On paper, Stage 11 of the 2026 Tour de France had all the makings of a snoozer: an early intermediate sprint and just two climbs, barely a kilometer long at 5% grade with 90 km of flat between them. But looks can be deceiving. “To be honest,” said Lidl-Trek’s Juan Ayuso after stage 11, “this one was one of the trickiest we had in the whole Tour because we started out with a bit of rain and the roads were a bit slippery.”
Iain Treloar
Would-be breakaways certainly seemed to get the memo, surging early and often out of a series of hard corners and roundabouts early in the day, with a host of top names represented – including stage 8 winner and usual leadout rider Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Premier Tech.
Charmig taking over from Alaphilippe with full commitment, establishing the early break.
Some 12 km after the flag dropped, Uno-X Mobility’s Anthon Charmig glanced back to see the perfect selection: strong enough to theoretically make the break stick, but small enough to allow the green jersey contenders to still battle for some mop-up points at the intermediate sprint. Throw in a beefy crosswind, and there was zero hesitation on the part of Charmig to keep the hammer down.
This is what it looks like when the bunch is going fast.
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