this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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This 6-stage race (Monday to Saturday) starts with a Time Trial, and then goes on with a collection of steep hills everyday. Even the Time Trial is not flat at all, starting with a 2.5 km climb, and finishing with a smaller but steeper one.
🌞 Weather forecast: a very un-Basque weather (no rain), and the first days are going to be very hot for the season.
🚴♂️ Teams:
We'll get to see Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE), Ayuso (🇪🇸 Lidl-Trek), Seixas (🇫🇷 Decathlon), Roglitch🇸🇮 and Lipowitz🇩🇪 (Bora) for GC. Perhaps Landa (🇪🇸 Soudal-QS), McNulty (🇺🇸 UAE), Uijtdebroeks (🇧🇪 Movistar) and one Ineos behind them. For stages, we can watch the 2 Basques from Cofidis who are always in shape at this time of the year when they smell home: I. Izagirre🇪🇸 and Aranburu🇪🇸 who just made 1^st^ and 4^th^ on the Indurain GP – where Q. Simmons (🇺🇸 Lidl-Trek) 2^nd^ seemed to have finally found his good legs too; as well as the EF team (Healy🇮🇪 and others); I am not about the shape of Astana riders at the moment.
🗺 General map (they picked the separatist version, where Spain and France do not exist, and the Basque Country includes parts in France):
Stage 1 (Monday 6, Time Trial)
Stage 2 (Tuesday 7)
Stage 3 (Wednesday 8)
Stage 4 (Thursday 9)
Stage 5 (Friday 10)
Stage 6 (Saturday 11, last day)
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Among those who had problems with the TT yesterday, Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) was better in the main climb and Uijtdebroeks (🇧🇪 Movistar) much better. Unfortunately for them, the group of riders in which they were played quite the same role as the group of mostly French riders in Paris-Nice, far behind Vingegaard; except that here they were far behind Ze Elect (🇫🇷 Decathlon), and that infighting rather took the appearance of a reluctance to help each other.
Seixas🇫🇷 climbed like in Ardèche (same 'tactic' too: no finesse, just sitting at the front and destroying the pedals after the team thinned the peloton, very modern...), creating a gap of 45-50 seconds in the climb itself, and an extra 20-25 seconds in the descent. I hear all commentators marvel about his descending skills and trajectories, but I am rather worried: he is super high on his bike; and he 'twists' his body, which means he is on the wrong angle/balance and can never inflect his trajectory if it becomes needed. So far, it passes, but I am afraid it won't always.
After his first WT TT stage yesterday, Ze Elect wins his first WT mass start stage today. Well... In GC, that's 2 minutes before the two Bora riders already! We've already seen spectators throwing themselves to the ground to prostate themselves before Him!
The old Roglitch (🇸🇮 Bora) is faithful to tradition: he managed to snatch a time bonus in the end! 😊
I. Izagirre (🇪🇸 Cofidis) and Baudin (🇫🇷 EF) leaped into the top-10. Both were on the podium of the Indurain GP just 3 days ago: the shape is well there!
G. Martin🇫🇷 managed to crash with a teammate in a climb, but still finished in 20^th^ position of the stage (or wasn't he part of that double crash?).
The 'problem' vanished today, as the Frenchman is now out of top-20 and the American at 15 minutes: no more Ineos in Gc...