Chapter 334 - 177: Going All-In to Kill the Championship Suspense Early

Crashes and injuries are a part of professional road cycling.

But to see a crash of this magnitude, especially with this race so close to the Tour de France, was something no one wanted.

Especially for the Bora Team, Roglič had just gone through a crash in this year’s Tour of the Basque Country.

Now, he had finally made his comeback at the Tour de Dauphine to warm up for the Tour de France, the most important race of the year, only to be caught up in another crash.

After the stage, the team’s medical staff immediately gave Roglič, as well as Huang Chong who was also caught in the crash, a thorough health check.

Unfortunately, Roglič, who hadn’t felt much at the scene, began to experience shoulder pain after the race. The team doctor confirmed he had sustained a significant shoulder injury from the crash.

This type of injury wasn’t severe enough to force a withdrawal, but it would definitely affect his riding form.

Fortunately, Huang Chong’s crash had no repercussions for him; he had only damaged his road bike.

However, when Stage 6 was about to start, the effects of the previous day’s crash were still lingering. Ten riders would withdraw that day, including even the Core Commander of the UAE Team: Ayuso.

In addition, the other nine were Alex Kirsch from the Trek Team.

Andreas Kron from the Lotto Team.

Odd Christian Eiking from the Uno-X Team.

Kobe Goossens from the Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux Team.

Kamil Gradek, Rainer Kepplinger, and Jasha Sutterlin from the Bahrain Victory Team.

Lukas Nerurkar and Harry Sweeney from the EF Education Centre.

With the exception of two riders from Bahrain Victorious—one who tested positive for COVID and another with a respiratory infection who had to withdraw—the rest of the early withdrawals were mostly due to yesterday’s crash.

And with 18 riders withdrawing in two days, only 130 remained in the Tour de Dauphine starting from Stage 6.

"Huang, in today’s stage, all the difficulty will be concentrated in the final high-mountain climb.

Therefore, for the first 160 KM, I’ll assign all the pacemaking duties to the other domestiques.

During the first part of the ride, you just need to conserve as much energy and focus as possible. Try to lead out Primož well on the final climb.

His sprinting ability on steep gradients is trustworthy.

But he needs you to help him screen the competition on the last climb, and also to give him a final lead-out before the finish.

That way, he’ll have enough space to shake off the other teams’ commanders."

Huang Chong had nothing to say, and just nodded:

"Understood."

12:55 PM.

Stage 6 officially began.

The weather was still poor. Although it wasn’t raining, the sky was overcast and there was no sun.

Starting with this stage, the Tour de Dauphine officially entered the high-mountain climbing difficulty of a Tour de France Level.

As long as he could handle the climbs in the next three mountain stages, Huang Chong would be able to prove to the team that he wouldn’t crack during the Tour de France.

Stage 6 was 174.1 KM long, with a total elevation gain of 3,439 meters.

The route ran from Hauterives to Le Collet d’Allevard, and it was clearly very difficult.

Although there were only three officially categorized climbs on the entire stage, the finish featured a Tour de France-level HC Level climb for the first time.

The first climb was at the 31.5 KM mark: the Côte de La Côte-Saint-André, a Fourth Category Climb.

This climb was quite difficult. Although it was only 1.9 KM long with an average gradient of 6.5%, the maximum gradient reached 8.2%.

But even so, compared to the other two climbs—the second-category Col du Granier at the 129 KM mark and the HC Level Le Collet d’Allevard climb at the finish—this one was nothing.

The Col du Granier was 8.5 KM long, with an average gradient of 5.5% and a maximum gradient that also reached 8.5%.

The Le Collet d’Allevard climb, on the other hand, was 11.2 KM long, with an average gradient of a whopping 8.4% and a maximum gradient that hit 10.8%.

Furthermore, on this long, steep climb, there were three sections where the gradient exceeded 10%: between kilometers 1 and 2, kilometers 7 and 8, and in the final 200 meters before the finish.

This was a stage that truly tested the top Climbers.

For an ordinary person, it would be a struggle to slowly ride up the final HC Level climb, even using a small chainring and a large cassette.

Yet Professional Cyclists had to compete against each other on a climb of this difficulty.

After the race began, a group of breakaway riders was the first to attack, consisting of:

Magnus Cort from the Uno-X Team.

Romain Grégoire from the FDJ Team.

Alessandro Fancellu from the Q36.5 Team.

Arjen Livyns from the Lotto Team.

Thibault Guernalec from the Arkéa Team, and Mason Hollyman from the Israel-Premier Tech Team.

Undoubtedly, compared to the breakaway groups of the past few days, the overall strength of today’s breakaway riders had declined.

Aside from Cort and Grégoire, who hoped to win the stage from the breakaway, the other riders were basically just there to get airtime for their team sponsors.

After all, on a stage of this difficulty, trying to win from the breakaway on the final HC Level climb would undoubtedly be a tough ask to make it to the end.

For the first 120 KM, the terrain was relatively flat, and there was basically no major action between the peloton and the breakaway riders.