Critérium du Dauphiné 2025 Stage 6

June 13, 2025 The first of three mountain days in the Dauphiné kicks off with a punch. At just 127KM, the race starts in Valserhône and heads East, staying North of Annecy and skirting around the Haute-Savoie with excursions into the hills. The first two-thirds of the stage have a category four then a category three climb but once the riders arrive in Bonneville with 47KM to go, they start the category 1 test of the Côte du Mont-Saxonnex (5.5KM at .6%). After the descent and long valley road up to Sallanches, the finale begins. It starts with the Côte de Domancy (2.4KM at 9.3%) which then rolls into a dragging uphill road for 3KM before the start of the Côte de la Cry (2.7KM at 7.7%) which take the riders to the finish in Combloux. In all, the last 9KM are all uphill and will surely test the form of the best riders. Some familiar faces from previous days made the break. After a furious start with over 46KM covered in the first hour, 8 riders got away including Michael Leonard of Ineos, Bruno Armirail of Decathlon AG2R, Alex Baudin of EF-Education EasyPost, Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Andreas Leknessund of Uno-X Mobility, Romain Bardet of Picnic-PostNL, Pierre Thierry of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, and Anthony Turgis of TotalEnergies. They had 90 seconds on the peloton with 61KM remaining as UAE-XRG were pulling hard to keep the race on a tight leash. The gap started to increase slightly but with 47KM to go on the approach to the Côte du Mont-Saxonnex, Visma-Lease a Bike ramped up the pace and put the peloton into single file. They hit the climb like a sprint lead out and gaps appeared almost immediately. They settled into a rhythm but with 44KM to go, Sepp Kuss of Visma-Lease a Bike attacked which drew out only the best climbers of the race, a group of around 10. As soon as the pace went out, Florian Lipowitz of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe attacked and there was no immediate reaction. He picked off rider after rider from the break but the favorites group was never more than 10 seconds behind. Lipowitz was reeled in 500M from the top which was crested first by Baudin and Leonard, the last two riders from the break still up front. Baudin and Leonard hit the valley road at 30KM to go with an advantage of 1 minute 10 seconds on the favorites group which had grown to around 15 riders. The group doubled in size a few kilometers later as the bunch were refueling for the finale. Baudin and Leonard turned right off the valley road, under the shadow of Mont Blanc, onto the Côte de Domancy with a lead of 1 minute 15 seconds. Baudin had been the strongest all day from the break and proved it once again by going clear from Leonard near the bottom but UAE-XRG were drilling it behind. Both first and second in GC, Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quickstep and Lipowitz, were dropped with 8KM to go. Shortly after, Jonas Vingegaard's last teammate, Matteo Jorgenson, was dropped which left just Jhonatan Narváez setting the pace, Tim Wellens and Tadej Pogačar in the wheel, and Vingegaard at the back. Pogačar accelarated with 7.5KM to go and Vingegaard could only hold the wheel for 200M before Pogačar was clear and in pursuit of Baudin, the lone leader. Baudin was caught and tried to stay with Pogačar but it was futile. Pogačar got to the top of the Côte de Domancy with a 20 second lead on Vingegaard and 40 back to Evenepoel, Lipowitz, Wellens, and Jorgenson. Pogačar started the Côte de la Cry at 2.7KM to go with an expanding gap to Vingegaard of 45 seconds. Lipowitz had attacked the Evenepoel group and was sitting at 1 minute, 15 seconds ahead of Evenepoel. When Pogačar neared the finish, he was focused on gaining as much time as possible and only celebrated after the line. We had to wait 61 seconds for Vingegaard to finish and another 21 seconds for Lipowitz. It was a real shellacking of the opposition by Pogačar on such a short but intense stage. He now leads by 43 seconds to Vingegaard and 54 seconds to Lipowitz with Evenepoel slipping down to fourth at 1 minute 22 seconds.