Stage 10 Preview: Seven Climbs, 3,800 Metres and a Bastille Day Battle Through the Massif Central to Le Lioran
The Tour de France returns from its first rest day straight into one of the most treacherous stages of the entire race — and it does so on Bastille Day. Stage 10 runs 166.6km from Aurillac to Le Lioran through the volcanic heart of the Cantal, packing seven categorised climbs and roughly 3,800 metres of climbing into a day that never offers a moment's flat road. It is a stage with no hors catégorie monster, and it might be the hardest day of the race so far.
The roll call of climbs reads like a Massif Central greatest hits: the Côte de Pailherols, the Col de la Griffoul, the Col de Prat de Bouc, the Côte de Murat, the mighty Puy Mary via the Pas de Peyrol, the Col de Pertus and finally the Col de Font de Cère before the drop to the ski-station finish at Le Lioran. The Puy Mary and Pertus are the steepest of the set, with sustained double-digit ramps, and the jagged rhythm of the day — climb, descend, climb again — leaves nowhere to recover and nowhere to hide.
The Tour has been here before, and recently. In 2024, a near-identical finale at Le Lioran produced one of that race's defining moments, when Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard traded blows over the Puy Mary and Pertus before the Slovenian took the stage. Two years on, the same roads arrive with the same two protagonists — but a very different balance of power, with Pogačar 2:42 clear and Visma-Lease a Bike running out of terrain on which to stage an ambush.
That is precisely why Tuesday matters. If Vingegaard means to win this Tour rather than merely place in it, stages like this — chaotic, rhythmless, hard to control — are where an ambush has to happen. A long-range move over the Puy Mary, some 30 kilometres from the line, would be a gamble; but waiting for the Alps, and for a rested UAE Team Emirates-XRG to fortify the race again, may be the bigger one.
The breakaway, of course, will have other ideas. Post-rest-day stages are notoriously unpredictable, and the fight to make the move could last an hour or more. Richard Carapaz, who deliberately surrendered his GC position on the road to Bordeaux to buy exactly this kind of freedom, will surely be there. So will the usual suspects of the medium mountains — and don't rule out Mathieu van der Poel backing up his Ussel win if the day's early racing breaks his way.
And then there is the date. Bastille Day at the Tour turns every French rider into a potential kamikaze, and this year the home nation has genuine cards to play: the teenage GC sensation Paul Seixas, the ever-aggressive Kevin Vauquelin, and a Decathlon CMA CGM squad that has already animated the race. A French winner at Le Lioran on 14 July would bring the Cantal to a standstill.
The stage rolls out of Aurillac on Tuesday afternoon, with the finale expected around 17:30 CEST. After nine days of sprints, heatwaves and one seismic Pyrenean afternoon, the middle week begins with a bang.