THEMOVE - Tour de France Stage 11 | The Sir Wiggo & Johan Show

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Sir Bradley Wiggins peel back the curtain on the tactics, strategy, and pivotal moments that shaped Stage 11 of the 2025 Tour de France, offering sharp analysis and insider perspective you won’t hear anywhere else. Join: No race? No problem. JOIN keeps you riding stronger, just for the love of it. Discover your path at https://join.cc/themove Download JOIN today and transform the way you train. Ketone-IQ: Take your shot: Get 30% off your subscription, plus a free gift with your second shipment at https://Ketone.com/themove Ventum: Enter Ventum Trivia of the Day for a chance to win the Grand Prize: $5,000 of store credit towards any Ventum bike. Don’t want to leave it to chance, 10% off sitewide using the code THEMOVE10 or 20% off any NS1 road bike build with code NS120  https://ventumracing.com/themove/

He had a good day today, Wout Van Aert. He did. In the break again. And this really is where we always see Wout come good, 10 days into a Tour de France, or any Grand Tour. And I'd be interested to see what he's got in his bag for the next few stages, actually, because I think Wout's coming good. We've seen him the last few days, second on that stage the other day.

And if you remember the last time we went on to Hotecamp who cracked Tadej Pogacar it was Wout van Aert, wasn't it? Absolutely, Wout van Aert, yeah. I'm the 2012 Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins. And I'm Johan Bruniel. I directed my teams to nine Tour de France victories. Welcome to the Sir Wiggle and Johan show, our daily show where we dive deep into the tactics behind every stage of the Tour de France.

Welcome back to our show, everybody. As every day presented by Ketone IQ, we're talking about stage 11 of this year's Tour de France. You know, a stage which had some difficulties at the end, but normally there was nothing going to happen for GC. It was almost not the case. Bradley, what is your main takeaway of today's stage? The takeaway of today is probably the crash of Tadej Pogacar outside of the four or five kilometer cutoff

time rule. But it's something we very rarely see is Tadej on the floor. And he was the only one to go down. Bit of a strange crash. It looked from the overhead shot like he had, he was had one hand on the bar and he was going through his radio or something. And then obviously the Uno X rider come across

to follow an attack and just cut him off. And he went down and he was lucky he didn't hit his head on that curb, but he did hit his shoulder pretty heavy. But was up quick his bike was pretty bent and struggled to get his chain on a little bit but then of course the whole question arose as to whether Visma should have profited from that and rode to the finish to put time into him which they didn't and I'm glad they didn't because I don't think that's the best way to go about things. I don't think that would have looked good for them. That's my main take of the day.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think we saw a great stage, but that's obviously something that could have impacted the rest of the Tour de France. Yeah. Before we go into more detail, I want to talk about our first partner of the day, Join Cycling. Join is the number one training app that puts a professional cycling coach right into your back pocket. You don't need a big goal to benefit from training. Join helps you to stay fit focused and consistent even when there's no event in sight. Join keeps it interesting with challenges, variety and smart progression.

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You go to join.cc slash The Move and you get 30 days free access to the join app. Try it out. I'm trying it out. It works amazing. Bradley, so the stage of the day to lose to lose a loop flatter flatter beginning. What do we see straight away? First of all, before that, the stage starts after the rest day. Something funny I read or I heard in an interview, and I know you guys talked about it on the move, our rest day is still the same. I think they're not. Obviously, it's always an

opportunity to have the family around. Walt von Arndt did an interview and he said that on the rest day, he rode a bit and then he went with his two kids and his wife to visit the Airbus Museum in Toulouse. It's very famous. I'm in Toulouse actually right now. So when I came in, I saw all these huge, huge, huge planes. They're all over the place. So that's quite unique, I would think.

It's not ideal to do on a rest day. I used to live near there. When I signed professional with, when I was 20 years old after the Olympics in Sydney, Sean Yates was the director and the manager of Lyndon McCartney. And I signed with them and I moved to Toulouse and I was training with Pete Rogers and a few other guys that were down there that were Dave McKenzie and all those guys. Good days. And then the team was empty and I had to drive back in my Ford Fiesta back to London. And that was it. But I used to train down there because at that time Stuart O'Grady was living down there Magnus Baxter, Jay Sweet all those guys you know and it was a bit of an Anglophone hub for Ryan but yeah it's

interesting that you say that he did that on the rest day he had a good day today well but not he did break again and this really is is where we always see Wout come good ten days into a Tour de France or any grand tour. And I'd be interested to see what he's got in his bag for the next few stages, actually, because I think Wout's coming good. We've seen him the last few days, second on that stage the other day.

And if you remember the last time we went on to Hotecam, who cracked Tadej Pogacar? It was Wout Van Aert, wasn't it? Absolutely, Wout Van Aert, yeah. Yeah, no, no. I mean, and today he was in contention for the stage win. He said after the stage that he felt he had spent too much energy to try to go in many, many moves before. And then finally these five strong riders went on the attack or on the counter attack. We're going to get into that a little bit later. But what we did see, which is quite unique, is number one and two of today's stage are the two guys that

went at kilometer zero. We had Jonas Abrahamsson and Mauro Schmidt. Finally, they were five guys. It looked like they were gone. But then some things happened in the peloton. There was several times there was a split, which was kind of unexpected, no? I also heard there was quite a few raised eyebrows when Abramsson was the first attack of the day and people were kind of mocking him saying, oh, look at this guy. What's he doing? I mean, at the end of the stage, he's the winner it just shows you doesn't it how

and again the speeds we saw were very high today again over 50 kilometers an hour average speed for the whole stage really over the whole stage yeah so it's um 30 miles an hour average speed again today it was um so a quick one as well and and you know it and it was teed up as a sprint stage today. I don't think there was anything about that that was a sprint stage. Not even close. I mean, no chance. Jonathan Milan was trying to get into the break early on. And he's now got quite a comfortable lead now in the green jersey competition. But yeah, I mean, when that second group,

that was a group of hitters, wasn't it? You know, Quinn Simmons, Wout Van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel. Yeah, and they just couldn't close that 30 seconds. We'd spoke about it on the main show, Johan, as to why a group like that couldn't get back, get under 29 seconds and come back on those guys. And George made a good point that, you know, the guys that saw Wout Van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel in that group, they wouldn't have been pulling 100% because they're like, well, if we get across there,

these guys are still gonna beat us. Yeah. So it's always, you know, they had to do the bulk of the work. And we saw when van der Poel went then, how much time he took on that descent. He came straight back to 16 seconds and then just couldn't close that last bit.

But you had another, you saw an interview with Mathieu Diniou and you had another reason as to why, how he thought about it. Yeah, I mean, you're right. You know, and I think it's, it's, it's always the case, like in any breakaway, if you're one or two riders, the strong riders, the favorites, it's very difficult to win from that breakaway, especially if there's, you know, if you, if there's 10 riders in a breakaway, we saw the other day, no, when, when Van der Poel, um, was in the break, um, he was the favorite, he had to do the majority of the work and finally he cramped. So, um, but I think,

I think George has a, has a really good point. Um, it was about Van Aert and Van der Poel and, and these other three riders, good riders, Arnaud O'Lee, Axel Lawrence and Quinn Simmons, really strong guys, but I would probably do the same and say, okay, I pull 80% or 75% of my capabilities because, and especially with the way the stage was designed today with that steep climb, you would be crazy. But it also speaks to the credit of those first five guys, the first five attackers. I mean, they have gone, I mean, they were not skipping a turn. And you know, if you look at Abrahamson, Mauro Schmidt, Ballerini, who was the other guy,

Fred Wright, and I'm forgetting the other guy now. I don't remember who the other guy was. There was an Astana guy. Yeah, I mean, I forgot now. But yeah, I mean, it was initially when you see those five riders, those five big guns coming, you say, okay, I think it was like a minute, 50 seconds, 45 seconds. It's just a matter of time, but they went from kilometer 60 to kilometer 20 to close 30 seconds. And then it stayed at 20 seconds all the time. And what I found out actually, Bradley, after the stage and an interview of Mathieu van der

Poel for Belgian TV is that he attacked on that. He was already, I mean, first of all, he said, I didn't feel great at the start. I told my team, we're not going to keep it together. Everybody can go in the breakaways. And then finally he started to feel better. There was a lot of attacks and he got into the rhythm. But when he went on the last climb, he saw, so first of all, Ballerini got dropped. Then those two other riders got dropped and he caught them and he got a gap and he thought he was going for first place.

He said, it's so noisy, so confusing in the radio. And he only found out like three, four kilometers after he saw motorbikes too close. And he said, oh, and then he saw these other two riders who finally he couldn't catch. So that was, that was quite interesting. It shows how, how big the Tour de France is, right? How hectic everything is with the motorbikes, the cars, the people. It's, it's, it's just crazy, you know, and sometimes and I would guess also Bradley on those kind of roads when it was really split up.

That and because the cars were never allowed in between. And, you know, when the when the when the peloton is so stretched up, the car is too far behind also, and the radio doesn't really reach to where the riders are, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we saw the crowds again today, and sometimes, you know, it's just,

it's so difficult to, you know, hear a lot of the time as well, and hear the radio, and, you know, the old motorbike with the board would tell you how many seconds you are down there. It's not always present and it's not always you know you don't always see it and you're not always looking for it either. But as it worked out I mean it was another great stage and Matthew Vanderpool yet again I mean the tour he's had up to this point I mean he wasn't far off of winning today.

And that was after, again, a few days ago where he had that whole solo break with his teammate all day in front. Bradley, it was almost again the same like Amstel Goldfriess. Remember when he won Amstel Goldfriess? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. It was the same scenario, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, listen, he's unique, you know, I think, you know, to be able to pull that off after

that, that rate that he did with Jonas Ricard, which finally, I mean, I found out finally was not a coincidence. They planned it the day before that that other stage, you have to buy it at the dinner table and they said, okay, this is what we're going to do. And that message I sent in the group chat is actually a message that Matthew sent to Freddy Ovet, his training partner. Yeah, yeah. Anyways, what we also saw was at around between 65 and 70 K to go, all of a sudden there was a split in the peloton. And, and, and, and, and, and Vingegaard was in the front. I think

Waldweinard was in the front and initially Remco and Taddei were not there. Yeah. They'd stop for a wee though, hadn't they? Yeah. I also read that then afterwards. So basically it looked like it was Groupama, FTG of your own team, boss Marc Madio. Yeah. I don't know if they, I mean, whatever. I mean, at some point, I mean, I'm just guessing, right? But at some point you see these kinds of moves also. And I would guess, especially from a French team,

you know, they're looking, they need to do something, right? And they already see that they're not, they don't have the level. They don't have the level. I mean, see that they're not, they don't have the level, they don't have the level. I mean, they know they're not going to be in a stage if they don't have a portion of good luck. Right. And then they say, you know, okay, well, you know what, there's no more rules in motorcycling. Just go, you know, and, and it could have been that that was the case because when normally when, when some of the big guys stop for, for, you know, for a piss, then, uh, yeah, they don't, the rules have changed, I guess.

They have changed a lot. I mean, it was the unwritten rule in cycling, wasn't it? That when the yellow jersey stops, I mean that in some ways you would always use that I'd weeded in 2012, you would use that to our, you know, to our advantage, you know, so when the race is attacking, attacking, and they would finally get a group would go away and it was hovering at 15, 20 seconds. And just to stop those more people attacking, you would go to the front and pull over.

So everyone would see you'd stopped and that would normally neutralize the race. But obviously those days seem to have long gone. Gone, gone, yeah, over. Yeah. But still, what I, I mean, okay, Groupama does this. And then you see Jonas and Wout, and then there was, I think there was two other Vismalisa by Bridgenup, and they started to, they started to pull.

I mean, I don't know, where are they going? I mean, they're not going to go, I mean, I don't know, where are they going? I'm not too sure. Again, they're not going to go anywhere. No, no. And then that was true. You know, that was what happened a few times. Yiannis was in a position where he tried to maximize his advantage on that, particularly when he was on that group there and he went off the front a little bit.

And then the attack on the main climb climb where it was a great attack he really came from sort of 10-15 riders back on the right hand side of the road and Tade was sort of on the left so he caught Tade by surprise but you know it looked like a good move but then as it was over a helicopter shot and then he went through the the summit of the climb and then backed off and then the group came up to him again so it was a strange one because from the overhead shot, you couldn't see that they were approaching the summit. So it looked like a great attack, you know, that was halfway the climb,

whatever, but, um, you know, that one, I couldn't really work out what, what was what he was thinking there, but I mean, maybe he wants to test the legs. Yeah. I mean, aside from anything, look, Jonas, this is, you know, as much as we keep saying, this is a different tired, Tj that we've never seen before in terms of his demeanor and, you know, the way he is on the bike. This is a different Jonas as well. This is a Jonas that is not settling for second place.

And one thing you can say about Visma, they're here to win the race. And that's one thing you can say about it. They're not here. We might criticize their tactics at times, but I think we'll have a better idea. Tomorrow is the true stage of the Tour de France. I think this is where we're going to see a... If they are to try something, it would have to be on the Sault d'Or tomorrow. Yeah. Well, before we really go into that, let's talk about our other sponsor, Ketone

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Five. I'll go for five. I take two a day, two a day. Yeah. Well, we see it all the time, You know, whatever. I mean, the teams that are sponsored by Ketone IQ like Visma straight after the finish, we see them. Other brands, I mean, I think it's standard routine now. It's straight after the finish. It's a shot of ketones for the recovery. Let's talk about these two guys, Abrahamson and Marlowe Schmidt. After having given everything and having held off these five riders with van der Poel and Van Aert, finally they make it to the finish. Abrahamson wins the sprint.

Second professional win only after the Brussels Classics, which formerly known as Paris. Brussels Classic. Well, that was Paris-Brussels, wasn't it? Which was a huge race at one time, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Back in the day, it was a huge race. Yeah, yeah. And it was nearly 300 kilometers, wasn't it?

It was very long. I used to love that race because, you't it? It was very long. I used to love that race because you know, there was a few races that I loved and that was one of them that scaled the price because they were easy to finish. Yeah. You know, you could another one like those. Another one was a party tour. Yeah. It was the same. You know, it was also, I mean, I was at the end of the season, but it was an easy race to finish. That's true. It saved you having to go out and do 250 kilometer rides. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But in the case of Abrahamson, there's something that, you know, he said in an interview on the move, I think you guys didn't talk about it, but what's really unbelievable is that four weeks

ago, so the tour de France is already a week and a half true. So four weeks ago, this guy crashed in stage one in the tour of Belgium and broke his collarbone. He had surgery the day after. Two days later, he was on the home trainer and two and a half weeks after his crash he started the Tour de France. A week and a half later he wins a stage. How unbelievable is that? I couldn't believe it when you told me that.

Yeah. But because I broke my collar. We all broke our collar bone and that is an incredibly fast recovery. I mean, not only starting the Tour de France two and a half weeks after the accident, I mean, you know how this first week has been in terms of crashes, the risk of crashing again. Yeah, it is a risk. Yeah. But to stay upright and not only that, you know, the trauma effect on your body from having a fall like that.

And I've seen the crash. You showed me before and it was a heavy fall. Yeah, it was really bad. Um, so to, so to do what he's done and be in the break today and win a stage, I mean, that's quite incredible. In fact, that's probably one of the best comebacks from a broken collarbone I've seen. It's extraordinary. Extraordinary. I mean, you know, on top of the crash, but also having surgery. Yeah. Yeah. You need a week to recover from that.

Yeah. Like your body, right. And, and two days after he was on the, he was on the home trainer in the hospital. Really? After that, yeah. Yeah. He posted, I remember he posted it on his, on his Instagram.

I couldn't find the video, but I said, what is he really thinking that he's going to do the tour? Is that there's no way he can do the tour. Yeah. And there he is. Um, so, um, there's another, I mean, another, another well-known fact about Jonas Abrahamson is that, uh, this is, this is a very unique, uh, this is the writer who, I mean, he did a big interview

about this, I think, three years ago. He was a climber. I think he was, he was weighing like just under 60 kilos, 58 kilos or something. We have this picture here to compare. And he decided that since as a climber, he didn't have enough opportunities to be with the best. He decided to gain weight and power to be a puncher and a breakaway rider. And if you look at these two different riders, this is the same rider, uh, the eight kilos and, uh, uh, 78 kilos, 20 kilos, 20 kilos. That's also unreal. I mean, I've never heard of anything like that. No, no. I mean, normally you hear of riders that lose weight and increase their performance,

but to have the confidence or whatever, maybe it wasn't, but to think to go the other way and gain that amount of weight, because that is a lot of weight in modern day cycling to be carrying around. It served him well. We saw him last year in the Tour de France in a number of takeaways. Held the king of the mountains jersey for a couple of days. And that's paid dividends.

He's got his stage win this year. So, you know, it's completely transformed him as a rider that weight gain. Yeah. Well, I mean, now I can understand. I mean, the way he had, this must be a hard head. I mean, like to do what he did after that collarbone, I can kind of, if he, this guy put it in his mind, he said, okay, I'm not going to be good enough as a climber. I need to be a puncher. This is the weight. And then you need to be able to train and have the power to, to, to

do that, you know, but, uh, whenever he's in a, in a breakaway man a breakaway, man, he's the engine. He's the engine of the breakaway, always. And I actually didn't know he was that fast. No, no. I mean, it was a bit of a drag race, that sprint. I knew nothing about Mauro Schmidt. I had no idea. He's won quite a few races though, hasn't he, Schmidt?

Yeah. I mean, he can win from a little group, you know, so I mean, he didn't necessarily do the smartest move by leading it out, but I think he underestimated Abrahamson. I think he was awful. I think they were quite aware and fearful of Matu coming at quite a speed behind. And it was a bit of a, you know, who had the most bottle and, um, Abrahamson played it best for sure. For sure. But Abrahamson in his interview said that he was confident in his sprint. of a, you know, who had the most bottle and, um, I perhaps have played it best. For sure.

For sure. But Abrahamson in his interview said that he was confident in his sprint. Yeah. Yeah. He knew, he knows that if it's a hard race, I mean, and both of them have done exactly the same amount of energy, you know, that they both attacked together from kilometer zero. So, um, so I mean, that was, that was, mean, that was something. Let's see.

Tomorrow's stage, we're going to talk about this. First, we're going to talk about our daily Ventum trivia. As every day, Ventum lets you enter the contest. At the end of the Tour de France. We will pull out the winner of the contest for the grand prize of $5,000 of store credit for any Ventum bike you want to purchase on the website. Yesterday's question was who was the last Frenchman to win on a still day? Who was the last Frenchman to win on Bastille Day? I think Bradley in the move, it was not the correct answer that was given. It was Warren Barguil in 2017. Not Thibaut Pinot in 2019, but Warren Barguil or Barguil in 2017. That seems like ages ago. Wow. I mean, it is. Yeah, it is eight years

ago. Wow. And Warren Marguille is still in the race, by the way. Yeah. Riding for a picnic post NL. Yeah. Today's question. Stage 11 started and ended in the city of Toulouse. What historical significance does Toulouse hold in the Tour de France? So what historical significance does Toulouse hold in the Tour de France? You can pick two answers. So send your best guess or if you know the correct answer to ventumracing.com slash the move to enter in the contest. If you don't want to wait until the end of the tour, Ventum is also offering during the tour, until the end of the tour, a standing discount on their website. You get 10% off the whole site using the code THEMOVE10 and 20% off if you want to buy an NS1 bike, the bike that you're riding, uh, Radley with the code NS 120. Um, okay. Tomorrow stage

for the third time, I'm going to say tomorrow, the real tour starts. We said that after the time trial, we said it off the stage 10, but I think tomorrow it's the real deal. Yeah. Yeah. Tomorrow is where we get to see Jonas in his element, you know, and really see what he has against Tadej Pogacar and what Visma have as a team in the high mountains, because, you know, the strengths that they have with Sepp Kuss, Matteo Jorgensen, Simon Yates, those three guys are going to be key tomorrow on the type of climbs that we've got tomorrow. And then of course, we've got a Wout Van Aert who's into the second part of the Grand Tour where we know he shines. And then they've got a couple of other riders around that. But those four guys are going to be key tomorrow. And those four guys alone are stronger than what Tadej has around him at the moment. I mean, Tadej, they look like they're

grabbing at straws at the moment since Almeida went. The young Ecuadorian has done a great job. I think he's risen his game. Adam Yates is, you know, a real constant figure around him. But other than that, they're really scraping for teammates at the moment. And Tadej, we've said, you know, Tadej doesn't really need teammates at times, but everyone needs teammates, no matter how good you are. Yeah, you need it. And Tadej crashing today as well. Tadej crashing today as well. We don't know what the effects of that are going to be tomorrow.

For me, that's the main concern. That's the main concern. After a crash, he said, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. The day after, you're not fine. You're not fine. No, no. There is something going on.

So yeah, it's going to be interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Well, I'm going to be. It's going to be interesting because, you know... Go ahead, go ahead. I was going to say it's going to be interesting tomorrow. You know, the talk about whether Visma should have profited today from Thadej 4, tomorrow is where all bets are off and they can do what they like.

You know, it's a fresh start tomorrow and I think that they're going to make it hard on the Sular. And it could be a very interesting one tomorrow. Yeah, well, I'm gonna go to the talk called the Salor, so I'll watch it live. I'll send you guys some little videos from there. And then I hope I make it on time for our show. Maybe you have to wait for 15-20 minutes if I'm late. But yeah, I think tomorrow we'll finally see what all this talk about,

on one side and the other hand, on the other side. Otakam is an amazing climb, so it's going to be interesting. We'll be back tomorrow. Thanks, Bradley. Speak soon. Yeah, thank you, Jan. Thanks. Okay, bye-bye.