THEMOVE - Maëva Squiban Attacks Solo with 32k to Go | Tour de France 2025 Stage 6 | THEMOVE Femmes

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

Lance Armstrong, Mari Holden, and Alison Tetrick break down Maëva Squiban’s perfectly timed solo breakaway to win Stage 6 of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes Avec Zwift. They also discuss whether Lorena Wiebes can hold onto the Green Jersey, and how they see the ongoing GC battle playing out. Zwift: Zwift just made it easier than ever to get on the virtual roads. All Zwift-ready trainers come with the new Zwift Cog and Click installed, making them ready to ride from the box - no extras needed. Zwift-ready trainers start at just $299, meaning anyone can jump into world-class indoor training without breaking the bank. No excuses. Just ride! https://zwift.com Honey Stinger: Head on over to https://honeystinger.com/themove to check out all of their products, including my favorite, the waffle. Our listeners can get 25% off your first order at https://honeystinger.com/themove. That’s THEMOVE for 25% off your first order.

Exceptional. Maverick Squibbin. What a ride. This rider showed herself last year, got second in a stage this year. Young, 23 years old. Got hit by French. What was it, the only, the second? Second French stage winner for the Tour de France from the Vex Lift. For this year? But not many. No, second in the, since we started the Tour de France. Wow. Wow. I thought, OK. So Cedrine Cabal won a stage last year.

And now we have Squibbin today. Welcome back to The Move, everybody. I'm Lance, joined by Mari and Allie. And of course, Mel, we're talking about stage six. Mel Hincapie, what's up? Where we go? Stage six, Claire Montferrand to Amber. Claire Montferrand to Amber.

Fun fact, my wife, Anna, taught English in Claire Montferrand. Oh! Way back in the day. Wow. Yeah, her French is good. Better than yours. It's a lot better than mine. It's not nearly as good as Milhing Cappy's, but yeah, she lived in Claire Mount Ferron,

taught English. That's pretty cool. Isn't that cool? I hope I'm not butchering that. She has so many talents. I hope it wasn't like, you know, some other, it was Claire Mount Ferron. Exceptional. Maeve Squibbin. What a ride.

This rider, she was a problem, showed herself last year, got second in a stage this year. Young, 23 years old. 23 years old. French. French. What was it, the only, the second? Second French stage winner for the Tour de France from the Vex Lift. For this year, but not many.

No, second since we started the Tour de France from the Vex Lift. Wow, OK. So Soodrin Krabal won a stage last year, and now we have Squibbin today. By the way, as far as I'm concerned, there was no luck involved. She took control of the race, and she held luck involved. She took control of the race.

And she held it. She rode a hell of a race, despite a peloton behind that was riding, not attacking each other ruthlessly, but we're riding hard. FDJ was definitely trying to bring her in and not bringing her back. 32K to go. She attacks, let's say, the GC favorites

and just held it to the line. So chapeau to her. It's an incredible stage win. If you think about it, that's close to an hour. That's a long break to hold off a strong field and on a very, very tough day. Yeah. So, you know, before we get really started here, let's talk about Zwift, title sponsor of the Tour de France-Farm of Ex-WiFT and also here on the move. Mari and I actually rode yesterday, so I did not use Zwift, but I did bring the trainer up to the bunkhouse so Blaze could ride the trainer.

Zwift just launched the new cog and click setup. So this is pretty cool. No cassette changes, no bike drama, not like the DS drama going on in the race. And you can use literally any bike, put it on and make any trainer as with to ready trainer. All the big names. Wahoo, my personal favorite Garmin jet black elite decathlon, fully equipped, starts at $299. But I still got fitness score points riding with Mario yesterday on Zwift

because I connect the Zwift companion act with my Wahoo Rome. And I'm still still gaining points on you on Zwift. Congratulations. I might actually ride my bike today. You could ride with us. That was a hard pass. Let's talk about the race. Overall, you know, a little more muted than I would have thought. Look, by the way, too, and we were just sort of reflecting as we were watching, because we were talking about stage two

and Marty, we were like, wait a minute, who wants, I mean, we are just like that. We're two thirds of the way through the Tour de France, Vama, Beck, Swift. Went fast. And it's been flying by. It's flying by. Seriously.

It's been great racing. It's been fun to watch. But our winner on stage two did get most aggressive rider. And she is from Brest. So she is a Briton from Bretagne. So that was a big deal for her. And I think that's super cool. But I just told her we were like, who did win stage two?

Now we know. Don't worry, people. Now we're Garcia. I mean, I think we expected to see some fireworks. But when you look at the size of the group coming into the finish, it was still a pretty select group. So the racing was still hard. It was just, I think, consistently hard. And there were a lot of little selections taking place the whole day. Yep. I mean, things happen when you have, we all know this, right? When you're in a race and you're in the Peloton or you're fighting for the GC, when there's downhill finishes and overall

the race can be hard, but it doesn't incentivize, and this is not a critique, but it just, it does neutralize the group, the favorites, right? And they also do know what they have tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday. These are big, big days. I think it was just a day where I hopefully just take some of the sting out of the legs for some folks come this weekend. For sure. I think, though, it's interesting. Maiba came into this race with full expectations of supporting Alisa Longo-Berdini. Now that Lambeau's not in the race anymore, I think it gave her some free range to be able to attack that GC group.

She lost a lot of time. She started the stage nine minutes and 33 seconds back, and she probably wouldn't have had that opportunity to attack that group because she would have been in a support rider. So that was a great move on her part. So that was, it was good to see. And it certainly helped by, by being nine minutes down. I mean, they all looked at each other. It was still a hectic stage, I think. If you're a GC rider or something,

you're not wanting to lose anything on the descents. A couple of those women, you know, Katja and Sirbal, wait, how do you say? Kerbal. Kerbal. It's a drinker ball, yeah. We're really going for it on the descents, which, I mean, the roads were narrow, was completely strung out.

You know, that's very hectic for those women. So when it all came back together and that moment when she decided to go, you know, it was a perfect timing. They were all looking at each other and just taking a breath. And she got that time quickly. This is her ball. I mean, there was that one corner. I don't know if TV was playing it up, but if I wasn't listening and just watching, I would have thought, easy now.

She used every inch of the road. And Neodoma, who, so I started to start to think about her and Taylor Finney, and she probably trains a lot. Taylor was a hell of a descender. So if you spend a lot of time training with your husband, like Taylor Finney goes downhill with his eyes closed faster than most people go with both eyes open, right? Probably learns a lot from him. She was ripping right with her. I think that two best descenders probably in the peloton right there. And so Doreen did say that she was going to go for just these crazy technical descents. And I mean,

when we look at tomorrow's stage, we can talk about that. I did notice that Puck Peters had a better day today so she was in that front group. I don't know what happened to her yesterday so now we might have some more players in there. I mean the group was bigger. But you guys I have a question here. I know Lance you can see it either way but about 4.7k to go to be exact. Juliet LeBouse who's on FDJ, goes off the front. Now, Maiva is already a minute and 30 seconds

off the front. And this is 4.7K to go, mainly downhill. She's going off the front. And so she ends up getting second on the stage by a couple seconds and taking time bonuses. Damie got fourth in the bonus sprint, which we should still talk about the bonus sprint, and fourth on the stage.

So that ends up that LeB sprint, and fourth on the stage. So that ends up that Labuse takes six seconds at the finish. Kim La Court gets four bonus seconds because she gets third, and Damie got fourth on both of those. So zero bonus seconds today. Why? Well, we don't know. But there are two ways to look at it.

But let's first talk about what we know. What you do know is in both the intermediate time bonus sprint and the finish line sprint, Kim La Courte got time. So if you look at her, she fortifies her yellow jersey. She now has 26 seconds on Pauline, 30 seconds on Cassia, 31 seconds on Demi, and 35 seconds on Anna Vanderbregen. So she is gaining time. Now, there's two ways to look at it. One is perfect team tactics. Go up the road. Take the time bonuses so that Kim LaCorte can't get them.

Now, she is getting them because she's getting the, you know, she in both cases she took, well, I guess in the intermediate she took second place time bonuses and then third at the finish line. Or you could look at it another way, which is a little more sinister. You're writing for yourself, you're out there getting time bonuses, you're helping somebody else and Demi's getting fourth. Fourth means equals zero in both of those scenarios.

I feel like, I don't think it's a bad strategy to take the time bonuses and hope that Kim, somebody else comes around Kim LaCorte and she gets fourth two times. If that happens, you look at that and you say, wow, those are perfect team tactics. I agree. I don't think there was anything sinister. And I think the idea to take away the seconds was a good one. Especially if it's a descent where, you know, she isn't, everyone's having to work pretty hard on the descent.

So if you're just technically doing it better and you're a little bit in front and taking the seconds, I don't think there's anything sinister going on. I guess the one thing is you could have looked at that group and thought that Kim would win the sprint, so stay behind and give Demi the chance for a second. But that's really, I think, overthinking things a bit. Ali's fallen more in the sinister.

I don't think it's sinister. Sinister's not the right word. I don't think it's sinister. I think it's a waste of energy. And Demi, out of the entire group, is maybe second fastest to Kim LaCorte. But she's going to out-kick Pauline, out-kick Kassi up, most likely.

So I think she had bonus seconds available that Labouse would not have. I think she took it and wasted energy on a 4.7K slightly downhill where she's doing time trial power just floating in six seconds in front of the Peloton. But I could see a team meeting going something like if there's a way to take away the points

or take away the seconds. They did, from Denny. No, but that was maybe in her mind when she was coming into it. I agree. I think that they were looking for opportunities to not let Kim get those seconds. And maybe in that case where it's kind of a 50-50 thing,

maybe she just chose the thing that maybe didn't make as much sense. And look, this is all stuff you talk about on day six. Kim LeCour could lose three minutes one day, and it's really neither here nor there. And the race is stacked here, right? Between second and fifth on GC is nine seconds, right? Now-

We got ourselves a bike race. When you talk about those four ladies, right? Pauline, Cassini-Odomo, Demi-Vollering, Anderberg, Vannebrighan. That could be the race. Now, Kim La Cour could surprise everybody and if she is prepared to climb and ready to climb, well, she's got half a minute, right? That's real time. Hey, I didn't realize this though, but Kim La Cour is the first non-European to win a stage at the Tour de France-Falmouth-Bex-Swift. What? I did not know that fact until I read that last night. Anyway.

Oh, another big loser there was Judante. Mari Zserek Chagante lost some time today. No, I'm not. She's still kind of up there though. She's up there. She came back. Yeah, she came back, but you know, she was lucky to have her teammate that one time.

Justine went back and got her. Yeah. But she's still, I would say, hanging in there somewhat. She's going to do really well in the mountains for sure. Lorraine Iwebus, I don't know, I mean, maybe as expected, maybe not, was and was isolated. When the coverage came on, she was alone back there and was 10 minutes down, I believe the time cup we looked up was around 20%. So shouldn't be a risk there. But in green jersey points, totally unchanged. Which is a win for Marion Voss. Like a day like this, I'd have to go back and look

where the intermediate sprint was, but unchanged. I think it's 208 to 178. I think it's gonna be a fun one. The green jerseys are really interesting. It's gonna be fun. Yeah, I think it's 208 to 178 and I think it's gonna be a fun one The green jerseys are really interesting fun. Yeah competition. They saw her get dropped right away today Yeah, right if you're if you're V's Melissa bike, you're going home we're gonna get rid of her and we're gonna snag those early points because Well having said that Marianne was struggling on the climbs a little too. Yeah, but the sprint tomorrow comes up You know on the flats basically before they get to the climbs. Well then they have to ride.

Yeah. They have to ride. This is, we had this very same discussion in the men's tour. Like you just have to put the team on the, if, especially if you can play out different scenarios where in the mountains they think, you think they're gonna try to get rid of you, tomorrow they have to ride.

Yeah. And just get, and just bank those points. I had another question on your favorite jersey, not too shabby. Shabby was in the early break, going real hard. I mean, she's obviously going for this jersey. 100%. So this goes back to my question on LaBoost,

taking those seconds. You have Elise Shabby on FDJ. Why are you wasting a Dome Estique for Damie, getting in the break? Don't tell me it's a satellite rider because not so much because she's full gas sprinting for QOM points. And yes, she did help going leading out into the bonus section, but like, what do you want a yellow Jersey or a polka dot Jersey?

Or both. Is that what they're doing? Well, it looks like, yeah, it looks like it now. Would you do that? They know. I would not do that, but I'm not in that team. I mean, I think it's fair to say that there are question marks around deme-ballering. And so if the team, we're not the media or whoever, not the only ones with question marks, maybe the team has questions.

And so you could play the game, we're like, hey, we don't know, let's go get something. Wow, in a perfect world, let's get both. That would be awesome. But we're not inside the team. But would we do that? No, we would not do that. Thank you.

Would we have done that? Because we doing something now is not happening. Yeah, it's a, it's a. I mean, I get getting the points if you're in the break and I get satellite riders, but going like full tilt for it and putting that much energy, where are you gonna be when we hit the high mountains? And maybe you're not even gonna get the jersey overall anyway, so those points go up, but anyway.

Cassia looks good. She does. She does. Pauline continues her up. Cassia looks good. She does. She does. Pauline continues her face. Oh. I don't know. She made her comments after the race yesterday, though, that she didn't feel as good.

And today, it looked like she was definitely disconserving and sitting in. So I was surprised to see her comments after the finish yesterday that she didn't have the job. People have different styles. There are people that the whole day you're looking at, wow, they look easy. And then they're getting dropped.

It's just people's style. Other people look terrible. They're about to get dropped. Next thing you know, they're going off front. I've not ridden with her on the road nor on the mountain bike. I don't know if we want to do either. Thank God. Wait, where'd she go? I was just with her.

Leave my ass in the middle of France. Help, I surrender. Today's show also brought to you by, before I get into this, we're gonna come back, we'll look at tomorrow's stage. Still in the mountains. Now we're getting there, right? Finishing Chambres, we're gonna come back. We'll look at tomorrow's stage. Still in the mountains. Now we're getting there, right? Finishing Chambre, we're getting close.

And we got some questions. Questions are flooding in. Not all are ones we can ask on air. That'd be in the post show. Also today brought to you by Honey Stinger. Many of you guys and gals know I've been involved with Stinger since 2008. I love this brand, love the team, love the product.

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out grinding on the bike, getting dropped by Pauline, or preparing for a club championship, the delicious taste of Stinger's Energy Waffles. Choose gels and bars are a great fit for any activity. Head on over to honeystinger.com slash The Move. Check out all the products, including my favorite, the waffle. Our listeners get 25% off your first order at honeystinger.com slash The Move and the code is The Move. What else do we have in our notes here? Yeah, let's look at tomorrow's stage. Stage seven already. How about this? Yeah, I mean, if you're Lorraine and Weibis, the team,

what are the intermediate points? How are they weighted? Are we, is it 10? No, it's like 25. 25. If it's 25, I mean, they have to, I would be worried about these stages on the weekend with the way I saw her climbing today. And if it's 25 points, those stages will be weighted the same. This is a race.

She does not want a break to go. She wants those points for sure. But by the way, Marianne Voss is going to get second. Right? So she's going to get what? 23 points or it's It's gonna stay close But then the next couple days you have to get over that category one to get yeah That's what I'm saying. Yeah, it's this is be fun Watch it shake out. So we got a cat to cat for cat to I think we all looked at that first category too And thought that's interesting 4k at 7% at that first category too and thought that's interesting. 4K at 7%.

The final one, you know, these, when you start to get to the five percenters, not that hard, right? This could, you could almost see another break going again tomorrow. And the descent is supposed to be highly technical and very fast. The final descent?

Ooh. But this cat forward, the cat too, it's almost like one big long climb with just a little break in the center there. You're right. It's not much descending. There's not much time after that four into the two. So. Well, then you're looking at 20 kilometers of climbing. Mm-hmm. Ooh. It's brutal.

Yeah, you're right. A little breather there in the middle. Yeah, you're right. A little breather there in the middle. Should we do some quotes? We have no tea. The tea has calmed down amongst the directors of both Visma and. But Kaj's quote was funny after it yesterday. Did you see that?

Oh, no. Oh, yeah, tell us. Yeah, she was saying how there's all this drama, but they're staying well clear of it. Good. Basically, alluding to the fact that the directors are fighting. Well, her director is staying out of it. No, yeah, she and her team are staying out of it and that there's all this other drama going on.

So I thought that was a kind of funny quote. She is. Yeah, she's a sneaky one. I feel like she's just very likeable and it was good. She's probably enjoying watching it from the side though. Well you would, I mean it's so much better to say what are these guys doing? They're happy it's not you. It is, it's what we said yesterday.

This is a distraction for the athletes. Yeah, I don't know why you do that to your writer, which I mean a lot of the men's directors do that too. Oh they totally do. Like openly, which I mean, a lot of the men's directors do that too openly. But I just for as we wrap up tomorrow for stage seven, I'm calling it's a really good stage win for Cassia or Kerbal with that descent. And you mentioned the technical descent. I thought, oh, boy, Kerbal if she's there. But if not, Cassia goes full send. And I think those are interesting stage win picks. Oh, hmm. We'll see. full send and I think those are interesting stage win picks.

I think the court's doing pretty well too. I mean, with a descent to the finish, if she's anywhere close to those girls. Yeah, if she can get there, I think she's the quickest one at the moment, but we'll see. More time bonuses. So there's no intermediate time bonus. I think we're done. We said yesterday we're done.

No more intermediate time bonus. I think we're done. We said yesterday we're done. No more intermediate time bonuses. But still 10-6-4 on the line. Yeah, she's just picking away at those time bonuses and padding her time for the big climbs where she may suffer a little bit. I mean, it's interesting. We haven't seen her on long climbs yet, so we'll see. All right, we have a question from Celeste.

This is a good question. Is there any known reason why the women's Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta Femenina don't sync their races with their male counterparts? Yes, they are not owned by the same organizations all the time, but that has changed in recent years. So the Giro, the women's Giro no longer will conflict with the men's Tour de France, which is the silliest thing, because you forget the women's Giro is longer will conflict with the men's Tour de France, which is the silliest thing. Because you forget the women's Giro is going on

when the Tour de France is happening. So next year they're gonna start syncing up more. But I think it's the owners of the organization and just budget and convenience and the women's world tour schedule didn't used to always align with the men's world tour schedule. But as we're seeing it progressing,

it's going to look much different. Same for the welta? And I would imagine that the teams would want that too. I mean, now that the men's teams all have their women's counterpart teams, you would think that the sponsors would start pushing for that too. So I think we'll probably see them trying to bring it together.

And of course, the welta is owned by ASO, which owns the tour. I'm assuming the Welta Feminine is also the same. But this just started happening in recent years. Before, it was like the Giro, it was a different owner. So it was called like Girorosa. And so it was a different owner. So they didn't correlate.

And now they are all starting to come together. So we are going to see that. Because I remember racing the Giro during the tour. Like, no one cares you're racing the Giro when the tour is going on. So now I think it's going to be really good for women's cycling to start aligning those just like teams are aligning to some team ownership. Agreed. Agreed. Rick asks, are the climbs classified?

This is a good question. Are the class? Whoa. Hello, Lance. Are climbs classified the same in women's and men's cycling? Yes. And the answer is yes, right? But it's a good question. I mean, yeah, I mean, an HC climb is an HC climb.

Like it doesn't mean that, I'd have to think of a category two climb we did in the men's tour this year, but if the women go over that is not a one or an HC, that's a category two. So the climbs we'll see tomorrow that category two climb would be a category two climb in the men's field yeah that was an easy one that was also good good question Rick it's a good question Matt comes in hot here with enough

anatomy and physiology questions for you is there a problem this is yeah we had to look this up. Is there a promotional caravan with the Tour de France, Femme Vec, Zwift? If so, is it the same vendors? And so we looked on them in the road book, because if you have the actual race book, that's what the riders get, the directors get, the swineers, the staff gets. It tells you the, you know, the how to get to the start line, how to get out of the finish line, but it lists all the different time options.

The first time slot they show is Caravan. So in the women's tour, or the Tour de France-Femme Vague-Swift starts two hours before, and then there's three different average speed times so you can calculate where the Peloton is in the feed zone, where they're gonna get to the finish. But yes, there is a publicity.

And we don't, I don't know if they're the, there are different sponsors. Some of the sponsors are the same, but I suspect because of like Jersey sponsors, et cetera, are different, the Caravan's probably different. Yeah, I'm sure the Caravan is, you know, different to whoever is sponsoring So I'm sure Zwift has a huge presence

Probably throwing out the squirrels everywhere Scotty the squirrel is being distributed as well as those those hats that I'm sending to Koda So yes, the watch the femme hats are going out there Scotty the squirrel is um, you know parading around If y'all will remember we do have questions about this particular animal a couple of days ago. At least we remember that. I'm going to ask this one just because I'm not sure I know the answer to this. I think there's kind of a two-part answer. Gabe says, I've heard you mention a few times that salt stains on the jersey are indicative

that a rider is suffering particularly bad on any given day. What is the phys- now this is where it gets confusing. What is the physiological reason a rider's sweat would be salty or on a bad day and do you have any examples of your saltiest days on the road? I think, I don't know that that's necessarily a guarantee that somebody's suffering. I think when we would race and you'd see a guy starting to salt up, mentally you're like, oh, they're suffering. Now, whether or not that's true, some people sweat more than others, as Ali, thank you,

you and I. Yes, I'm sweater. I've never seen Mari sweat. No, she doesn't. I sweat. I don't know. But and we haven't seen a ton of that in the Tour de France found this year, but I think, you know.

We saw a little yesterday. A little bit. You know, we were seeing some. I agree, though. I don't think it's necessarily, you can tell if someone's having a good or a bad day based off of, you know, their sweat. So I mean, they do a lot of the salt testing now though. I know that.

See how much a person sweats salt. Yeah, I agree. I think it depends on the person too. And sometimes too, like maybe you've overloaded on sodium and your electrolytes, so you just have excess that your body is like good on electrolyte. I know that happens. And also women on different times of the month,

they're gonna use electrolytes different and need more Like I don't know. I like it when I get salty cuz I'm like, oh good I feel good. Okay That's some we've had some other inbound, people wondering why Allie is just less salty here in 2025. Did you know that, Mari? Less salty? Like spicy, like, you know what I mean. I know what you mean.

I think she's still salty. Oh, you just wait. I have some surprises for you. Mr Armstrong. By the way, I was married today. You may get a little salty. I was raised in come on till seven 35 mountain time today. So I was up early and waiting for it to come on. But I sort of the teaser pay, I just love our look on there. I gotta say, thanks to everybody at Peacock and having, obviously we were there every day for the men's tour, but just had like that shot of us with the new look, the pink. Oh, speaking of which, real quick. Okay.

Boomstick. Because that's very prominent in the photo. That's very prominent. Boomstick. Obviously, obviously. Mari, that's very prominent in the photo. Boomstick, obviously. Obviously. Mari, who is this going to? Who are we going to give it to? Mavis Squibbin, boomstick. Come on, this is well deserved.

I thought maybe we were giving it to Colton with the new look. Colton, you get honorable mention. Mavis Squibbin, though. By the way, sometimes, and we kind of joke about it sometimes, there are these TV attacks. This could have even appeared to be a TV attack early on. She sent it. And then she looked great.

Yeah, but the way she pedaled away, I mean, she made it look so easy, and she looks so good on the bike. Watching her ride. She does. You know, there are people who you want to watch ride, and there are people who you're just not super happy to be watching ride. Right. I agree. and there are people who you're just not super happy to be watching ride. And she's one that you're just going, wow, that's a really beautiful woman on her bike.

Yes. Yeah, she's moving. Boomsticks. Send in more questions tomorrow. Info at wedo.team. We accept all pictures with Lance and cats. And tomorrow more boomsticks to be given out I think. That's right. That's right. All right everybody thanks for tuning in. Three, two, one.

Bye!