Favorites stage 12 Tour de France 2025 | Mon Dieu, the Pyrenees! The Tour returns to Pogacar’s Waterloo

Fasten your seatbelts, Thursday it’s time for the Pyrenees! The Tour de France heads into the mountains with a brutal climbing stage right out of the gate. And with the dreaded ascent to Hautacam as the final climb, fireworks are all but guaranteed. IDLProCycling.com tells you everything you need to know.

The fireworks begin on Thursday in Auch, where the peloton sets off southwest into the looming shadow of the Pyrenees. The high mountains will already be in view, but the first 90 kilometers are virtually flat. Then comes the first bump in the road: the Côte de Labatmale.

At just 1.3 kilometers with a 6.3% gradient, it's hardly a leg-breaker. But its placement is strategic. Just over three kilometers of descending leads straight into the intermediate sprint in Bénéjacq. Depending on who’s made the break, this could be the sprinters' final curtain call, because from here on out, it’s all about survival as the mountains loom.

By the time the riders reach Ferrières after 122 kilometers, the road will have been quietly dragging upward for quite a while. The Col du Soulor kicks off here: 11.8 kilometers at an average of 7.3%, with ramps well into double-digit gradients. It’s relentless. And once they’ve bombed down the descent, the Col des Bordères immediately punches back: a steady 3.1 kilometers at 7.7%, with just a slight easing before the summit.

Then it’s downhill, briefly, before the queen of the day rears her head: Hautacam. There's a small kicker in the descent, but what’s left of the bunch will waste no time getting to the beast. Tadej Pogacar knows this mountain all too well, it was his Waterloo moment. The final ascent is 13.5 kilometers long at an average gradient of 7.8%. It starts tough and only gets harder, with kilometers 8, 9, and 11 all averaging over 10%. This is where gaps will open, and where the GC battle could truly ignite.

Thursday’s weather forecast brings more summer sunshine to France! In the start town of Auch, temperatures are expected to hit around 32 degrees Celsius, and conditions will be similarly pleasant on the climbs. A light tailwind will assist the riders for most of the day, though it’s not expected to play a significant role in the finale.

If the first eleven stages have taught us anything, it’s that Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard are in a league of their own when the road tilts uphill. The stars of UAE Emirates-XRG and Visma | Lease a Bike are set to truly go head-to-head for the first time, after keeping their powder relatively dry on stage 10. The big question: how is the world champion feeling after his crash on Wednesday? One thing’s certain, Vingegaard has fond memories of this climb. Back in 2022, the Dane cracked Pogacar on Hautacam with the help of Wout van Aert.

Behind the top two, the battle for third, just like in the projected final podium, is shaping up to be a thrilling one. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) currently looks best positioned to take that spot, but don’t count out the Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe duo of Primoz Roglic and Florian Lipowitz. In stage 10 to Puy de Sancy, Matteo Jorgenson (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) actually climbed faster than Roglic on the final ascent, while Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) paid the price that day for a brutal opening week.

A bit further down the general classification, several riders will be hoping to claw back (a little bit of) time on the elite climbers, especially if the big two end up looking only at each other. This stage finally offers the kind of terrain where riders like Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X), Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Carlos Rodriguez (INEOS Grenadiers), Enric Mas (Movistar), and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) could truly come into play. Further back, though to a lesser extent, the same goes for Guillaume Martin (Groupama-FDJ) and Ben O'Connor (Jayco AlUla), who will be eager to limit losses or even spring a surprise.

But Thursday’s big question? How long can EF Education-EasyPost hold onto Ben Healy’s yellow jersey? The team will fight tooth and nail, but against the raw firepower of riders like Pogacar and Vingegaard, it may simply prove too tall a task.

Should the stage win, due to tactics or circumstance, go to the breakaway, then it’s the strong climbers in the escape group we’ll need to watch closely. Thymen Arensman (INEOS Grenadiers) came close on Monday, only to be outsprinted by Simon Yates (Visma | Lease a Bike). Also in that move was King of the Mountains leader Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), who could once again be on the hunt for KOM points on Thursday.

Other names to watch in the breakaway include Pablo Castrillo (Movistar), Michael Storer (Tudor), Joe Blackmore (Israel–Premier Tech), Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto Dstny), and Cristián Rodriguez (Arkéa-B&B Hotels). The first three were part of Monday’s escape, while the Belgian and the Spaniard haven’t quite shown themselves yet this Tour, though Thursday could be their moment.

Top favorites:Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike)
Outsiders:Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Matteo Jorgenson (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale)