Tour Auvergne Stage 8: Four Climbs, 42 Seconds, One Plateau

Yesterday on the Grand Colombier, Isaac del Toro proved he can win at 10.2 percent sustained gradient in a race that needed that kind of answer. Paul Seixas crashed in the descent before the final climb, lost over a minute chasing back, and arrived at the finish having given everything the day had left to give. Luke Tuckwell crossed the summit still in yellow. The gap: 42 seconds over Jorgenson, 49 over del Toro.

This morning, the peloton rolled out of Beaufort toward the race's final answer. Four climbs, 120 kilometres, 3,860 metres of elevation. Somewhere on the Plateau de Solaison this afternoon, this race ends.

The Stage Profile

The queen stage of this race is not built for drama — it is built to produce it by compressing the entire GC argument into a single afternoon.

Col du Pré opens the stage's mountain section. At 6.9 kilometres and 10.1 percent average gradient, it is the steepest climb of the day relative to its length — a punishing early selector that will begin the process of reducing the race's front group before the real climbing begins. The Col du Pré has little room for tactical management: the gradient from the base asks for power from the first kilometre.

Montée de Bisanne follows — 11.4 kilometres at 7.7 percent, arriving roughly in the stage's middle section. Bisanne is a ski station climb that offers intermittent views of the Mont Blanc massif on a clear day. At 7.7 percent average, it is the stage's most sustained middle climb and the place where any team with remaining domestiques will push tempo to further reduce the surviving GC group.

Col des Aravis arrives third — 7 kilometres at 6.8 percent, connecting the Arly valley with the Fier valley through the pass between the Aravis range and the Pointe Percée. The Aravis is the crossroads of this corner of Haute-Savoie; races have crossed it in multiple editions of the Dauphiné and Tour de France. The descent from the Aravis into the valley below Thônes is the stage's final technical section before the road turns up one final time.

Plateau de Solaison. 11.3 kilometres at an average gradient above nine percent. This is where the race ends and where, if any move has not already been made, it will be made. The climb rises from the valley floor to the plateau finish at Brison — an exposed, high shelf of terrain above the Fier gorge — on a road that does not conceal its gradient in the way that more winding climbs can. From the bottom, you can see the road ahead. From the front group, you can see exactly who is still in it.

The GC Before the Climb

Luke Tuckwell went into this stage in a position that reads more comfortably than it is. Forty-two seconds is enough time to survive a single attack by a rider not quite operating at peak form. It is not enough time to absorb a full offensive by a rider who won Stage 7 by a significant margin and who has fresher legs than the yellow jersey wearer.

Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) at 42 seconds is the mathematical favourite entering Stage 8. He has the climbing background — a stage winner at the Tour de France in recent seasons — and the team support of Visma, which knows how to pace a GC defence and exploit a race's final day. At 42 seconds, he doesn't need to go on the attack: he needs to eliminate Tuckwell's gap by sustained climbing with whoever goes with him.

Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) at 49 seconds is the wildest card. He won Stage 7. His climbing on the Grand Colombier was dominant enough that the gap he created on the final ramp suggested he had not fully exhausted himself producing it. If he attacks on Solaison with the same urgency, 49 seconds may not be an unmanageable deficit.

Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) sits at 1:54 after the Stage 7 crash cost him any realistic overall ambition. What he does on today's final stage — whether he races for stage position, for team experience, or simply as a data point for the Tour de France directeurs who are watching — is its own subplot. He will ride the Solaison today. His performance will be read by people in team buses who will see him again in three weeks in the Alps.

Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) at 1:06 is the fourth rider who cannot be discounted, and whose presence gives UAE two options on the climb — if they choose to use both.

The Plateau de Solaison has appeared in the Critérium du Dauphiné multiple times over the decades the race has run to this corner of Haute-Savoie. Its reputation is accurate: the climb is direct, the gradient is sustained, and the plateau at the top does not offer a continuation of effort after the finish line. You climb to the top and the race is over.

The final kilometres of the Solaison — the exposed upper section where the road loses most of its tree cover and the wind from the plateau arrives — are where the decisive separations occur. In past editions, it has been the point where riders who were managing their effort adequately through the earlier climbs arrive in the final kilometre already at their limit, and the small differences in form between athletes show themselves as large gaps in time.

Tuckwell's 42 seconds will likely become smaller on this climb. How much smaller depends on whether he can limit losses in the final three kilometres of the stage.

The Last Tour de France Preparation

The Tour de France begins in three weeks. Every GC rider in this race knows it. The directeurs sportifs in the team cars know it. The people who build stage-race models for Tour de France predictions are watching today's splits with the same attention they give to the race result itself.

Paul Seixas will start his first Tour de France in July. The crash and chase of Stage 7 added urgency to what his performance today will communicate — he has already shown the GC field that he can chase back after a crash and survive a summit finish. Today's Solaison will show how much that cost him. Riders who can absorb that kind of expenditure across consecutive days are Tour de France contenders. The next three weeks will prove whether Seixas is one of them.

For a guide to cycling the Aravis and Beaufortain — the landscape Stage 8 traces from Beaufort to Solaison — see our Aravis and Beaufortain cycling guide. For yesterday's Stage 7 coverage at the Grand Colombier, see our Stage 7 field report.