Critérium du Dauphiné 2025 Stage 2

June 9, 2025 Even with all of the action and movement from the GC favorites yesterday, the overall is still basically all together with 100 riders within 30 seconds. The race starts its journey South, leaving Prémilhat on the outskirts of Montluçon, towards Issoire for a long stage of 205KM. The route passes near the Puy de Dôme and Clermont-Ferrand before arriving in Issoire for a large 45KM circuit which includes the category 4 climb of the Côte de Nonette. It is far less severe than yesterday's Côte de Buffon so we should see a large group coming to the finish to contest the stage win. It was another beautiful day in Central France with warm and dry conditions. Paul Ourselin of Cofidis was the only rider to go up the road and had a six minute lead but the peloton picked up speed spurred on by Lidl-Trek and Alpecin-Deceuninck and the gap came all the way down to 20 seconds. Three riders jumped across including Chris Juul Jensen of Jayco AlUla, Romain Combaud of Picnic-PostNL, and Victor Guernalec of Arkéa-B&B Hotels. With 85KM to go, the four leaders had 1 minute. On the Côte du Château de Buron, Juul Jensen set a pace in the break that only Guernalec could handle. Guernalec led over the top with 57.5KM to go with a gap of just 54 seconds to the peloton. The road continued to drag after the summit and the pace that Visma-Lease a Bike were riding was hard enough to pop Jonathan Milan, the pre-stage favorite, off the back. Nearly all of his Lidl-Trek teammates dropped back to gather the Italian and return him to the peloton. Milan made it back to the bunch with 46KM to go at the base of the descent as they entered the circuit. Juul Jensen and Guernalec were caught a few hundred meters later and the bunch settled down as they took the bell for one lap of the circuit. The lead in to the Côte de Nonette frayed some nerves between Per Strand Hangenes of Visma-Lease a Bike and Nils Politt of UAE-XRG which got a little physical at one point. They both received Yellow Cards for their actions. Movistar, Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, and Alpecin-Deceuninck joined the bustle at the front and it was a full drag race to the bottom of the climb. Local hero Romain Bardet of Picnic-PostNL attacked halfway up the Nonette, a climb he used to race up as a young boy. Bardet will be retiring at the end of this Dauphiné and it was a nice moment when he crossed the top first, passed the many Bardet fan clubs that came out to cheer him on. His lead got as high as 20 seconds but Lidl-Trek were keen for a sprint and had Bardet back in the fold with 10KM to go. GC teams continue to ride on the front until 2.5KM remaining when lead outs started in earnest. Lidl-Trek, Israel-Premier Tech, and Decathlon AG2R all tried to get into position but the speed remained incredibly high making it difficult for any one team to control. The final corner came with 475M to go and it was Lidl-Trek at the front with two men ahead of Milan. It was all a formality because when Milan started his sprint, he was clearly the fastest and took the win by a bike length. Fred Wright of Bahrain Victorious managed to get himself involved and came away with a surprising second place ahead of Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Deceuninck. With the time bonuses factored in, Jonathan Milan and Tadej Pogačar are tied on time but Milan will take over the race lead on countback, having a better average finishing place than Pogačar over the two stages. Van der Poel remains in third place, 2 seconds down.