Tour de Suisse 2025 Stage 2

June 16, 2025 There is a bit more climbing than yesterday but the finish may not be as selective. Nothing on today's course is as steep as the Michaelskreuz but most of the focused climbing is at the back end of the day. The first half of the 177KM stage is gently rolling South and West until about 100KM to go when the riders hit a 5KM unclassified climb to Riggisberg. There is hardly any descent before the road goes back up again to the Intermediate Sprint in Schwarzenberg where the first categorized climb of the day begins. The climb up to Guggisberg is 5.3KM at 4.3%. A 20KM descent leads to the Tissot Kilometer with two sprints that have bonus seconds on offer just outside the town of Heitenried. The road goes up for the final 20KM of the stage with the climb to Rechthalten (1.6KM at 6%) with 16KM to go then the final ascent to Schwarzsee which is just under 5KM at 3%. It depends on how the bunch race it but a reduced group could come to the finish. A few years ago, this profile would have been a prime Peter Sagan stage. The weather was much more agreeable with sunshine at the start in Aarau. Three riders got away after a much more subdued start. The group included Jonas Rutsch of Intermarché-Wanty, Silvan Dillier of Alpecin-Deceuninck, and Mauro Schmid of Jayco AlUla. They had just 90 seconds on the bunch led by Picnic-PostNL with 75KM to go. The situation stayed static until the start of the Guggisberg climb when Dillier's legs had enough and he was forced to drop out of the break. The two remaining leaders carried on but the peloton picked up more motivation with 43KM to go off the descent of the Guggisberg with Decathlon AG2R and Tudor Pro Cycling driving the pace. A category 3 climb to Heitenried marked the end of the day for some riders in the bunch as Tudor Pro Cycling really throttled the race but a reasonable peloton went over the top together, 40 seconds behind the break. Rutsch led through the first Tissot Kilometer sprint and took 3 bonus seconds with Schmid taking taking two which left a single second available for the peloton. Groupama-FDJ came up and led out race leader Romain Grégoire who sprinted ahead of Luke Durbridge of Jayco AlUla to take the solitary bonus second. Groupama-FDJ continued to lead after the first sprint but it was Felix Engelhardt of Jayco AlUla that beat Grégoire to take the 1 remaining bonus second. Rutsch and Schmid continued together but with 17KM to go on the climb to Rechthalten, Schmid put in an attack and Rutsch could not respond. Over the top, Fabio Van den Bossche of Alpecin-Deceuninck attacked from the peloton and quickly got across to Schmid but the peloton, which was still surprisingly large, caught them with 14KM to go. EF-Education EasyPost took control and rode en masse at the front of the bunch and set a pace to discourage any further attacking. More teams showed themselves at the front and with 7KM to go, it was a drag race between EF-Education EasyPost, Lotto, Q36.5, and Picnic-PostNL. The road started to grind with 5KM to go but the gradient was shallow enough that most of the bunch was still present. With just under 3KM to go, Jan Christen of UAE-XRG launched an attack and EF-Education EasyPost took it upon themselves to do the bulk of the chasing. He had about 6 seconds through 1KM to go but a rush from Ineos and Tudor Pro Cycling lifted the speed in the peloton. Christen was caught as Quinn Simmons of Lidl-Trek made a bid for home with 600M to go. He was joined by Lewis Askey of Groupama-FDJ, Fabio Christen of Q36.5, and Vincenzo Albanese of EF-Education EasyPost. Simmons started to tie up with 200M to go and it was Albanese that got in front around a sweeping corner at 75M. The road leveled off which gave just enough relief for Albanese to hold his speed to the line and take the victory, the biggest of his career. Fabio Christen was second, Askey third and Simmons fourth. There was no measured time gaps on the line so nearly 100 riders finished on the same time.