Favorites stage 16 Tour de France 2025 | This postcard moment is one Pogacar will want on his fridge

The riders face a 171-kilometer stage on Tuesday. It starts in Montpellier, where most of the peloton also spent their rest day on Monday. For Tour standards, both the start and finish are scheduled fairly early. The stage begins at 12:10 PM (locat time), with the finish expected around 4:44 PM.

Mont Ventoux is often referred to as the “Giant of Provence,” and for good reason, it towers above the surrounding landscape. Aside from the infamous “Bald Mountain,” the rest of the stage is relatively flat, which makes it tougher for pure climbers to sneak into the day’s breakaway.

There’s a good chance the intermediate sprint, set 112 kilometers into the stage, will bring a bit of excitement as well. From that point, it’s about forty kilometers to Bédoin, where, year-round, countless amateur cyclists begin their punishing ride to the weather station at the top of Mont Ventoux.

The climb will be tackled from the iconic side, including the well-known passage past Chalet Reynard. That means the riders face a brutal 15.7 kilometers at an average gradient of 8.8%, with the forested lower slopes dishing out several stretches close to 10%.

At Chalet Reynard, there’s a brief moment of relief with a kilometer at 5.5%, but it doesn’t last long. The riders soon emerge above the treeline and head toward the iconic steep final bend on the Ventoux, where gradients again climb well above 9%.

With a start in Montpellier, the riders will spend the entire day heading west toward Mont Ventoux, doing so in temperatures nearing 30 degrees Celsius. When it comes to Ventoux, the wind is always a factor, as it has disrupted many races in the past. But that won’t be the case on Tuesday, with only a light breeze expected, just force 1 on the Beaufort scale.

Yellow jersey Tadej Pogacar is a rider who knows his cycling history, so we can almost be certain he’ll want to win this stage on such an iconic climb as Mont Ventoux. Back in the 2021 Tour, the Slovenian from UAE Emirates-XRG was dropped by Jonas Vingegaard on the Ventoux stage won by Wout van Aert, but this time the situation looks different.

Ahead of Saturday’s mountain stage, Tim Wellens revealed that Pogacar left it up to his teammates, especially powerhouse Nils Politt, whether to chase the breakaway. But on Tuesday, we expect Pogacar to have his team control this relatively straightforward stage and then rake in a Ventoux postcard for the fridge.

Vingegaard already showed signs of improvement on Saturday by following Pogacar to Luchon, while other climbers like Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R) and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) lost time. For the overall excitement of the Tour, it would be great to see Vingegaard strike back.

The other classification leaders in the top ten will be mostly concerned with each other on Tuesday rather than the day's victory. Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL),  Ben Healy (EF), Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa - B&B Hotels) and Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X) seem to know their place in this Tour. 

Outside of Pogacar, the biggest opportunity might actually lie with the breakaway riders. Thymen Arensman (INEOS Grenadiers) proved on Saturday that there's still room for attackers though only if they’ve got serious climbing legs. Some potential candidates include Michael Storer (Tudor), polka dot jersey holder Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), Luke Plapp, Ben O'Connor (Jayco AlUla), Simon Yates, and Sepp Kuss (Visma | Lease a Bike).

Top favorite:Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates-XRG)