The idiom 'a picture paints a thousand words' could never have been more relevant than on stage six of Paris-Nice. They didn’t need to speak at the finish in Berre l’Etang, the riders' faces and body language told you all you needed to know. Once again, the weather took hold on the road to Nice, with Friday’s stage played out in torrential rain, wind and sub zero temperatures, the perfect appetiser for stage seven’s summit finish at Auron, or not.
Thymen Arensman looked like a man who would have been quite happy if someone told him the race was over on Friday evening. The Dutchman was one of several Ineos Grenadiers riders to make the head of the race when the weather caused splits in the main field, but he appeared to be paying for his efforts outside the Ineos bus, as he was helped into warm weather gear by waiting soigneurs as they frantically warmed his hands. Magnus Sheffield warmed down next to him, the American’s face pale with the cold as he shivered on a turbo trainer.
“It was once called the Race to the Sun, but the sun has been hiding pretty well for some time now,” Rolf Aldag joked to Cycling Weekly as he reflected on what turned out to be a successful day for Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe. “I remember last year it was the same scenario. We’ll be waiting a long time before it’s warm here and you can wear short sleeves, so I guess the riders will try to get through it."
“You see people suffering, you’re in the car and you kind of feel sorry for them,” he added. “It was really tough and the conditions then caused some damage to the overall, to the GC.”
Along with Ineos, Red Bull were one of the big winners of the stage with German rider Florian Lipowitz jumping up to second place overall, 40 seconds off the lead held by Matteo Jorgenson.
“We’re positioned pretty well in second, Visma are doing a good job to control it and they of course have a very strong team,” Aldag reflected. “It’s a shame for the race and sad that they lost Jonas [Vingegaard], it’s never very good to see one of the stars have to leave and not be part of the race anymore. But for us, we’re there, Florian [Lipowitz] is very strong, so now we have to see what the others are going to do. Ineos have three guys in the top ten, so they might want to do something and might want to try and test out everyone else.”
Meanwhile, the stage winner, Mads Pedersen, smiled when he was asked to recount his experiences of the deluge, explaining that it had brought back memories of one of his greatest ever days on the bike.
“I remember a day in 2019, at the end of September, it was a bit worse than this but the outcome was the same and it was a victory,” he said, referencing his World Championships win in Yorkshire. “It was pretty tough weather conditions today, it was about five to eight degrees and raining all day. It makes it pretty hard to be a cyclist, especially when the stage is 200 plus kilometres.”
“It helps if you’re used to training in this weather in the winter," Pedersen explained. "I also think there’s a mental part of it where you just don’t care, it’s the same for everyone, and if you keep your mindset clean and clear on racing instead of feeling bad for yourself in weather like this then it helps you a lot.”
