SAINT-AMAND-MONTROND, France (Velo) — The Tour de France rolled on Tuesday in a dreary repeat of what everyone’s seen too much of in this year’s edition.
The peloton rode shoulder-to-shoulder across the rolling 187.3km 10th stage from Orléans to Saint-Amand-Montrond without any significant attempt by riders or teams to break away.
No attacks, no breakaways, no action. What’s going on?
“There are enough sprint teams here that the reality of a breakaway on the flat stages sticking are pretty thin,” Jayco-AlUla’s Matt White told Velo. “You’re better off saving your energy for when it counts.”
And that’s been happening a lot in this Tour.
Perhaps it’s only anecdotal, but this year’s Tour has witnessed at least four stages contested without any breakaway or just a few riders trying to slip away.
The opening two stages and Sunday’s gravel epic delivered thrilling breakaway victories that have been among the highlights of the 2024 Tour, but on the flatter transition stages when breaks typically at least liven up the action, the peloton’s been in siesta mode.
Things finally ramped up Tuesday for a thrilling bunch finale won by Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), but nothing much else happened in the previous four hours.
“There are many sprinter teams here so I think the riders know that there are full teams pulling to set up the mass sprinter,” said two-time stage winner Intermarché-Wanty’s Biniam Girmay. “When you see all the teams pulling, you know it’s going to be hard to win the breakaway.”
When the sprint seems fated, why try?
So far, not many have been willing to burn the matches in vain.
It’s a scene that repeated in stage 3, 6, 8, and again Tuesday in stage 10.
Hardly the kind of racing that anyone wants to see.
‘TV breakaways are dead’
The irony is that this desert of racing action comes when entire stages are being broadcast live from start to finish on TV.
Back in the day, a breakaway was simply part of the fabric of any Tour de France stage.
Even if everyone knew the chance of a breakaway surviving to the line was near-zero, riders and teams would at least give it a try to put on a good show.
In fact, these doomed efforts even had a name — the TV breakaway.
The idea was to show off the team sponsor’s colors to millions of viewers around the globe.
Exposure was money in the bank for sponsors under-writing team budgets.
Those days seem long gone.
“The TV breakaway is dead,” Cofidis boss Cédric Vasseur told Velo. “Those are the old days of racing.
“If you are missing a good result by the second part of the Tour, maybe you will start seeing more of these TV breakaways, to show off the sponsors a bit,” Vasseur said. “TV breakaways do not give you a lot. Maybe your family is happy to see you on TV, but that is it.”
Times have changed.
Teams don’t just want publicity. They want to win. And to win at this level is harder than ever. In fact, most teams and riders might have one shot for victory.
So no one’s willing to spend the bullets when they know the payback won’t be there.
Even a team like Vasseur’s, a traditional stage-hunter in the Tour, is targeting the GC with Guillaume Martin and sprints with Bryan Coquard.
“Today we have a different vision of cycling, and we want to win,” Vasseur said. “And to win, we need to be united as a team.”
‘The big breaks are coming’
Yet even when a sprint seems inevitable, riders and teams usually at least would try, if for nothing else to put on a good show.
Not this year.
There are a few factors behind the lack of breakaways on some of these transition stages.
First off, the terrain hasn’t been ideal for escaping riders on the flatter, rolling terrain. Without any major hills or even crosswinds, the conditions are not ripe for a breakaway.
And this year’s Tour sees a relatively high number of teams bringing sprinters to win stages. With teams ramping up for a chance to win a stage in the mass gallop, everyone knows the break is ill-fated.
“When you know it’s going to be a sprint, and it’s a little bit useless,” Vasseur told Velo. “You cannot go four hours full-gas for nothing. To go into a breakaway you need to have a little bit of a chance to win.”
There are also enough big GC teams that don’t want to see a stage unravel too far out of control.
Teams like UAE Team Emirates, Ineos Grenadiers, and Visma-Lease a Bike are also helping to put a few riders on the front to keep their captains out of trouble who inevitably set a high pace.
And the fact that teams now have only eight starters instead of nine is another contributing factor.
With nearly every team packing either a GC rider or a sprinter, there are not many spare legs to send up the road for no-hope breaks.
“There are so many teams with the GC or with a sprinter that we ask everybody to stay around these guys,” Vasseur told Velo. “If you go into the breakaway you are getting tired and you cannot work well for the leaders.”
Dribs and drabs of riders have tried to pull clear, including King of the Mountains rider Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility), but without a rated climb on the menu, even he was quiet on Tuesday.
Yet everyone agrees that the cease-fire in the breakaways will end.
“The big breaks are coming,” White said. “Wednesday is a good day for a breakaway, and I think the last week will be littered with breakaways. The GC will be more settled, and there will be more opportunities for breakaways to have a chance.”
Siesta-mode is over. Tomorrow the sparks will fly.
