THEMOVE - Tour de France Stage 6 | The Sir Wiggo & Johan Show

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Sir Bradley Wiggins peel back the curtain on the tactics, strategy, and pivotal moments that shaped Stage 6 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/

We all knew that Ben Healy was going to be a candidate for the stage, especially if you see the composition of the breakaway. You know, eight riders, strong riders. Mathieu van der Poel is their heavy favorite. But Ben Healy has this art skill, whatever you want to call it, to anticipate attacks. You know, here today it was clear that if you wanted to win, you needed to get away from the breakaway. You needed to break away from the break. And Ben Healy is really, really a master in this.

I found it really exceptional how he decided to attack when nobody expected it. I'm the 2012 Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins. And I'm Johan Berniel. 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. Okay we're back for stage six of the Tour de France. Welcome back to our show, Like Everyday presented by Teton IQ. I'm Johan Brunel joined by Bradley Wiggins, Like Everyday. Bradley, you watched the stage. What's your takeaway of the day?

Well, there's a few takeaways, but of course, the incredible solo performance of Ben Healy was an amazing thing to watch. It was a complete demonstration. Yeah, so that's what you take away from today. My second performance was the dynamic that was unfolding behind with UAE, Alpecin and Mathieu van der Poel and obviously taking the yellow jersey by one second and the final climb where Visma accelerated and Tadde came over the line and nearly kept the jersey from his acceleration. Yeah, yeah, that was that.

I don't think that was part of the plan. You know, I think I think Pogacar and UAE, obviously they wanted Mathieu to take the jersey. And at some point he had like a buffer of like two and a half, three minutes to play with. I don't think they counted on the fact that he would crack. And then also we didn't see too many images of that. But I think that Visma increased the pace to try to have Pogacar not lose the Jersey, which personally, I think, I mean, okay, it's, it's, it's a strategy, but I don't know, it doesn't do

anything. It's not going to work with today. I don't think so. No. Well, Taddei lost all three jerseys today, didn't he as well? Yeah, he lost all three jerseys. Yeah, Yeah, fine. I don't think he just wants one. Yeah. Okay. So our first partner of the day, Join Cycling. Join is the number one training app that puts a professional cycling coach right in your back pocket. You don't need a big goal to benefit from training. Join helps you to stay, focused, and consistent, even when there's no event in sight. JOIN keeps it interesting with challenges, variety, and smart progression. But if you do have a challenge or an objective, in my case,

for example, I have agreed to do an event at the end of September. It's a 2,000 meter elevation, five-hour mountain bike ride. It's very simple. You go to the JOIN app, you put in all your data, your weight, your age, your level of cyclist you think you are, and eventually an objective. JOIN calculates everything and brings you a personally designed training program that will help you to get to that objective. If you miss a day or if you... It's also depending on the availability you have. If you can train three times a week, two times a week, it doesn't matter. JOIN will adapt to your needs. If one day you miss a ride, no problem. JOIN will correct and put your

next training rides in relation to what you want to accomplish. So JOIN is your number one cycling training app. You can test JOIN 30 days for free by going to the link join.cc forward slash the move. You will get access to the join app 30 days for free. So join.cc forward slash the move. For me, Bradley, I have another take of the day, which is basically, I mean, we all knew that Ben Healy was going to be a candidate for the stage, especially if you see the composition of the breakaway, you know, eight riders, strong riders, Mathieu van der Poel is their heavy favorite. But Ben Healy has this art skill, whatever you want to call it to anticipate attacks. Here today, it was clear that if you wanted to win, you needed to get away from the breakaway. You needed to break away from the break.

Ben Healy is really, really a master in this. I found it really exceptional how he decided to attack when nobody expected it. You could say, okay, well, obviously everybody was super, super tired already because it was a big, big war to get in the break. If I'm not mistaken, it took like about a hundred kilometers for the break to consolidate. But Ben Healy, he attacked on the left side of the road when nobody was expecting it. And that's really something that I don't think anybody has expected it. I heard Simon Yates after the finish saying, well, you know, we know what Ben Healey can do, but we did not expect him to go there.

No, Ben is one of those riders. He has to win in that style because he doesn't possess a big sprint. He's not the best, you know, he's not as good a climber as some of those guys who are in that group. And he takes his opportunity. You don't get many opportunities in a Tour de France where you're in a breakaway like that. You're in with a shout of winning a stage and Ben when he wins, he wins big. You know, but this guy's been on the podium at Liège Bastogne Liège. He's been on the podium at Amstel Gold. He's a class rider. And it was great to see how he was talking in the interview afterwards. He reminded us of a small child in some ways. He grew up watching the Tour de France. He imagined one day he'd be at

the Tour de France just to take part in the Tour de France. But to be in a position to win a stage and in the manner of which he did it on a stage like today where it was on from the start today. And just to make that break, everyone in that break was a hitter. And to break away from that breakaway the way he did and you know, to be being pursued by Quinn Simmons and the other gentleman from Tudor, you know, that he and he was pulling away the whole time. It was incredible, incredible ride that he did today. Now, I think, I think people don't realize, I mean, if you look at today's profile and then you see the elevation, it was three, that was a 3,500 meters

or 3,300 meters of elevation. This is, this is a Elias Bastondes parkour. Yeah. Yeah. Getting into that break, first of all, then riding away from it and taking time on the one, some of the best riders in the world. What did he finish finally? Two minutes ahead. I think it was two 37. Yeah. 47 kilometers average almost. That's just mind blowing, mind blowing. Yeah. No, I liked his interview.

You know, it's a big accomplishment, you know, especially for writers. I mean, Ben Healy is one of those writers. He is really good on certain days. You know, he's not good all the time. He knows he will never win the tour. He doesn't have that capacity, in my opinion. But you know, then the next best thing that you can hope for is to win a stage on the tour, or at least your first

one is super special. And that happened today. It is, I think, the realization of a child's dream. They all start cycling with watching the tour, wanting to win a stage. I mean, first of all, being there is amazing. And then today that happened for him. That was crazy. But if you look at you're right, he was second in the Amsterdam World Race behind Pogacar. If I'm remembering correctly. And this year he was third in the Ed Bastogne. He also won a very hard stage, similar fashion, in the Tour of the Basque Country. So I remember two years ago the stage he won in the Giro, which was also incredibly hard. It was like Tour of Lombardy Parkour. Same thing. He just killed

everybody. So yeah, I mean, I heard today, I mean, I don't know if you know this, but originally, he, I mean, he's not born in Ireland, he became Irish by choice. Yeah. So from my understanding, he grew up in the UK and changed his nationality to Irish because I think it because he was the problem when you're under 23 or junior in the UK is if you're not part of the track program, then it's very difficult to, to progress because they want you to ride the track. Um, Dan Martin did the same thing. Um, yeah. And, um, that's as I understand Ben Healy did the same thing.

Yeah. His, his style also Bradley, I mean, like even, I mean, another thing that I, I mean, I don't know what you think about this, but it was clear that Ben Healy today was, he had a plan, you know, I mean, it was hot today. I mean, you could see the rider suffering from the heat riding a stage like this with that semi tantra helmet. It must be so hard. Yeah. But at the same time, it's, it can can be so beneficial for an effort like he made.

We saw the amount of salt that the riders were covered in today. It's been a cool a few days before now, before the time turns down, but it wasn't even that hot today as the weather forecast gave, but riders were clearly exerting a lot of sodium and he could see it on the shorts at the finish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then, you know, I think personally, when Ben Healy puts on his, his Aero helmet in the Peloton, they know that that's the guy. It's also, I mean, he said it in his interview, which is also really remarkable. There's a few riders like this, you know, that they will not miss

the break because they just try and try and they go with every move until they're in the break. Some riders have a better vision and they say that they go two or three times and they're in the right break. Yeah, I mean, that break took what took best part of 100 kilometers to go, didn't it? Yeah. And you know, yeah, go ahead. One stage, I did one stage I saw Matteo Jorgensen actually tried to get in that break, just before they put Simon Yates in it. So it was, I don't know how things were panning out on the road in terms of

the dynamics. You had a good point, didn't you, Johanna, in terms of Alpecin, van der Poel and, Johanna in terms of Alpecin, van der Poel and a potential agreement with Tadej Bogacar? I think that's the way it went. We know that Bogacar and van der Poel, they get along quite well. I don't know if they're friends, but they like each other. They respect each other, don't they? Yes. So I personally think there was an agreement between them and then for sure between the teams, because it's the typical, it would have been the ideal scenario

of having the heavy favorites, yellow jersey, Pogacar, looking ahead to, okay, so many days we have to control the race and then today's stage and tomorrow's stage are difficult to control um you know that's the typical move you know let's let's let's try to give the jersey away uh and under the pool was the ideal candidate because if on the pool now i want to to ask you if it's really going to matter because ultimately he only takes it with one second. So is that going to matter for tomorrow? Yeah. But usually you want somebody in the Jersey with a team that will control it. You

know, they also have Caden Groves, you know, so if, if, if they would keep the Jersey tomorrow, then the next two stages are sprint, sprint, sprint stages. So they would control, but I'm not sure now, what was clear that is that Visma didn't want this. I think that attack from Jorgensen was, was telling, uh, to wanting to join the break. That was not actually, in my opinion, Jorgensen was telling to wanting to join the break. That was not actually, in my opinion, Jorgensen knows they're not going to let him go. That was to make sure that Mathieu Van de Poel was not in the break. Yeah. And that's why Chardon-Woo could keep the jersey, don't you think? Probably, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we saw Tadej's comments at the finish as well. I mean, so

what we saw at the finish was Tadej winning the bunch sprint for, you know, and it was so close. It looked like he was going to keep the jersey and obviously Matthew kept it by one second. Now they must have, you know, I think it was a 10, 15 K to go. Matthew still had quite a considerable gap in terms of, you know, whether he was going to take the jersey or not. And that gap came down so quickly in the last 10 K. We saw Matthew finish.

He was a broken man at the finish like most riders were today. But then we saw the acceleration from Jorgensen up in that finals finish straight. And Tadej obviously just coming over to... Egos were at play there between a lot of them in terms of wanting to not lose face. But we couldn't understand why they were making that acceleration, Visma in the final then, but obviously it became apparent that the gap was so small. Visma must've got word that it was very close as to whether Matthew would take the jersey or not. And so were they putting that applying that pressure to give, keep Tadej in the jersey, which would have mean tomorrow, they would have to take up the initiative and ride all day as jersey

holders. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that's the case. I mean, you know, it's, they're definitely not making, you know, I think it's, it's, I mean, is it part of a strategy? Who knows, you know, it could also be. And that's, that's a bit far fetched, but it could be that, okay, let's piss him off. Let's piss off Bogacar. Then he will want to show that he's the strongest and he will make mistakes. You know, if you think about, okay, not just keeping him in the jersey, but making him angry that could eventually catch up with him if he makes mistakes by wanting to show that who's the boss. You know, maybe it's a bit far-fetched, but you know, if you see, listen, if you see the quote of Pogacar, you know, he says, Visma is lagging behind,

but what did they, what they did today made no sense. Maybe they fell off track a little yesterday, even a sprint like that at the end is a bit pointless, because it wasn't a sprint for the top 10. That quote tells me, first of all, I am 100% sure there was an agreement between Bogacar and Mathieu. And as I said, ideally, Mathieu takes the jersey with two minutes, three minutes. That would have been ideal.

So Bogacar was obviously also disappointed that Mathieu, I mean, first of all, he doesn't have the jersey, but it stays the same. It doesn't really matter. Having somebody in the yellow jersey with just one second won't bring you what you want, what you were going for, no? No. No. And I think had Mathieu had the jersey by, you know, two, three minutes, then the chances are he would have, well, we know he would have kept it through tomorrow. And then the subsequent sprint stages, the next few days that follow. Yeah, which would have been ideal for you, because Alpecin couple of more days in yellow would have took up the role of riding on the front every day.

And it meant that Tadej could just sit back with his team and recover a little bit before we hit the high mountains. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't know. What do you think? I mean, obviously, listen, it was sad to see Van der Poel. I've rarely seen Van der Poel so destroyed physically. But also, like he was thinking, he said, what just happened? You know, it's great to see him in yellow again. And so, listen, it's Mathieu Van der Poel. We'll see tomorrow. He recovers quickly. Tomorrow is a very important place for him. It's where he won his first Tour de France stage. We all know the special story in honor of Raymond Poulidor. And actually actually now thinking back about that Bradley, you know, we all expected Mathieu to win stage one was also an ideal uphill finish and he didn't have it.

It was Juliana Philippe who won the stage and took the jersey. And I remember what Mathieu van der Poel did in that stage, the Britannia was actually something unbelievable. I think he was at least 10 seconds behind because he didn't get a bonification. There was maybe a little gap, maybe 12 seconds or something. So he needed to get the bonification on the second last time at Mille de Bretagne. He did that and then he had to win the stage with some kind of a gap. Yeah. And he did that.

So, you know, it's still, it's still, I mean, you know, from the pool is a special one. You know, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll see what, we'll see what happens. Okay. Let's talk about our other partner, ketone IQ. Um, ketones are very widely used in the peloton, as we all know. Me personally, this is my preferred format. It's 10 grams of ketones, no sugar, no caffeine.

It's been scientifically proven that ketones, first of all, boost the athletic performance. That's why almost all the riders, if not everybody in the Tour de France peloton is using ketones. They boost the athletic performance and in a placebo control study with trained athletes, ketone IQ boosted average sprint power by 19%, peak power by 13%, cut fatigue by 10% and spiked blood ketones five times in just 20 minutes. Additionally, it has also been discovered that ketones improve faster recovery. After the day stage, they will need it. Ketone IQ recently teamed up with team Visma Lisebike and also with the University of Leuven to explore recovery and high-altitude

adaptation. Their key findings are incredible. There's an improved blood flow, higher muscle oxygenation and better endurance and stamina. So go to ketone.com and enter the code TheMove20 and enter the code, the move 20 for 20% off. So ketone.com entering the code, go to the move 20 at checkout for 20% off. One last little thing about today, Bradley, we see it happen all the time. If you have this strong break, eight riders, really strong guys, but the main figure in the breakaway

was Matthew Vanderv Poel, right? Yeah. So everybody was looking at him. We all knew, I mean, I'm going to say probably, even if Matthew van der Poel today would have come with the eight guys to the finish, I'm not sure if he would have won. Because if you are the main figure and you have that goal of taking the yellow jersey, the majority of the weight of the breakaway was on him. He did more work than everybody else. Um, because if you are the main figure and you have that goal of taking the yellow jersey, the majority of the weight of the breakaway was on him. He did more work than everybody else. Yeah.

Right. But also, also you are the supervised guy. Everybody's okay. And then in any race, whether you're, you know, if you're Pagache or a wonderful or Remco or well, sometimes if you're that big favorite in a breakaway, it is extremely difficult to win. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what Ben Healy understood. And you could see straight away, you know, when Ben Healy, I think when he went, it was a surprise, but it was 40k to go. They had done a lot of climbs already. And Matthew was already, I mean,

half spent and you could see the Matthew Vanderpool effect in that breakaway. Initially, they were all looking at him. And before, I mean, Ben Healy had 30 seconds like in a blink of an eye. Yeah. Right. Yeah, he did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? I was going to say, what do you think Visma's tactic was in putting Simon yet? Because Simon had quite a job to get across to that breakaway. He had to work quite hard and obviously didn't really play a part in the stage and

other than working in the break. But would he have been best served better behind based on how Visma based on the final? Yeah, in my opinion, yes. I mean, not, not just, I mean, it takes a lot out of you. Uh, he was all, he was spent also. And Simon Yates is going to be a very important writer for Visma in the last 10 days. Um, it, it, you know, when the stage, okay.

Uh, it's a possibility. They, Simon said that their plan was to have someone in the breakaway. When the stage, okay, it's a possibility. Simon said that their plan was to have someone in the breakaway. So it turned out it was him. But does that really serve the purpose of FISMA overall? I don't think so. I don't think so. I was surprised to see him there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, before we give our opinion or prediction about tomorrow's stage, the last sponsor of today, Phantom, we all ride Phantom bikes on the move. Ventum does a daily trivia every day. There's a question you can send in your answers and then at the end of the tour, there will be a winner. A winner who can win $5,000 in store credits that you can invest into any Ventum bike you want to buy. Stage five question yesterday was, how many total grand Tour individual time trial stages did

Sir Bradley Wiggins win over the course of his career? You know the answer Bradley, of course, you know. Yeah, three. Three. The answer was three. Two in the Tour de France, one in the Giro. Yeah. So the correct answer is three.

Not just those three, not just three time trials. He also won the gold medal at the 2012 Olympic Games in the time trial. 2014 World Time Trial Champion and also broke the hour record in 2015. Stage six, today's question. Today's stage was a hilly stage. How many categorized climbs were featured on stage six? How many categorized climbs were featured on stage six? This is an easy one. So send your best guest to VentumRacing.com forward slash the move and you can enter into the competition for $5,000 of store credits. If you don't want to wait for the end of the contest, Ventum is also offering during the

course of the Tour de France a standing discount of 10% on the whole site with the code the MOVE10 and 20% of any NS1, the road bike with the codes NS120. Okay. So tomorrow stage we've talked already about a little bit from San Malo to Mur de Britannia, 197 again, almost 200 kilometers, uh, with the famous Mur de Britannia at the end, two times, uh, I think it's a similar, uh, is it the same lap as when Mathieu won? Uh, I think it is. So, right. Yeah. I think they, they tend to use the same, the same most times. I think it's a similar, is it the same lap as when Mathieu won? I think it is. Yeah, I think they tend to use the same lap most times. I mean, it's tough tomorrow, especially after the last few days today, time trial yesterday, tomorrow is the last tough stage of this little

block before we have a couple of sprint stages. But what a first week this tour's been. I mean, it's been, I can't remember a Tour de France like it, a start like it for a long time. But also how things have changed Bradley. I mean, like, you know, if you look at, I mean, when you were riding, it was probably already different. But I remember when I did my first Tour de France, it was in 1990. Hills like this, like Mure de Bretagne would never have created any separation amongst the favorites. And now with these guys, it does.

I mean, we've seen it in the past stages. I mean, a climb of 800 meters at 10% and the two big favorites go away. This was, I mean, that's just incredible. What do you think, breakaway or GC day? Well, I mean, after today, I mean, I think this is an opportunity for lots of people to win on this. It's become a famous finish in the Tour de France now. We have every couple of years. And I think there'll be a lot of teams that will want to put their specialists for stages like this in a position to win. I mean, that said, I wouldn't underestimate how tired some of the riders will be now, particularly after today. But tomorrow is the last opportunity before we get into the sort of

flatter sprinter stages for teams that haven't come up with a win yet in this race. And I'm talking about some of the French teams. But Matthew, you know, Matthew will want to win tomorrow if it's in the right position. But you know, I think if it break goes tomorrow, like today, will he be recovered though? Will he be recovered? I mean, that's the question. You know, but I mean, if anyone could do it, Matt, you can do it. Yeah. I think, you know, it will be, it won't be the race will decide.

I think it will go a la pedal, as they say in the French, you know, it will. Bogotar and Jonas will have recovered. They haven't spent too much today. So that's also, that's also, um, the question, you know, I personally, I think if Mathieu would have had a bigger buffer, I'm pretty sure that they will have, they would control, have a go for the stage win, but at least keep the yellow Jersey. I think it's almost sure tomorrow that Mathieu, I mean, if he, okay, if he's on top of his

game, he can win, right? Now can he win against this Pogacar and this Jonas? I don't know, man. I just think these guys are just, I mean, if you compare it to four years ago, the level of Pogacar is so much higher. Yeah. I still have the image, you know, when Mathieu attacked at the, because Pogacar won that tour, right? That won that tour in France when Mathieu won on Mourdes de Bretagne. So Van der Poel attacked on the last climb, the last time on Mourdes de Bretagne, Pogacar was there and he didn't follow. He was kind of looking at the other riders, but this Pogacar just jumps on anything.

So that's going to be interesting. Also want to mention before we leave, if any of our listeners or viewers, if you have questions for either Bradley or for myself, you can send those questions to info at wedu.team. So that's info at wedu.team and in the next few episodes we will try to answer some of your questions. Okay, Brad, thank you very much and I'll see you tomorrow. See you tomorrow, mate.