Place Name: Allée Camille Claudel
Address: 110 Allée Camille Claudel, 07500 Guilherand-Granges, France
Details: February 28, 2026
If the start/finish town of Guilherand-Granges sounds familiar to you, it's because we last saw it in October in the European Road Championships. The course of that race was inspired by what is the traditional route of today's race, the Faun-Ardèche Classic. The 188KM route is unrelenting with 3,400M of elevation gain throughout the day on energy sapping climbs. The first 115KM are made up of a long circuit that the riders will complete twice. On each lap is the Côte du Pin, Col de la Justice, the ascent to Saint Romain de Lerps, and the steep Val d'Enfer. After the second time through the finish line, the riders will head back out towards the lap but will cut out the Côte du Pin and Col de la Justice and instead take on the ascent to Saint Romain de Lerps for a third time by way of the Mur des Royes which extends the effort by another 1,200M. Once at the top of the Saint Romain de Lerps, there will be 40KM to go. A short circuit in the valley takes the riders up the 1.5KM, 10.3% Val d'Enfer two more times before a 6KM flat run back into the finish in Guilherand-Granges under the shadow of the Châteaux de Crussol.
Riders to watch: Romain Grégoire, Ewen Costiou, Jan Christen, António Morgado, Matteo Jorgenson, Quinn Simmons, Mattias Skjelmose, Christian Scaroni, Clément Champoussin, Lenny Martinez, Egan Bernal, Paul Seixas, Ben Healy, Jarno Widar, Marc Hirschi, Thomas Gloag, Jordan Jegat
A light rain dampened the spirits for the first of two races this weekend on the Rhône near Valence. It didn't hamper a group of seven however who attacked early to form the break of the day. The group consisted of Alexy Faure Prost of Picnic-PostNL, Theo Lévêque and Geoffrey Bouchard of TotalEnergies, Laurens Huys and Jaakko Hänninen of Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur, Victor Guernalec of CIC Pro Cycling Academy, and Eivind Broholt Fougner of Unibet Rose Rockets. With 96KM to go, the front of the peloton was wide across the road, not for blocking but rather racing for position through the narrow village of Boffres and the start of the descent off the Col de la Justice for the second time.
Visma-Lease a Bike and Lidl-Trek were putting on the pressure and had the gap down to just 30 seconds as the climbing resumed on Saint Romain de Lerps with 82KM to go. There was no real action on the climb but the descent off the Saint Romain de Lerps split the front group with Fougner and Lévêque going forward. At the bottom of the Val d'Enfer with 62KM to go, the leading duo had 10 seconds on the remnants of the break and 45 seconds on the peloton. After the descent with 57KM to go, Prost had nearly worked his way back to Fougner and Lévêque but he succumbed to cramp and drifted backwards. When the peloton came through the finish line with 53.5KM to go, they were riding at a moderate pace but certainly not in full chase mode. Fabio Christen of Pinarello Q36.5 jumped out of the peloton and across to Bouchard, Prost, and Guernalec who were still in between the two leaders and the peloton.
When the leaders reached the base of the Mur des Royes and subsequent Saint Romain de Lerps, they had 1 minute on the peloton but Decathlon CMA CGM were charging into the void. They swept up the Christen group after just a few hundred meters. Fougner and Lévêque were caught before the first hairpin but the problem for Paul Seixas was that all of his teammates burned out very early and the young Frenchman was isolated with a large group still in contact. Seixas decided to just do the work himself. The power was mighty from Seixas and with 44.5KM to go and still 4KM to climb, only Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike remained. The second group on the road was Jan Christen of UAE-XRG and Lenny Martinez of Bahrain Victorious but Seixas and Jorgenson were out of sight in no time.
Jorgenson didn't take a pull and at 1,800M from the top, Seixas squeezed the accelerator a bit more and Jorgenson went backwards. Jorgenson joined Christen and Martinez but they were already 25 seconds behind Seixas by the top. The roads had dried out which allowed the descent to be taken on at full speed. Seixas doubled his advantage on the descent and was quickly to the base of the Val d'Enfer for the penultimate time with 26.5KM still to ride. From the top, Seixas had 1 minute 10 seconds and had retained every bit of that on the flat run to the finish line to hear the bell for one lap of the Val d'Enfer circuit remaining.
Seixas had no trouble keeping his pace high over the Val d'Enfer and had a solid 90 seconds on the chase who were now looking at each for who would take the podium spots. The home crowd cheered for their young star as he crossed the line after more than 40KM solo effort. In the race for second, Jorgenson led Christen with Martinez following in third wheel through 300M to go. Martinez opened up early at 225M but Christen proved to be the quickest and sprinted in for second. Jorgenson couldn't react and watched Martinez take third with the American coasting in for fourth place.
Tags: Faun-Ardèche Classic, 2026, February, Guilherand-Granges, Alexy Faure Prost, Theo Lévêque, Geoffrey Bouchard, Laurens Huys, Jaakko Hänninen, Victor Guernalec, Eivind Broholt Fougner, Fabio Christen, Paul Seixas, Matteo Jorgenson, Jan Christen, Lenny Martinez