Visma | Lease a Bike keeps attacking Pogacar within range, Turgis wins stunning gravel stage in Tour de France

Alex Aranburu (Movistar) won the much-discussed gravel stage in the Tour de France after a tumultuous ride. In Troyes he proved to be the strongest of a good breakaway after two hundred kilometers of racing with a capital K. Tadej Pogacar attacked Jonas Vingegaard and co several times, but in the end didn't pick up any time.

Beforehand, of course, there was an awful lot to do about this stage. Does it belong in the Tour or not? Team bosses such as Richard Plugge (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Patrick Lefevere (Soudal Quick-Step) were fiercely against it, as well as the pure climbers or classification riders like Jonas Vingegaard. At the other end of the spectrum, of course, were the classic types, but certainly also yellow jersey Tadej Pogacar and his closest pursuer Remco Evenepoel. 

Anyway, the race was on and that is the most important thing. At 1:20 p.m. the riders were flagged off just outside Troyes for the stage, after which it was immediately all hands on deck. As so often, Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny) was the instigator with an attack right from behind the race director's car, although this time there were more men with the same plans. Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X) as the attacker of this Tour, for example.

However, all did not go as easily as Friday, as a very large part of the peloton had their sights set on this stage. World-class riders like Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny), Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) and Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) threw all their strength into the fray at this stage, hoping for a ticket to the early breakaway in this day's stage.

In the first round, Paul Lapeira (Decathlon AG2R), Romain Gregoire (Decathlon AG2R), Jarrad Drizners (Lotto-Dstny), Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) and Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) emerged as winners, with Gee's presence 14th in the standings being particularly interesting.

Counter attack after counter attack followed and the lead of the quintet barely reached half a minute, while the average in the first half hour was 54 (!) kilometers per hour. It was noticeable that among others Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) picked his moments, knowing it would be a very long day through the vineyards near Troyes. Someone like De Lie did that less, but ended up paying cash for it.

After a good forty kilometers, there was finally separation. Maxim Van Gils chose a good moment on behalf of Lotto-Dstny and got nine men with him. Among them were Gee again, but also Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies), Clasica Jaén winner Oier Lazkano and his teammate Javier Romo (Movistar), Elmar Reinders (Jayco AlUla), specialist Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), Belgian gravel champion Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Neilson Powless (EF) and European gravel champion Jasper Stuyven on behalf of Lidl-Trek.

A nice group, they also saw in the peloton. About ten riders still wanted to cross, but only Alex Aranburu (Movistar), Axel Zingle (Cofidis), Tom Pidcock (INEOS) and Healy actually succeeded. With this, the breakaway of the day seemed to have left, were it not for the fact that the first stretches of gravel were already lurking and thus the peloton also got going again.

On the second strip of the day, to Baroville, we immediately saw what kind of damage the gravel can do. During the ascending first few hundred meters, Visma | Lease a Bike pulled the bunch together, but behind them the pace stopped and riders slipped away. Direct result: a whole bunch of riders standing still and running uphill, which is always a bit like comedy capers.

At the end of the strip we could take stock, where the peloton with the men of Visma | Lease a Bike did not include Primoz Roglic. Also no Juan Ayuso, Wout van Aert, Simon Yates and a few others, so the pace was firm. In response, the Slovenian from Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe had to sacrifice several men and close the final gap himself.

Just before the next strip, the calf was above water again, but it didn't take long to regain ecstasy. Indeed, Jonas Vingegaard suffered a puncture and had to change headlong with teammate Jan Tratnik, while Jasper Philipsen was also swept away by bad luck at that stage. The peloton still contained about fifty riders there.

One Tadej Pogacar then decided to accelerate, which elicited reactions from Remco Evenepoel and Matteo Jorgenson. So Vingegaard was not with them, but had guardian angels Van Aert and Christophe Laporte with him to rectify the lopsided situation. Moments later, Vingegaard himself had to come out of the pipeat the moment Evenepoel and Vingegaard tried to put him under pressure.

The Dane - still on Tratnik's bike - resisted valiantly, but decided not to ride with the two attacking competitors and lean on the work of his remaining teammates. Van der Poel, in his world champion jersey, watched it all from the front row, while the door in the peloton at the back was constantly open.

On strip eight - from Thieffrain to Magnant - the next selection was made. Evenepoel had a little problem at the beginning of the strip, just when Van Aert and co were setting pace for Vingegaard and overtaking Van Gils, for example. However, the white jersey wearer recovered that limp sovereignly and rejoined before the end of the strip.

In the downhill, Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) then popped hard into the ditch after a clumsy maneuver, but this did not take advantage of the other teams. Those mainly kept pace, which suddenly gave the remaining breakaway riders Stuyven, Gee, Healy, Aranburu, Romo, Lutsenko, Pidcock and Turgis a chance to regain the day's victory.

The hilly sections were all behind us, so the remaining baroudeurs in the peloton smelled their chance and went on the attack. Van der Poel was among them, of course, but also Rasmus Tiller (Uno-X), Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty), Michael Matthews (Jayco AlUla), David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), Rui Costa (EF), and Jakob Fuglsang (Israel-Premier Tech). The latter two had a teammate at the front and thus were not riding, while the peloton with the classification riders was pretty quiet.

Towards the last six remaining sectors in the last quarter of the day, UAE with Tim Wellens did pull through a bit, continuing to put pressure on the Van der Poel group, where they in turn had all the trouble of riding to the front in one go.

On strip four, it became clear why Wellens and co rode on: there came the devastating attack of Pogacar, who finished this sector terribly fast. The men from Visma | Lease a Bike shot into cramps and Vingegaard and Evenepoel could not follow the wheel, leaving it to Matteo Jorgenson to play watchdog.

The American decided to wait for his leader and bring him up to the Slovenian's wheel, but Evenepoel and Roglic were not along for the ride. Nevertheless, the Visma | Lease a Bike duo refused to ride with the maillot jaune, allowing the rest, led by Evenepoel, to make the connection again moments later. And so it fell silent again.

That way the front could focus on the day's victory, which Stuyven took a shot at with a very good move at eleven kilometers from the finish. The Belgian rounded the last gravel strip with an eight-second lead, but the final stretch towards Troyes was with a headwind. Under the rag, the Belgian had a two-second lead, but it turned out not to be enough. In the sprint of dying swans it was then Turgis who won the stage, ahead of Pidcock.

In the big group, Pogacar shook the tree until the last gravel meters, but the little Dane in Visma blue kept the wheel. Thus, below the line, the men of the classification all remained relatively close, except for Simon Yates.