Faun Drome Classic 2025

March 2, 2025 Yesterday's race of the Faun-Ardèche took place entirely on the West side of the Rhône and today plays exclusively on the East side, in the Drôme department. At 189KM, the first two thirds of the route is hard with constantly rolling roads. The last 65KM is much more mountainous with three major climbs and three smaller ones before the 500M ramp to the finish in Étoile-sur-Rhône. Six riders made the break including Sjoerd Bax and Walter Calzoni of Q36.5, Kenny Molly of Van Rysel Roubaix, Matisse Julien of CIC-U Nantes, as well as Jonas Gregaard of Lotto, and Baptiste Poulard of Arkéa-B&B Hotels who were also in the break yesterday. Their gap was still 4 minutes 30 seconds with 92KM to go. Lidl-Trek had the entire team at the front chasing along with Tudor Pro Cycling. Over the Mur d'Allex with 61KM to go, the gap was down to 2 minutes 15 seconds as the larger climbs were drawing near. Bax, Molly, and Gregaard dropped the other three riders from the break on the Col de Tartaiguille but their lead was down to 1 minute by the top with 58KM to go. The race kicked off at the bottom of the Col de la Grande Limite. Isaac del Toro of UAE-XRG set a blistering pace which caught the break and reduced the peloton to 30 riders within 1 kilometer of riding on the front. It was a set up for his teammate, Juan Ayuso, who attacked with 39.5KM to go. A chase group of ten formed over the top of the Col de la Grande Limite, including three Lidl-Trek riders, 23 seconds behind Ayuso. Even with numbers in the group for Lidl-Trek, Mattias Skjelmose attacked the first chase group on the descent in an attempt to bridge up to Ayuso. With 29KM to go near the base of the Côte des Roberts, Gianmarco Garofoli of Soudal Quickstep, Ben Healy of EF-Education EasyPost, and Christian Scaroni of XDS-Astana made a group behind Skjelmose, 40 seconds back of Ayuso with a larger group forming behind them. At the top of the Côte des Roberts with just over 26KM to race, Ayuso had 30 seconds on Skjelmose, 1 minute 5 seconds on Healy and Scaroni, and 1 minute 30 seconds on the main peloton of 40 riders, including Garofoli who was dropped by the Healy group. Ayuso crossed the Drôme river and went up and over the Mur d'Allex for the third and final time with 13KM to go. Healy and Scaroni were caught by the peloton on the Mur d'Allex leaving just Skjelmose in the middle at 25 seconds to Ayuso and the bunch at 1 minute. Ayuso won the 30KM pursuit with Skjelmose. The Dane got within 20 seconds but could not close the final gap, leaving Ayuso to take the win by 23 seconds on the line. Ben Tulett of Visma-Lease a Bike won the uphill sprint from the peloton for third place, 1 minute 15 seconds behind Ayuso.