Etoile de Besseges - Arnaud De Lie wins stage 3 but 55 riders abandon the race in protest
Cycling
Stage 3 of the Etoile de Bessèges is a day that will stay in the history books for a long time but for the wrong reasons. After another moving car was tracked on course, the peloton neutralized the stage, and 55 riders (of seven teams) abandoned the race in protest. Amidst all the chaos, Arnaud De Lie managed to take his first win of the season.
The race started off just about as chaotic as possible. Although there was no crash, as was the case yesterday there was a car on course and this time around there was no patience for such an incident. The peloton stopped on it's tracks in protest of the situation, neutralizing the race.
In the end, the stage did go forward, but with seven teams pulling the plug on their participation. What can only be termed as a mass exodus from the race, most of the World Tour teams unilaterally decided to abandon the race amidst continuous safety problems.
A very thin peloton continued the day, which had it's final section cut (as the riders would pass the same descent once again). Oliver Knight, Valentin Retailleau, Antoine Hue and Hugo Aznar formed the day's breakaway but with the shortened stage and GC interests suddenly sparking in the chaotic situation, they didn't survive long.
The last 40 kilometers were packed with attacks and ever evolving groups. On the final ascent of the new stage profile Cofidis pushed a very hard pace and Dylan Teuns went on the attack, getting a gap over the peloton, however the group behind reconnected and began an organized chase. The Belgian was caught with 4 kilometers to go under heavy rain.
In the final sprint there were rather deorganized leadouts, but it was all about the riders' legs after a tough day. Arnaud De Lie sprinted to victory on the day, beating Arnaud Démare and Paul Penhoët.
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Shame but kind of justified, might be the only way to get organisers and UCI to start doing more from their side, and no-one is asking the world.
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- Pogacar and van der Poel have won the last 6 Monuments, and 11 of the last 13 Monuments. There’s never been domination like this by two riders, and we are in our third year of it. (Merckx and de Vlaeminck won a total of 30 Monuments between 1966 and 1979, but others were winning along the way, as well.)RidesHills06-04-2025
- Yes but what was the dumb effort by Van Aert to drop Pogacar, Vanderpoel and Pederson about.? Just showing face? If he had stayed on the wheels and not wasted energy, he might have got on the podium in the runners up sprint.Cyclingsbestfan06-04-2025
- What a loser.
santiagobenites06-04-2025 - I agree about the sprint or drilling it on the flat. Lighter rider versus heavier rider. Inertia is the natural tendency of objects in motion to stay in motion (e.g the heavier riders momentum) and objects at rest to stay at rest, unless a force causes the velocity to change.Cyclingsbestfan06-04-2025
- Definitely, he is a great rider, and this season might even be as good as last (in a perfect world, a few more Monuments, a Tour-Vuelta double, and the Worlds again), but he has to do this for years on end to compare to Merckx’s results from roughly 69 to 74. Yes, times have changed, yes competition is different, yes speeds are higher, and so on, but let’s let Pogacar be Pogacar and give him time. We can evaluate his career when he retires. Until then, let’s enjoy it while we have it.RidesHills06-04-2025
- Excellent work and show from all of them, glad to see van Aert got back to shape in time. Bring on P-RMistermaumau06-04-2025
- All this seems right but the problem is that two riders of differing weight going at the same speed will have different power and they will also have different power per weight yet are both (in theory, i.e. when trying their hardest) at their max,which means the lighter one is proportionally losing more to the wind (working harder to overcome), the heavier one proportionally losing more to rolling resistance and bounce. The extremely difficult calculations to know which of the 2-3 causes the bigger effect under what exact conditions is what makes it impossible to say who will benefit most in many situations when they aren’t different enough to make it obvious, i.e. a puny climber of 50kg vs a sprinter of 80kg on either the flat or a mountain.Mistermaumau06-04-2025
- Far more tension than expected, the other teams really worked Pogacar over as much as can be expected, they kept getting away and getting caught, and he launched later than I thought he would. And still, here is Monument 8, he’s now won at least twice in every one he has won. Excellent job for Pederson and Ganna amongst all the other results. What a race!RidesHills06-04-2025
- If you throw 2 identical golf balls at the same speed, but one is twice the weight, it will go a bit farther (wind resistance is the same, so the amount of energy of the heavier ball is higher). If you throw 2 identical golf balls at the same power, but one is twice the weight, it will go less far (the amount of energy is the same, so the lighter one is going faster). Remember that in a flat TT, once up to speed, the amount of weight is basically negligible (except a tiny amount of increase in rolling resistance). It's all power vs CdA. Probably the best way to think about this is with a truck (with a covered bed) over a flat but very bumpy road, and ideal tire pressure for the weight. Now, load the truck up to 3X the mass, change the tire pressure to the new ideal pressure, and do the run again. What will take the most amount of power? It's quite obvious that it's the run with the more mass. (Many of us have done this test in real world conditions without realizing it.) Why? Because there's deformation loss to the tire, which is somewhat worse when there's more mass, but there's also the loss from having to lift that much more weight over and over again.acem8206-04-2025
- ...Cause cycling at this level is always about the compromise of weight vs power. Pogacar could be stronger at a higher power, but his power to weight ratio would suffer. All else held equal is very important to understand they physics here, but that's *never* how cycling actually works.acem8206-04-2025