Harold Tejada slipped the bunch in the last few kilometres of a lumpy stage six on Paris-Nice to pull off a hard-fought solo victory in Apt.

It marked the XDS Astana rider's first WorldTour win and a hard-fought one at that, with Dorian Godon (Ineos Grenadiers) leading in a large chasing group just seconds behind.

"It's my first victory in a WorldTour race and I'm loving it," Tejada, 28, said afterwards. "I've been very patient and I'm really happy to do it.

"I didn't have much luck on the day with the wind, but that's cycling. Today was the revenge," he said, referring to the weather-battered fourth stage where he got caught behind the front split.

"We came here looking for a podium overall, but I lost a lot of time in the TTT. But we have a couple of stages now with Max [Kanter, stage two winner] and me, and we'll hopefully go for another."

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) retained the overall lead after finishing just behind in the bunch, while Tejada replaced Oscar Onley (Ineos Grenadiers) in 10th overall, marking the only difference in the GC top-10 from yesterday, after Onley withdrew due to illness.

The 179km stage from Barbentane to Apt in southern France was marked by a day-long break comprising four riders: Josh Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers), Igor Arrieta (UAE Team Emirates) Arthur Kluckers (Tudor Pro Cycling) and Steff Cras (Soudal Quick-Step).

Cras was dropped in the later stages but the remaining trio survived until the top of the last of three small climbs in the final part of the stage, with just five kilometres to the finish.

A hard attack by Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) over the top served to string out the bunch and separate a large front group, from which Tejada made his move.

Result

Paris-Nice, stage 6: Barbentane > Apt (179km)

1. Harold Tejada (Col) XDS Astana, 179km in 3:54:38
2. Dorian Godon (Fra) Ineos Grenadiers, +6s
3. Lewis Askey (Gbr) NSN Cycling
4. Bryan Coquard (Fra) Cofidis
5. Matteo Trentin (Ita) Tudor Pro Cycling
6. Laurence Pithie (Nzl) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe
7. Kévin Vauquelin (Fra) Ineos Grenadiers
8. Valentin Paret-Peintre (Fra) Soudal Quick-Step
9. Alexandr Vlasov (Rus) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe
10. Alex Baudin (Fra) EF Education-EasyPost, all at same time

General Classification after stage six

1. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, in 21:16:50
2. Dani Martínez (Col) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, +3:22
3. Georg Steinhauser (Ger) EF Education-EasyPost, +5:50
4. Kévin Vauquelin (Fra) Ineos Grenadiers, +6:09
5. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, +7:37
6. Marc Soler (Spa) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +8:15
7. Ion Izagirre (Esp) Cofidis, +9:02
8. Mathys Rondel (Fra) Tudor Pro Cycling, +10:06
9. Alex Baudin (Fra) EF Education-EasyPost, +10:16
10. Harold Tejada (XDS Astana), +11:27

It opens with Nicola Conci playing a reasonably nice guitar riff, before the camera zooms in on the riders of XDS Astana and Alexandre Vinokourov opens his mouth. "What a year, the team is secure," the 52-year-old, well, raps.

Welcome to the third Astana rap. The 90-second long video features many of the WorldTour team's riders, including Alberto Bettiol, Nicolas Vinokourov and Aaron Gate, as well as other stars. It's a celebration of the team retaining its position in the WorldTour, its 20th anniversary, as well as a bit of a mission statement. It's a lot.

It follows 2022's 'Astana Is My Team (Cycling Rap)' and 2019's 'First Ever Pro Cycling Rap', so the team has form. This year's video is simply titled 'XDS Astana Team New Song'.

On social media, XDS Astana posted: "Celebrating our 20th anniversary and a successful 2025 season in the style we love the most."

The lyrics are pretty straightforward, and lip-synced. "We represent Kazakhstan. The world already knows. Now China joins our side, the power clearly shows." China is where XDS bikes, the team's co-sponsor, is from, and that line accompanies a shot of rider Haoyu Su.

Gate continues, walking past bikes beings assembled: "X-Lab bikes are lightning fast, any hill we climb with speed. Our rivals lose the chase, we're in front we take the lead."

Next is Bettiol, who appears to be in a hotel lobby, flanked by two members of staff. "Turn on the TV, you see us in the group. Blue colours shining bright, 20 years still in the loop," he raps.

Next up is a room of staff, with head of performance Vasilis Anastopoulos saying "everyone knows our style like family close and tight", before Davide Ballerini adds: "seasons come and go, but we still stay in the light."

That's just the first 30 seconds, and there is more to come. The chorus goes: "We are one big team, we chase one big goal. We aim for the top, with one true soul. For 20 years you've seen, our wins it's known. Have we run out of steam? No way we're strong!"

It does all rhyme or half-rhyme, and I wonder if someone wrote this, or whether it was just the work of AI... Also, how did they decide who would actually take part? There are some good English speakers notable by their absence.

The team's season begins at the Tour Down Under on 20 January, so we don't have long to wait to see if the new song galvanises them to new heights.

XDS-Astana rider Alexandre Vinokurov has announced his retirement at just 23, saying that he has ridden in fear and pain since a devastating training crash in March.

He was hit by a car while training in Greece and sustained a broken leg. Surgery to fix the break was successful but the incident evidently left Vinokurov – the son of XDS-Astana boss and former pro rider Alexandre Vinokourov – with psychological scars, as well as a degree of lasting physical pain.

His final race was the Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia, which finished on Sunday, won overall by Joris Delbove of TotalEnergies. Vinokurov finished 94th.

In a post on X headed up 'The Last Dance', he wrote: "7 months since my crash I raced, trained, with fear and pain. I'm blessed and proud to have helped the team achieve 4 wins and P4 in GC in my last race as a rider [which went to his twin brother Nicolas].

"Thanks to all the people who were there in this chapter," he added, "and see you soon in the next one."

In response his father – who won the 2012 Olympic Games road race in London – praised him, saying: "I'm proud of you my son, you still have a bright future ahead of you, and a new chapter! You're doing very well. This is a great school and you've gained a lot of experience."

The retirement of this young rider is another development that throws the dangers of professional bike racing into stark relief.

Earlier this year Dutch rider Ellen van Dijk announced her retirement, saying that fear of crashing was often in the forefront of her mind: "Because of the dangers of the sport I cannot enjoy road riding as much as I'd like to," she said.

Canadian pro Mike Woods called the sport "ludicrously dangerous" as he announced his retirement at the end of this season.

"I once asked staff on my team: how much would they have to be paid, to drive around in a car at 50 km/h, 70 days a year, for 4-5 hours per day, in a T-shirt and shorts, and twice per year—with no control over when or where—they would be pushed out of the car?" Woods wrote on his blog.

"Statistically, that is roughly how many times the average pro rider crashes per season. Not one of the staff said less than 500k, and when I asked how many years they would do it, not one said more than two."

Vinokourov Jr did not reveal whether or not he would stay on in bike racing in a different role, or moving away completely.

Love them or hate them, team time trials are back in vogue. There will be one at this year’s Vuelta Femenina, one at next year’s Tour de France, and Paris-Nice continued its tradition on Tuesday of hosting one each spring.

With more team races against the clock scheduled – particularly at the calendar’s biggest races – cycling’s great innovators are coming up with ways to draw marginal gains out of them. The latest came from XDS Astana, who wore multi-coloured gloves and overshoes when they lined up for Paris-Nice’s third stage.

The eagle-eyed among you may have already spotted it. Perhaps you thought it was just a fun gimmick, a nod to the disco trends of the 80s. According to XDS Astana's performance engineer Alex Dowsett, there’s good reason behind the rainbow.

“When you do a turn in a team time trial, you do obviously a massive pull on the front, with really high power, and then you have to come off the power,” he said in a team post on X. “When you get to seventh position or sixth position, you then have to do another big effort to get back into the line. If you miss the back of that line by centimetres, it then becomes a third monumental effort to close the gap.”

Riders typically count their way to the back of the line when they swap turns, rejoining the end, if they can hold on. At Paris-Nice, XDS Astana judged it quicker to respond to colours, rather than count back through teammates.

“You react to things in your periphery faster than you react to them if you look directly at them. The difficult thing about team time trials, from that respect, is everyone looks the same,” Dowsett said.

“It could be that split second where you’re like, ‘Is that [Harold] Tejada or is that [Mike] Teunissen?’ The first thing you see from each rider is their hands. I was like, ‘So what if we could make everyone’s gloves a different colour?’ So instead of looking for the person, or the riding style of that person, or counting one, two, three, four, five, six, you’re just looking for a colour.

“It’s a small advantage,” he continued. “Let’s not beat around the bush, we’re not saving on aero gains or anything.”

There are also advantages for the team directors in the follow car, Dowsett explained.

“They’re not having to memorise riders’ numbers,” he said. “I think it will just be easier for the directors to know if someone needs to miss a turn, if someone says they’re struggling, [or] if someone’s getting in on the back. It’ll hopefully be easier to relay that information to the riders as well.”

XDS Astana ultimately placed 13th of 22 teams in the Paris-Nice team time trial, which was won by Visma-Lease a Bike. Without the fluorescent gloves, though, who knows where they might have finished?

The Chinese aero frames used by the XDS Astana team are now available in the UK for purchase, with the frameset now listed online for £2,553.

The team formerly known as Astana Qazaqstan became XDS Astana in December last year after the Chinese firm acquired naming rights for the squad managed by Alexander Vinokourov, with its riders on the brand-new X-LAB AD9 machine.

Astana were previously sponsored by Willier Triestina - with Mark Cavendish making Tour de France history aboard a machine from the Italian brand - but the deal with Willier ended when XDS came on board and ramped up the team’s budget. XDS were a little known firm based in Shenzen, China, before they sponsored Astana, but also happen to have one of the largest carbon fibre factories in the world.

Spotted by road.cc, the frameset has been listed for purchase by CycleGears at a cost of £2,553 and is available in three different colours - cloud, blue cloud and black silver. Clearly, this is still a lot of money to spend on a frameset. However, it is still cheaper than the equivalent frameset from brands like Trek and Specialized, who sponsor other WorldTour teams Lidl-Trek and Soudal Quick-Step respectively (Specialized sponsor Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe too).

Trek’s Madone frameset is available for around £5,500, whereas Specialized's S-Works Tarmac SL8 frameset is on the market for about £4,000, depending on the retailer.

The full aero machine used by the pros has dropped seat stays, a cutout seat tube, deep-section aero tubes, and a fully integrated cockpit, which all combine to make the XDS offering a modern aero racing bike.

The Van Rysel RCR Pro was thought to be the most affordable bike on the WorldTour last year, but it could potentially be very straightforward to better the £7,400 price tag on the RCR with a few simple upgrades to the XDS frame.

A full setup from XDS to match that used by the pros on the Astana has not yet been spotted online. The team's riders will be using machines fully equipped with Shimano Dura-Ace groupsets, Vision wheels, Continental tyres and Prologo saddles in WorldTour races throughout the season.