Wheel Talk Newsletter: Nine stages and the Col de Madeleine
We’re a week into the off-season and there’s almost more news this week than we’ve had since the World Championships! A handful of high-profile transfers (including the one we’ve all been waiting for) and the 2025 Tour de France Femmes with Zwift route reveal everything in just a few days.
Wheel talk
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On Monday, the ongoing debate about what gear Demi Vollering will wear in 2025 was finally answered. FDJ-Suez released a video in which Vollering appears to be playing the piano (I wouldn’t be surprised if she could, but “experts” believe the video is staged for dramatic effect), with some inspiring conversations about new beginnings, followed by an exclusive interview with L’Equipe. In the interview, Vollering talks about dreams and how the French team fits into her dreams for the future.
“The first meeting I had with Stephen [Delcourt] and the performance staff, I immediately had a really good feeling,” said Vollering in the interview. “It was in March during a training camp in the Sierra Nevada. Later I met with some other teams and it was a nice, good conversation. But here with this team, I couldn’t shake my smile after the meeting.”
Vollering also spoke about her feelings after a difficult season and her anticipation of starting a new journey with a new team. She revealed she had already started training with the team’s performance team after missing out on winning the Tour de France Femmes by just four seconds behind Kasia Niewidaoma.
She calls FDJ-Suez a new chapter, and that’s definitely true. In her four years at SD Worx-Protime, she has grown from a newbie to one of the absolute best, but Vollering admitted she continues to find small adjustments she can make to continue to develop as a rider.
Of course, her biggest goal for 2025 will be the Tour, particularly joining a French team. The nine-day race will be the highlight of her season, regardless of other goals she set for herself in the spring and at the end of the season.
“Already being on the starting line of the Tour de France with a French team… but imagine winning the Tour de France with a French team, that will be very special,” she said. “It means so much for the French, for my teammates and the partners who support the team. It’s even more special when you share with all these people the feeling that you might be able to win.”
Vollering wasn’t the only frontrunner to finally announce her new chapter for next season. Her current teammate at SD Worx-Protime, Marlen Reusser, also announced her new contract with Movistar for three seasons. Reusser didn’t have a great year, missing both the Olympics and her home World Championships due to an ongoing illness. It has been known for some time that she will also be leaving the Dutch team and I think we can all say that we hope to see her back at 100% next season.
Canyon-SRAM announced a number of new signings, the biggest of which (after Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, of course) is Chiara Consonni. The Italian sprinter has represented UAE Team ADQ and Valcar-Travel & Service for years and the move to a completely new, very non-Italian environment will be fascinating. She is a fantastic sprinter who could definitely compete with Charlotte Kool and Elisa Balsamo, perhaps even Lorena Wiebes, in the coming years.
The race continues…
…in 85 days at Tour Down Under!
Wheel Talk Podcast
This off-season, we’re putting the group pods on pause and instead filling the weeks with a few conversation episodes. Some to look forward to: Anna Henderson on her Olympic success and resulting comedown, Geerike Schreurs on gravel and her SD Worx Protime contract, and Georgia Howe on her time in professional cycling and what she’s doing next.
Tobin Heath (!!!) opens the conversation series this week. Matilda Price and I sat down with her to talk about her discovery of cycling and women’s sports as a whole. Tilda also wrote a nice article about the discussion, which I highly recommend reading.
Let’s discuss
The 2025 tour route!
On Tuesday, the ASO announced the Tour de France routes for men and women for 2025. The women’s race will feature nine stages next year, making it the longest stage race on the women’s calendar (as both the Vuelta and Giro have reduced their races to eight). stages next year). The race takes place from July 26th to August 3rd, with the first stages taking place in Brittany.
In total there are two sprint stages, three super fun stages (also called hilly), three mountain stages and one high mountain stage on the Col de Madeleine. Something for everyone. As in previous editions, the actual GC race is reserved for the final stages, but this year they’ve included two hilly stages at the start, so the race is likely to bring a whole new set of dramas.
The race begins with a short 79 km stage from Vannes to Plumelec, which includes four poppy category climbs and the final finish is the actual finish. So the race definitely won’t start with a bunch sprint. This final climb of the Côte de Cadoudal is 1.7 km long and has an average gradient of 6.2%. The first real fight for the yellow jersey will be a good one. The roads in Brittany are technical and have a sticky surface, which makes the first two stages particularly challenging. The asphalt in Brittany is similar to that in the UK, safe but rolling slowly.
The second stage from Brest to Quimper is also hilly and has four categorized climbs. The last stage is just before the finish and there is another uncategorized climb at the end of the stage. No sprint again.
Stages 3 and 4 are the likely sprint stages with some minor climbs but these have no impact on the final. For stages 5, 6 and 7 we return to the mountains for some quality breakaway stages, with stage 5 being the longest stage of the race at 166km.
Stage 5 is the least hilly of the three stages, but features some good climbs towards the back of the race, which will be more challenging after such a long day. Both 6 and 7 are high quality hilly stages, both with climbs of 9-10km in length.
Stage eight is the big stage with two smaller climbs before the peloton climbs the 18.6 km long Col de la Madeleine. That will be it The GC day of the race. While seconds and even a minute can still be gained up to this point, the race will likely be decided by a tough battle from the climbers on the penultimate stage.
After the Col de la Madeleine the race is not over yet, there is still one last stage left. The ninth stage includes three categorized climbs, but the final climb is still 29km from the finish and is only 5.9km long. The last 19km is a gradual climb but nothing crazy. If the race is still close after Stage 8, it’s possible that the riders could cause some madness on the final stage, but there isn’t enough going on to make it a GC stage.
Overall, the race favors a climber, but perhaps not a true climber. Since there is no time trial this year and there is a massive mountain stage, someone like Lotte Kopecky, who could gain time on the first two stages and hold on to Vollering at the Col de la Madeleine, would be a serious contender. There will already be some drivers making plans to win this race. The name Vollering isn’t ubiquitous, there’s only one mountain stage, but it doesn’t really lean towards Niewiadoma or someone like Elisa Longo Borghini either.
In summary: a stage for most types of riders with a fairly open overall classification.
A picture worth more than a few words
The sixth stage of the Tour begins in a familiar place for the Femmes, which is saying something since it is only the fourth edition of the race. Clermont-Ferrand hosted the first two stages of the Tour in 2023 and riders will return for the start of stage six this year.
Corner of Taylor Swift
Taylor brought Sabrina Carpenter on stage at the New Orleans leg of her Eras Tour show and the two had a lot of fun singing some hits.
See you next time
That’s it from me this week! Thank you for reading.
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