Tour de France 2025 - Stage 11: Toulouse - Toulouse | 156.8 kilometres | 1750 vertical metres
After the rest day, 157 hilly kilometres await. There are four fourth-category climbs and one third-category climb. Just under nine kilometres before the finish, the Côte de Pech David with a length of 800 m and an average gradient of 12.4% is the steepest point in the profile. A puncheur could attack out of a group there.
It is to be expected that a group will get away and that two races will run in one: The field with the GC riders will probably take it a little easier, while teams that haven't won anything yet will order their riders into the escape group. Because a look at the road book shows: There won't be many more opportunities for non-climbers to race for a stage win in this Tour.
Review Healy
Anyone planning to spend the day on the run will once again want to be as aerodynamic as possible at the start. Role model: Ben Healy. The Irishman, who starts the eleventh stage in yellow, showed in his victory on the sixth stage how a long solo escape can be successful: Through good pacing and top aerodynamics. Healy published the power data of his ride on Strava. He pedalled at an average of 322 watts (around 5 W/kg) during his almost one-hour escape, which is remarkable, especially because a lot of power was also needed at the start of the race to establish the escape group. However, Healy did not diesel towards the finish but rode very dynamically until the end with the aim of keeping the speed as high as possible at all times. His ride showed a series of power peaks of 400 to 700 W, at the beginning he even pedalled at 1,000 W for a short time. With this riding style, he achieved an average of 46.3 km/h - despite several climbs, the longest of which was 4.4 kilometres long. The recording of his heart rate also reveals how well he organised his energy. Healy only reached the maximum value of 187 beats per minute on the last climb five kilometres before the finish. His average heart rate during the escape was 170 beats.
Healy was very fast in relation to his power output, which speaks in favour of excellent aerodynamics. This was certainly a key to his success.
Position comparisons
The breakaway riders Jonas Rickaert and Mathieu van der Poel rode even faster than Healy on their epic 170-kilometre escape towards the finish on stage nine: the average speed was just over 50 km/h(!), accelerated by the tailwind. The escapees rode the second-fastest Tour stage of all time as a pair time trial! The daring escape was almost successful. Mathieu van der Poel was only caught by the approaching sprinters 650 metres before the finish.
Rickaert and van der Poel attacked at kilometre zero and there was no resistance because the peloton was probably calculating that it would be easy to get two men back. However, it was not easy for the peloton to reduce this lead. Although the wind changed from tailwind to headwind towards the end, which was unfavourable for the escapees, they defended their lead tenaciously and the sprinters had to make their riders work hard to make up any time at all.
Aerodynamics are absolutely crucial in this unequal battle of two against many. After such a long breakaway, the escapees can no longer turn up the pace like a larger group of chasers who can better share the workload in the wind. The breakaway riders can only try to ride cleverly, give each other optimum slipstreaming and offer the wind as little surface to attack as possible. The beefier Rickaert looked significantly less aerodynamic compared to van der Poel, but we have no numbers to back that up.
In terms of equipment, Mathieu van der Poel and Jonas Rickaert were perfectly equipped. The Canyon Aeroad is one of the fastest bikes in the field, and nowhere can a top aero bike show off its advantages better than on such a long escape. Here, the advantage over a mediocre bike adds up to many minutes.
Nevertheless, the technique is no guarantee that the breakaway will succeed. Whether breakaways make it through depends more on the group dynamics in the peloton and whether the chasers correctly assess how the breakaway is doing. If they don't push themselves to the limit straight away and are able to turn up the heat in the final phase just like the peloton, the chasers can miscalculate. The quality of the breakaway also plays a role here. A world-class rider like Mathieu van der Poel can put up more of a fight than a professional from the second row. It was correspondingly close.
Is the fight for the gram worth it?
But back to the eleventh stage. After the demonstrations of the last few days, an aero bike is set for a possible further escape. But what influence does weight have when there is a short, steep 800 metre ramp 10.5 kilometres before the finish? Should the mechanics work overtime in order to remove the last few grams of excess weight? We investigate this question in our simulation.
The number of the day: 19 seconds
From the attack at the bottom of the last hill to the finish, the fastest bikes save 19 seconds compared to the slowest. Aero is more important than pure weight, because the speed has to be carried from the climb to the finish. However, a light bike helps to make the attack on the climb successful.
That's why we see the Cervélo S5 in the 1x12 setup once again at the front. It is the fastest on the climb, so it helps you get away. Later on, the Aero high-flyer Van Rysel RCR-F Pro catches up, but is just behind in the overall standings.
Team Visma's tactic of making top aerodynamics as easy as possible with tricks such as the single drive is working. Our advice to the mechanics is therefore: do everything you can to push the aero bikes towards a minimum weight of 6.8 kilos.
The (almost) complete field at a glance*
The table shows the ranking of the bikes during an attack on the last hill, 8.8 kilometres before the finish. The Cervélo S5 wins with its mixture of top aerodynamics and mini weight. Pure light bikes ride behind, they are a handicap in the flat finish.
*) The calculations are based on the bikes tested by TOUR in the laboratory and wind tunnel. The bikes at the Tour de France may differ in some details. Of course, we have not yet been able to analyse last-minute prototypes. Background to the simulation.
Our expert
Robert Kühnen studied mechanical engineering, writes about technical and training topics for TOUR and develops test methods. Robert has been refining the simulation calculations for years and they are also used by professional teams.
