in the stage 😞
Sivakov (🇷🇺🇫🇷 UAE) also crashed and withdrew (or did he not crash? anyway he withdrew). How many UAE riders are still on the race?
A. Laurence (🇫🇷 Ineos) hit the ground in a street corner while he was leading the breakaway (classical Ineos style of losing the front wheel in curves taken too fast). No apparent damage on the rider, but the bike won't work and his car was still behind the peloton...
Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma) once gain went to take the points of the 1^st^ KOM before Buitrago🇨🇴.
He and Brennan🇬🇧 were in the first 2 groups, and once again, the Brit had to race so that the Belgian could finally win his own stage. It was absolutely whatever, both were always either pulling or chasing, or attacking, for 40 km, they had got good vitamins in their breakfast. Now that he's got his stage victory (on top of the Green jersey and a podium for the Polka Dots jersey), perhaps will he be less of a PITA for other riders?
And this morning, he is DNS according to PCS ❓❓❓
Did he write a clause in his contract saying that if he scores a top-5 in a WT stage, he can retire at once? 😀