Tour de Romandie 2025 Stage 2

May 1, 2025 With the exception of the Chaumont, the climbing is frontloaded in the first 60% of the stage with two category two's and a category three. The Chaumont is the final climb, topping out 48KM from the finish. It is a steep one at over 11% for 3KM but the run down to the Lac de Neuchâtel and the generally flat run to the finish could provide opportunity for dropped rider to make their way back on. Mother Nature has continued to smile upon Romandie with temperatures at 26C (79F) and clear skies once again. Five riders were up the road and it was Ben Zwiehoff of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe again, this time joined by Hugh Carthy of EF-Education EasyPost, Julien Bernard of Lidl-Trek, Raúl García Pierna of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, and Welay Berhe of Jayco AlUla. They had 1 minute 50 seconds with 84KM to go as they passed through the finish line in the opposite direction of the actual stage finish. Soudal Quickstep were chasing with the entire team on the front. The positioning battle started in the peloton for the upcoming climbs of Chambrelein and Les Grattes which merge into one. The two together add up to 7.5KM and near the top of Les Grattes, the gradient goes close to 8%. When the break hit the climb, their lead was cut to 50 seconds. The pace on the Chambrelein dropped quite a few riders including race leader Matthew Brennan of Visma-Lease a Bike while Carthy and Bernard went off together up the road leaving the others behind. Carthy led the way up and increased their gap back to 1 minute 50 seconds by the top of Les Grattes with 68KM to go. The leaders started the Chaumont with 50.5KM to go and the road ramped up immediately to over 10%. Decathlon AG2R and Soudal Quickstep pushed the speed onto the climb just 1 minute back of Carthy and Bernard. Carthy was the better climber on the day and found himself alone at the front but he had just 18 seconds with 500M to climb as Jay Vine of UAE-XRG set a pace that only about 15 riders could follow. Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quickstep was the only one to make a move on the Chaumont but he waited until 100M from the top to do so. Carthy was absorbed by the group of 15 as Evenepoel was pushing the limits and the leading motor bike through every corner. The problem for the favorites was that there were still over 40KM to go by the bottom and no teammates to do the pace making. Juan Pedro López of Lidl-Trek attacked and Vine went with him. The favorites group naturally would not cooperate and relentlessly attacked each other. López and Vine were caught with 31.5KM to go with only flat road left to the finish line. Alex Baudin of EF-Education EasyPost was next to get a gap on an attack. Baudin was joined by William Junior Lecerf of Soudal Quickstep and López again with 27.5KM to go with another pair of Lorenzo Fortunato of XDS-Astana and Lennert Van Eetvelt of Lotto chasing behind. The rest of the favorites group completely marked themselves out which allowed the gap to get to 30 seconds quickly. Van Eetvelt and Fortunato made contact with 24.5KM to go to make five at the front and the quintet worked well right away. UAE-XRG were chasing for João Almeida but with 10KM to go, the gap had grown to 1 minute 15 seconds and they would not be caught. At 5KM from the finish, Lecerf was the first to skip a pull. It continued to be cagey until 1KM to go. Fortunato rolled off the front and Van Eetvelt just let the wheel go. Fortunato saw he had a gap gave the pedals more power. The others tried to attack their way back on but Fortunato had enough of a lead to put his hands up and celebrate. Baudin won the sprint in for second with a 2 second time gap ahead of Lecerf, Van Eetvelt, and López respectively. The rest of the GC favorites came in 56 seconds down on Fortunato. After the bonuses were factored in, Baudin took over the race lead, 5 seconds ahead of Lecerf and 6 seconds ahead of Van Eetvelt.