The Top Riders Prepare: There are four weeks to go before the start of the behemoth that is the biggest bike race on the calendar: the Tour de France. The top favourites are now either on an altitude training camp or racing in the Criterium du Dauphiné. We look at the plans of the top riders with 24 days to go.
Dauphiné and altitude before the Tour for the Belgian
Remco Evenepoel
The last weeks to the Tour start for Remco Evenepoel includes the Critérium du Dauphiné where he is on stage 4 today (Wednesday). The Soudal-Quick-Step leader says he still has some work to do and is taking the French race ‘day-by-day’. He is returns to competition after his crash in the Itzulia Basque Country, where he suffered several fractures. “This is more of a race to gain some race rhythm,” the World time trial champion said cautiously. He said he isn’t interested in the overall. The Belgian spent three weeks on an altitude training camp in the Sierra Nevada in May. He went to the Spanish mountains with his climbing right-hand man, Mikel Landa and Ilan Van Wilder. All three are riding the Critérium du Dauphiné and then will go on another camp at altitude. After that, he may miss out the Belgian time trial championship, but will defend his road title. That will be his the last race before the Tour.
Schedule:
Criterium du Dauphiné
Altitude training camp
Belgian road championship
Tour de France.
Pink and yellow for Pogačar?
Tadej Pogačar
For Tadej Pogačar, the preparation for La Grande Boucle has only just started. The 25-year-old Slovenian has had a week off after dominating the Giro d’Italia and is taking a different route to this year’s French Grand Tour. We will soon find out if this plan suits him. During the Giro, the UAE Team Emirates Tour squad were on an altitude training camp in the Sierra Nevada. They then split between the Critérium du Dauphiné with Juan Ayuso and the Tour of Switzerland with João Almeida. Adam Yates, 3rd in last year’s Tour, was also on the training camp, but his calendar empty in June. Pogačar will be at altitude in Isola 2000 for three weeks. He will follow the Mathieu van der Poel route to the Tour: Only training at altitude and then go straight to the Tour.
Giro winner, Tadej Pogačar, has been in Isola 2000 for an altitude training camp since Tuesday. Before traveling to the ski resort in the French Alps, he was a guest on the Geraint Thomas Cycling Club Podcast, hosted by Geraint Thomas and Luke Rowe. Pogačar will will be backed up by Adam Yates, Juan Ayuso, Joao Almeida, Marc Soler, Pavel Sivakov, Tim Wellens and Nils Politt in the Tour. “Yates is my right hand, Ayuso and Almeida will be like super domestiques in the mountains,” said Pogačar. “Soler and Sivakov are the big men for the mountains, who can also do something on the flat. And then you have Wellens and Politt. It also scares me a bit!”
Pogačar doesn’t want to lose three years ina row
Pogačar lost to Jonas Vingegaard in 2022 and 2023, but the Dane is still a doubt for the Tour de France after his crash in the Itzulia Basque Country, but he is preparing for the Tour. Will he be ready on time? “I think so,” said Pogačar. “He was able to ride again quite quickly after leaving the hospital. If he is comfortable on the bike again, I think he can start in good shape. He has to reach his race weight, but I don’t think that is a problem.” Pogacar also has Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglič to watch in the Tour. “Evenepoel will fly. He will also be very motivated, just like Roglič. It looks like they will be more than 100% ready for the start of the Tour this year.”
The Tour starts in Italy this year, with a difficult opening stage to Rimini. Will Pogačar go from the gun? “It’s a tough start, but I haven’t really thought about it yet. We were very aggressive in Bilbao last year, but we may have had a bit of a boomerang in return. The shape wasn’t great then either. We have to think again about what we are going to do. The first day is 210 kilometres with four consecutive climbs, and on day two we have San Luca from the Giro dell’Emilia. After that, the Galibier is in stage four. That’s a nice stage. Do I want to take revenge there for the 2022 Tour? That would be nice, but the finish line is below. The end of the Tour is also very tough. It’s brutal.”
“Evenepoel will mainly have to make his move in the beginning,” Pogačar thinks. “But Roglič will first just look at it and then fly in the last days. It’s nice to finally see Remco in the Tour. When he became World champion, I thought: ‘fuck, you have to do the Tour’. But he didn’t do it.”
Schedule:
Altitude training camp in Isola 2000
Tour de France.
A crash for Roglič on stage 3 of the Dauphiné
Primož Roglič
Since that crash in the Itzulia Basque Country at the beginning of April, we have not seen anything of Primož Roglič. The 34-year-old Slovenian wasn’t as injured as the other Tour top favourites and we must assume that he is on schedule for the Tour de France. He was also training in the Sierra Nevada last month. In Spain, Roglič rode to the top of Pico Veleta, the highest paved road in Europe. We should see how his form is in the Critérium du Dauphiné. So far it’s looking good, he took second place on stage 2 behind Magnus Cort. “Everyone is so fit here and there was only one who got to the line faster,” he is more than satisfied with his own level of form. “I am still a bit disappointed that I couldn’t finish it.” (Red Bull) BORA-hansgrohe will have Jai Hindley and Aleksandr Vlasov in the Tour line up, but Vlasov was disappointment after the team announced Roglič’s sole leadership in the Tour. After the Dauphiné, the Slovenian will be at altitude in Tignes.
Schedule:
Criterium du Dauphiné
High altitude Tignes
Tour de France.
Vingegaard was in top form before the Itzulia crash
Jonas Vingegaard
From Sunday, part of the intended Visma | Lease a Bike Tour team will be in Tignes for a three-week training camp. Jonas Vingegaard arrived a few days earlier to get his body used to the altitude. In the Itzulia Basque Country crash, the double Tour winner broke several ribs, his collarbone, suffered a perforated lung and was kept in hospital for a long time. So we have to wonder if Vingegaard has enough time to recover and get into Tour shape. Part of his Visma | Lease a Bike Tour squad are racing in the Critérium du Dauphiné, including possible team leader, Sepp Kuss, as are Dylan van Baarle, Tiesj Benoot, Matteo Jorgenson and Steven Kruijswijk. After the French stage race, they will also go to Tignes and then we should know whether Vingegaard will make it to the Tour or not. Wout van Aert is also in Tignes working on his Tour preparation.
Schedule:
Altitude training camp in Tignes
Tour de France.
Rodriguez had a good Itzulia Basque Country
Carlos Rodriguez
Part of INEOS Grenadiers Tour team was on the volcano of El Teide in May, including Carlos Rodríguez. Last year the young Spaniard showed his climber’s legs in the final week, behind Pogačar and Vingegaard. This year he will be aiming at a better final overall than his fifth place. His 2024 has been going well as he won the Tour de Romandie and was second in the Itzulia Basque Country. The Spaniard was on Mount Teide for three weeks and is now racing against Evenepoel and Roglič in the Critérium du Dauphiné. This year’s Tour could be Rodríguez’s big chance to be a team leader, of course this depends on Geraint Thomas who is supposed not to be at the start of the Tour due to riding the Giro d’Italia and that Egan Bernal is training in Colombia. After the Dauphiné, Rodríguez will be at altitude again, but where that will be is not public knowledge as yet
Schedule:
Critérium du Dauphiné
Altitude training camp
Tour de France.
What can we expect from Tom Pidcock at the Tour?
Tom Pidcock
Tom Pidcock is also a leader of the INEOS Grenadiers team in the Tour. The mountain bike World champion won the MTB World Cup in Nové Mesto for the fourth time in a row last week. The next day he drove from the airport in Barcelona back home to Andorra. It is not clear whether he will complete his Tour training there or will go to an altitude training camp with the team. Thymen Arensman is training in France, he called his training ride on Strava ‘Clermond-Ferrand tourist’.
Pidcock will ride the Mountain Bike World Cup in Crans Montana on June 23, six days before the start of the Tour de France, he told CyclingWeekly. After ending his spring Classics at the end of April with a tenth place in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, he was at the start of the Mountain Bike World Cup in Nové Město in May. Next Sunday he will be at the start of the Tour de Suisse (9-16 June) and on June 23rd, he will be on the mountain bike again in Crans Montana. A week later, Pidcock will start the Tour de France (June 29-July 21), where he says he is aiming at the GC. Then he moves on the Olympic mountain bike race in Paris (July 29), where he will defend the title he won in Tokyo. Five days after the mountain bike race, Pidcock will ride the Olympic road race (August 3).
“I don’t train as much on my mountain bike as I should, but it’s easy to alternate between road bike and mountain bike,” Pidcock said to CyclingWeekly. “Of course in this part of the year, in preparation for the Tour, I do longer intervals and more volume. But they complement each other.”
Schedule:
Training at home in Andorra
Tour of Switzerland
(Possibly) Training at home in Andorra
Tour de France.
Gaudu dreams of the Tour podium
David Gaudu
“I dream of the podium,” David Gaudu told l’Equipe. The Groupama-FDJ climber is the French hope for the home Tour. Two years ago he finished fourth overall and last year he was ninth in the Tour. Also in the 2023 Paris-Nice he was second behind Pogačar, but ahead of Vingegaard. In May, Gaudu was training on Teide in Tenerife. At the moment he is racing in the Dauphiné, he will then ride in the French road championships.
Schedule:
Critérium du Dauphiné
French road championship
Tour de France.
Will the 2024 Tour de France podium look like last year?
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*Thanks to WielerFlits and ProCyclingStats for the facts.
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