For a rider who had just fallen off the provisional podium at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, Demi Vollering cut a relaxed figure after stage six.
Beyond the finish line in Ambert, the Dutchwoman reached for a fan’s bottle, and signed it with a smile. She then laughed up at one of the locals, who bellowed down to her from the window of a house nearby.
The stage had been, compared to the previous days, an easier ride for the FDJ-SUEZ leader. Her day three crash now a memory, she finished alongside her GC rivals, with little to separate them over the climbs, and only bonus seconds bumping her down to fourth.
The gap to the yellow jersey, Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) has now stretched from 23 to 31 seconds. Just one saw the reigning champion Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) jump into third.
And still, despite the time losses, the race had panned out in the “perfect situation”, Vollering said.
“We didn't have to do anything, while AG [Insurance-Soudal] lost all their domestiques,” she said. “Our plan was to send Elise [Chabbey], or at least some of our team’s riders, ahead. That way, we could put pressure on the other teams to chase."
With UAE Team ADQ’s Maeva Squiban solo up the road, it was Le Court’s AG who took on the charge. The Mauritian’s plan for the day was to take all six bonus sprint seconds and the stage win, as she had done the day before. She settled for four seconds and third.
"I mean, in the end, you try to grab what you can grab,” Vollering said of the scrap for seconds. “But, yeah, Kim, I mean, she's so explosive, so I could not hold the wheel yesterday and today. I didn't want to totally kill myself, because the Tour is still long.
“If every time you go all out for these bonuses, you can maybe feel it a bit towards the end.”
It’s these bonus seconds, though, that have made the difference so far between a closely matched field. Without her 34, Le Court would be fourth overall; instead, she leads the race by 25 to Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike).
“I think the micro-accelerations can add up,” Le Court said afterwards, “but the seconds at the bonus sprints can also add up... For me it’s important to gain as many seconds as possible, because I don’t know how I’ll do in the big mountains stages.”
As the race now heads uphill, the GC gaps are expected to open up. Friday’s seventh stage will finish in Chambéry, a town placed at the gateway to the Alps. A weekend finale in the mountains will then follow. Come the finish line in Châtel on Sunday, Vollering’s 31-second deficit to yellow could well prove inconsequential.
“Everybody looks very good uphill, so I’m looking forward to the coming days to see what we can do in these kinds of finishes,” the Dutchwoman said.
But beware her rivals; Ferrand-Prévot is yet to be tested, Niewiadoma is racing with vim, and fifth-placed Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) is only seconds away. What about race leader Le Court? “I felt really, really good, better than I really expected. So no, no signs of weaknesses on my side so far,” the yellow jersey said.
The fighting talk is out. It’s time for the contenders to enter the Alpine ring.
