THEMOVE - Tour de France Stage 18 | The Sir Wiggo & Johan Show

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Sir Bradley Wiggins peel back the curtain on the tactics, strategy, and pivotal moments that shaped Stage 18 of the 2025 Tour de France, offering sharp analysis and insider perspective you won’t hear anywhere else. 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 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/

The modern day tactics, none of it really makes sense. And we've seen that throughout this tour. There's a new way of riding and a new, you know, kind of preempting what the other team is going to do. It doesn't seem the norm and it doesn't seem the textbook thing to do. But as we've seen this Tour de France, you know, the tactics seem to have gone out the window of what we normally deploy. I'm the 2012 Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins. And I'm Johan Renéel. 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. Hi everybody, welcome back to our show talking about stage 18 of the Tour de France from Vif to Courchevel with the famous Col de la Lose at the end, 5,500 meters of elevation, 171 kilometers. It's agreed that it's the Queen stage, the hardest stage of this Tour de France. With me like every day, Sir Bradley Wiggins. Bradley, how are you? Yeah, good, thank you. How did you see the stage? What's your takeaway?

Yeah, I mean, it was a little bit anti-climax at times. I think it was, Vizema tried everything they could, but my take of the day is definitely Ben O'Connor. When Ben wins, he wins big. It's his second stage in the Tour de France, of course, world champion medalist last year. Finished, you know, fourth in the Giro, second in the Vuelta. Fourth in the Tour already. Oh yeah, yeah. And I love how his perseverance of this tour has paid off for him. You know, he was lying on the ground two weeks ago in Lille, well three weeks ago now nearly, and he's been in the break most days in the mountains

and it's finally paid off for today to win on the toughest climb in Queen's stage. Ben was definitely my take of the day. Yeah, I agree, I agree. I mean, I honestly, I didn't believe he still had it in him because, you know, he has been trying but you could see that every time there was somebody who was out climbing him. Today, man, he did an unbelievable ride. To go away and keep... I mean, his victory was never in danger in the final of the stage. So yeah, I agree with that. So I'll go into one of our sponsors of the show, Johan. Zwift recently rolled out its new cog and clicked product. You can use it on almost any bike that you already own, even one from Walmart.

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All you'd need to do is link up your Zwift bike computer to the Zwift companion app. That's a big development from Zwift. So that's it, Johan. Okay, Bradley, before we get into the stage, I just want to take the opportunity to inform our audience. And you know, there are many, many every day, more and more, and we're getting a lot of messages.

I just wanna come back on last week. I've been in the news the last few days because of my visit at the Tour de France. I talked about it. I was invited by Belgian TV and I did a little tour around the buses and around the village de Paris. And to my big surprise, for people who have been following it on social media. The day after I returned, I got a surprise message from my good friend, David Lapartien, the UCI president, with an official press release that the UCI Solapartian launched that he was very shocked that I had been present at the tour. That it So everybody knows I'm banned for life

from any official function within the sport of cycling. So La Partienne deemed it necessary to send out a press release to express the disapproval of the UCI and that it was actually not allowed for me to be present. There's a bunch of, I mean, people can find the press release on social media or on the UCI website. I found it necessary to respond, but I just wanted to share with our audience that I have responded with an official statement

and it looks like, I mean, at least from my common sense, but also from some opinion that I got from people who have with legal experience, that the statement of the UCI and the position of La Partia is actually not right, and is actually illegal, you know, because I was present at the Tour de France as a member of the media invited by Belgian TV.

I had an official pass from ASO and that pass gave me access to the village de Paris and the bus area. So I just wanted to say that I disagree with La Portein and that I am looking into possibilities that I am looking into possibilities for him to retract that statement and see if there's any legal action I can take if I have to. And here on the podcast, I just wanted to launch the idea that if there's anybody who is an expert in the matter in terms of sports law or labor law, specifically labor law, because I think that the UCI and La Partean cannot have any authority over my life. They can have an authority over what includes my band, but my presence at the tour was not related to my band. So if there's anybody with any expertise or wants to help, feel free to reach out. I'm going

to look into this matter seriously. You can reach us at info at we do dot team Info at we do dot team for anybody who has ideas about this We're gonna leave it at that Let's start with with with the stage Bradley As usual the first sprint very very early in the stage and no surprise, little track controlled, Jonathan Milan wins the sprint and I think, if I'm not mistaken, Green is now mathematically safe, I would say. Yeah, yeah.

Mathematically, he can still win it, Tadej. How would that be? Well, you'd have to win the intermediate tomorrow, the stage, the intermediate on Sunday and the sprint in Paris. Okay. But Jonathan's all but sealed green, I think, barring getting through the stage tomorrow. Yeah, exactly. Tomorrow's actually a very difficult stage for the time, because it's a short stage and super hard. But anyways, after the sprint, Bradley, there was, you know, it was action straight away, right?

On the bottom of the Blondon. I was really surprised, I don't know what you think, to see straight away Primoz Roglic in the action. What was he? I'm not too sure. I mean, he had a good day today. He was the best I've seen in this whole Tour de France. And yeah, I'm not too sure what his tactic was. Maybe it was with a view that it was going to light up behind and he wanted to be up the road before that happened. Because as

we saw when the certain riders were there, when it did launch, i.e. Jonas, Tadej and then various other riders, there was such a stalemate and there always has been a stalemate once that initial attack has gone. And Jonas, there's not much he can do when he gets into that situation when it's man or man because Tadej is clearly the best rider. And so it was a difficult one for him, but yeah, Rollich launched first and I think that was with a view to get up the road early,

anticipating the attack from Jonas. Would it also be that within Red Bull, they give a free card to both of the riders? I mean, obviously we know Lipovic is strong, but it's still uncharted terrain. You know, he's still discovering the three week stage races and, uh, and they see that Roglic is, is obviously on good form. Would it be possible that, because you normally would say, well,

Roglic needs to stay with, with, with Lipovic. Yeah, but that didn't happen, did it? They were. I think it looked like they were riding their own races today. And on that, I think Lipowitz ended up riding most of the second half of the stage on his own, either in front or chasing. Yeah, we can talk about that. I have my thoughts about that. Initially, I also was surprised. I mean, we obviously knew that Visma was going to

try to put guys in the break. It was Van Aert trying, then Tich Benoot and Matteo Jorgensen. What I was really surprised about, I mean, one of the things that I wrote down here is, instead of following the moves was Tim Wellens attacking on his own straight away. Yeah. That was a bit strange in my opinion. Well, again, I think that was probably with a view to having bodies up the road. Anticipating having Visma having gone public saying that this was their big day. Yeah.

And the only tactic they could deploy was to put bodies up the road, which they did with a view that Jonas was hoping that Tadej would have an off day and that they would come up to him and they would be of some assistance. That didn't happen, obviously. Yeah. But don't you think it's a bit strange to have a teammate of the yellow jersey initiate on his own? I mean, you can, I mean, we know Tim Wellings is strong. He could have just followed the attacks. Yeah. I mean, if you initiate it on your own, I mean, we know Tim Wellings is strong. He could have just followed the attacks. Yeah. I mean, if you initiate it on your own, I mean, he spent a decent amount of time in the front,

like wasting energy, which ultimately he was dropped on the model lane. But the modern day tactics, none of it really makes sense. And we've seen that throughout this tour. There's a new way of riding and a new kind of preempting what the other team is going to do. And it doesn't seem the norm and it doesn't seem the textbook thing to do. But as we've seen this Tour de France, the tactics seem to have gone out the window of

what we normally deploy. Yeah. Well, I can understand that because, especially when it comes to the big engines, right? But you know, tactically, there's still a lot of things that I personally think if you do it a different way and not just focusing on, you know, the power output, I can do this, they can obtain a lot more. I mean, like, just this is a small example. Tim Wellens goes and rides 10 kilometers on his own with the legs that Tim Wellens has.

And he has shown already, there is no way that Tim Wellens will not be in the break if he wants to be in it in this stage. Yeah. And so that was a bit, um, that was a bit strange, but anyways, um, you know, I understand that they wanted to have guys up front and well, it was probably the best, the best option. Uh, we see also Felix Gull, uh, in Gall in the break, Ben O'Connor, the later winner of the stage. But so what we see is that, I mean, the Madeleine, the Col de la Madeleine, obviously,

Glandon is a hard climb, but there's plenty of places where you can recover. But on 15k from the top, so after 4k on the Madeleine, Visma starts to up the pace. And then that's when we expect, okay, they're going to have to try on the Madeleine. You can't wait until the last climb, right? Yeah. And the Madeleine is a tough climb and the descent's even worse. Very, very tight, technical, not great road surface. And yeah, we saw them launch on the Madeleine. And when they did launch, it was, I thought they did a good job at that point.

I think they committed to the plan. They committed to what they said they were going to do. But the problem after that was the amount of time in the valley afterwards where they didn't have bodies to keep the pace up. And we saw that massive stalemate, which caused Onley to come back with his teammates. Onley wrote the best stage of all today. And I think he wrote within himself on the Madeleine. Do you think so? I mean, it's possible.

It's possible. I mean, especially knowing that there's a long valley if you have your teammates with you, but you have to kind of count then on the fact that there's going to be hesitation in the front. There's been hesitation every day, hasn't there, when they found themselves together in front? Yeah. I mean, they definitely had the best outcome. I think you're right. If you see the way he performs on Kolder Allozo, it's basically impossible he gets dropped so early. He wrote within himself. That's probably true.

Well, I think the Madeleine and the downing of the Madele land, you could say, okay, Visma perfect textbook tactics, they're setting it up. The question is, however, is it going to be enough for, because ultimately it's always a mano a mano. What surprised me was though, Lipovic's got dropped, didn't he, on the mud land and was chasing and Rollich was in front and then he got back and when that lull was happening in the stalemate, he decides to clip off the front Yeah, which you know, I mean again you talk about riding, you know within yourself a conservative I don't think Lippovich Lippovich has done everything he could at every point in this tour to hang on as long as possible Yeah, he certainly wasn't riding within himself when he got dropped on the medlin But then you should not have.

I mean, that attack was a mistake. I don't know if it comes from the team car. I'm going to guess initially not. You know, Lipovits is an impulsive rider. He's done this many times already, like attacks that you say, not just in the tour, but like in Paris Nice and others, like he attacks when he doesn't have to attack, when he doesn't need to attack. Today, you know, once he went and you see what's happening behind, I personally think there should

be some kind of instruction from the car to say, hey, okay, this is never going to work. This is big risk. Easier said than done, of course, you know, when you're talking afterwards, right? But easier said than done, of course, when you're talking afterwards, right? But he still did a good job. I mean, he's strong. He's still in third, but now we have Oscar-only coming really close. And I personally think that tomorrow Oscar-only is going to be in third position, in third place on the podium. Don't you think?

He's riding well. Yeah, I mean, it's 22 seconds now between them. Yeah. And tomorrow is a's 22 seconds now between them. And tomorrow is a big day again, short stage. But as we know, Leplani is not as steep as they have been up, but it's always been a decisive climb in the tour. Lots of things always happened on there. And it's a hard stage.

It's a short stage, hard stage. And the weather forecast isn't great again tomorrow. Okay. Well, that's obviously again, not bad news for today. Not that it, not that it matters. I mean, talking about it, you know, like on the, on the, on the motherland, you know, because I was watching and I would say, okay, you know, like Jonas has to go already here.

He needs to put him under pressure. I, I today was talking on the radio, uh, all the time. And, and I mean, he just looked completely out of control. Yeah, well, we said it a few times this week, he's like a different rider this year. He's riding way more conservatively. He's riding as he should ride and he's getting the maximum out of his teammates at all. He's waiting for them, he's regrouping, he's not panicking when he gets isolated. And he's using the likes of Adam Yates, Nardwajs, he's using them to their maximum, he's making sure they come back and he's getting every last inch out of them, which is what you do as a team leader.

And then he's waiting to the final and taking off and nipping a few more seconds on the GC. Yeah, yeah. I mean, talking about the tactics, before we do that, about the tactics of Wisma, I wanna talk about our other sponsor, our presenting sponsor, Ketone IQ. Here, this is my preferred shot, 10 grams of ketones, no sugar, no caffeine.

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Ketone IQ has teamed up with team Vismalizebike, one of the dominant teams in the Tour de France, and the University of Leuven to explore recovery and high altitude adaptation. And their key findings are improved blood flow, higher muscle oxygenation for a better endurance and stamina. So take your shot, get 20% of your order at ketone.com slash The Move using the code The Move at checkout. So that's ketone.com slash The Move using the code The Move. Bradley, I wanted to dig a bit deeper into the tactics of Visma. As we said, on the motherland, it looks good. Then you have Jürgensen who came back from the break. I think he paced the last three, four K on the motherland and then the downhill full gas. we even heard Tadej on the radio speaking to the team car,

Jürgensen is going full gas. Initially, I mean, I thought, okay, the intention is to really put pressure on everybody, but of course on Tadej, you could see Jonas was glued to the wheel of Jorgensen. There was always a bit of a gap with Tadej. And so, you know, if you put that pressure on you, you avoid that Tadej can drink, eat, rest a little bit. But that all looks pretty good to me on paper. But then they come into the valley. There's a stal a, you know, there's a stalemate and I think there, Matteo Jorgensen makes the mistake of going with those three guys, with those other two guys, with Rubio and, and Ben O'Connor, because then everything slowed down and they actually gave Pogacar the rest that they were

trying to avoid by pushing it, right? And not, not that it's going to change much, but I thought that was, I mean, and again, you know, it's easy for me to sit here and say, okay, well that was wrong, right? Afterwards, you know, what else can they do actually, right? There's not much they can do, because they just looks completely in control. It's amazing actually to see how he, today I don't have the impression that today he was under pressure at all. He was talking on the radio,

then when he was joking with Roglic, then he was talking to his teammates. How nice must it be to have that kind of condition and he's so much in control. Yeah. And, and, and then his numbers on the last climb from what Spencer was saying was he was 50 climbed to 1500 VAM for the last climb, which is zone two for him, you know, and it looked like that. I'm not sure. I mean, he did obviously. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's maybe,

maybe you're right. I mean, listen, the proof is there because Ben O'Connor was out for a long time and they really didn't make up much time to Ben O'Connor, did they? No, no, no. You know? No, they didn't. No, but he didn't have to. Again, as we've said, you know, he's got one more mountain stage in this Tour de France.

And he's, you know, he's been conservative. And even with that conservatism, he's still finished second on the last two mountain stages. Yeah. He's been very consistent. And most importantly, he's not bleeding his team dry. He's using them at the right moment whenever. That's the thing that I really like.

I said before the tour, I said it many times, I think the only enemy, the biggest enemy of Pogacar is Pogacar himself. And if he rides conservatively and calculates, it's going to be very difficult to beat him. That's exactly what he's doing. And today, he didn't try to win the stage. He could have won the stage if he wanted. No, and then the biggest sign I always think of how tired a rider or how deep someone has gone is when

you see them initially afterwards in the warm down tent. Tadej was sat on his bike, up, messaging on his phone. He looked like he hadn't even started. Speaking of, I just have this quote here I found. This is actually, I mean, it's a bit borderline defying, but he said to France TV, he said, I can't wait to have the other side of Col de la Luz in the Tour de France. And then I really want to win this stage. This side was much easier. This side was much easier. They did a 27 kilometer climb and said that's, I mean, listen, you know how hard Courchevel is.

Courchevel on its own. That's a hard climb. And then those six extra kilometers are brutal. I mean, it's like, I couldn't believe it when I saw his steepness. And this is his quote, you know, so I personally think he feels very in control, very confident. What should Visma do now tomorrow? They need to keep trying the same thing

and just hope for a weak moment? Well, no, I think, I mean, the thing they haven't tried is letting the race attack and just sitting there behind him and let them dictate the pace, let them use their riders up and tried something different. That's the one thing they haven't tried. They've tried this formula they've tried day in day out from the start of the race and it's not worked. Yeah and it's not going to work tomorrow either. At this point there is zero cracks, nothing, not any sign of weakness at any moment. It's not going to happen tomorrow.

It is not going to happen tomorrow. They need to try something different. And I would, if I would be them, I would, I would go in to go, you know, go for the stage win with send guys, send climbers in the break. I mean, the way Sepkus is racing right now. The way I was going to say Sep is probably their best bet for a stage. Yeah. Jorgensen, I've heard, you know, I mean, he's been trying, but he's been sick. So he's been sick and he's recovered. And obviously there's something off with

Matteo Jorgensen. This is not his normal level that we are used from him, you know? And then that's obviously also, you know, when you don't have one of your key writers at full capacity, it makes the tactics more difficult. Right. So. I think we should speak a bit about Ben O'Connor. I mean, he what a win. He just, as you said, Bradley,

he took every opportunity, every single stage he could. And today finally he pulled it off and how, I mean, the way he rode that last climb was so consistent. It was impressive. Well, he was pretty bashed up, wasn't he, off that first day. He went down heavy on stage one. And ever since then he was chasing his tail

and we saw him, some stages getting dropped, some stages, you know, fighting and finishing with a respectable time. But he battled through that middle of this race with those injuries sustained in week one and the disappointment of holding a team on his shoulders because he came here, you know, he moved, changed teams, big GC guy, came to, you know, an Australian team. he's an Australian of course, with high hopes of doing something special in this tour for him. With the accident, it looked like it was going to be a pretty disappointing tour, but he

persisted, he was in the Pyrenees, he was in the break most days, and he's stayed consistent in this tour. And that's the big thing I have a lot of respect for him for was his perseverance because many riders would have given up by this point. That was impressive because I remember the stage two and three after the crash, he looked very bad. I mean, he looked like he was suffering in the peloton. I think he lost time now and then here and there because he just couldn't pedal. I think he hit his knee pretty hard. Yeah, and we've seen riders, you know, look, go back to Remco climbing off. You know, that could have been very easy for Ben to do that.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And he's got his reward for that. Yeah. And it's a mark of a good leader, isn't it, when you pay back the team? Chapeau for him, chapeau for him, and to persevere like this. That was amazing. It was amazing. Before we talk about tomorrow's stage, Bradley, Daily Ventum Trivia. Stage 17 question, yesterday was about the Rhone Valley. Location of stage 17 is known for

peloton breaking winds. What formation do riders form to try and combat the crosswinds? And the answer was echelons. You had another name for it, right? What was the other one? That's the French word, isn't it? You've got, of course, arrowhead. Arrowhead, okay. It's the British term, you know, or the English term. Arrowhead, okay.

Echelons, yeah. Yeah. Okay, today, echelon is, yeah, yeah, echelon. Yeah. Okay, today's question, a recent addition to the high mountain finishes in the tour. The Col de la Lose of today is quickly gaining infamy for decisive duels in GC shakeups. What feature of this climb makes it unique

amongst the other climbs used in the tour? So what feature of the climb Col de la Lose makes it unique among other climbs used in the tour. So what feature of the climb Col de la Loze makes it unique among other climbs used in the tour. Send your best guess to Ventumracing.com slash The Move and you will enter into the contest to win this year's grand prize of $5,000 store credit on any Ventum bike you want to purchase on the website. You don't want to wait for that. Ventum is also offering a standing discount until the end

of the tour. 10% off the whole site using the code theMOOV10 and 20% off any NS1 bike with the code NS120. Tomorrow's stage Bradley, stage 19, we're almost there. Short stage, 130 kilometers, but again, 4,500 meters of climbing from Albertville to La Plagne with five climbs. Amongst them, Col du Cési, one climb, then Col du Pré. I don't know it, but it's a horse category, so it must be very hard. I know the Col Médéroselan. That's quite well used, isn't it? Not that tough a climb, but it is...

From this side, it's not that bad. From the other side, I know it's a very famous crash of me going down the ravine, what we call the Roselon. And then finally, La Plagne, which is a horse cattle plant also. So, I mean, yeah, I wouldn't say, you know, it's sealed. The victory is sealed. I'm curious to see what Vismo is going to try. There's not much else they can do. But it's going to be interesting.

Okay, Bradley, I need to run because I have to go to the bike shop to pick up my NS1 Ventum bike, which just arrived yesterday. And I'm going to ride that tomorrow. So thanks and see you tomorrow. See you later, mate. Bye bye. Okay. Bye bye.

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