The last mountain stage of the 2025 Tour de France ended with another victory by someone not named Tadej Pogačar, this time, Thymen Arensman took his second win of the race.

Tobias Halland Johannessen spent 2146 kilojoules over 2:09h at 16.56 kj/kg/h before La Plagne. With the GC group setting a relatively moderate pace, Thymen Arensman attacked early and got away, this time not as part of a breakaway. Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard did not concern themselves too much with the Dutchman, as he posed no threat in the general classification. The real battle was between Florian Lipowitz and Oscar Onley for third place and the best young rider’s jersey. Arensman found himself in a perfect situation, as Pogačar did not want to pull too hard as Vingegaard was on his wheel.

With Onley dropping 2 km from the finish and Lipowitz starting to pull hard, there was a moment where it seemed Arensman might get caught. But with Vingegaard and Pogačar unwilling to gift each other the stage by launching first, they effectively handed the win to Arensman. There were no major changes in the GC, except Johannessen gaining two places to move up to 6th, while Primož Roglič, who had spent all his energy in the breakaway, lost 12 minutes and slipped from 5th to 8th.

Results powered by FirstCycling.com

Arensman’s performance was actually of very high level, 6.38 ᵉW/kg for 45:30 min, and 6.73 ᵉW/kg normalized to sea level. In terms of pure watts, it was very close to Pogačar’s effort on Hautacam. However, that stage was affected by extreme heat, while today’s rainy conditions helped with cooling. Arensman was 16 seconds slower than Mark Padun on La Plagne in the 2021 Dauphiné, where the Ukrainian posted 6.21 ᵉW/kg for 45:14.

Tour de France Stage 18 included three long climbs and was a very hard stage overall for everyone, as Visma | Lease a Bike attempted to test Tadej Pogačar once again early in the race.

The pace was high throughout the day, with Col du Glandon being paced at 5.5 ᵉW/kg for 53 minutes including descents. On Col de la Madeleine, the pace was even higher, as Kevin Vauquelin was dropped early. With Sepp Kuss leading out, only Vingegaard and Pogačar could stay with the American, while Florian Lipowitz was the last to lose the wheel. Vingegaard attacked but could not drop the Slovenian, catching the breakaway and Matteo Jorgenson, who paced the group. Vingegaard and Pogačar climbed Madeleine in 54:38 with 6.02–6.03 ᵉW/kg. Lipowitz lost 30 seconds and did the exact same ᵉW/kg, as he was alone. The next group, with Onley, lost more than 2 minutes with around 5.80 ᵉW/kg.

Jan Ullrich’s 1998 Madeleine record was 52:44 with 6.47 ᵉW/kg. It was one of the most impressive long climbing performances and would not have been broken even if Vingegaard and Pogačar had gone full gas up the climb after Glandon, which was already taxing.

After Madeleine, no one wanted to pace and every major GC rider came back, with early breakaway riders Ben O’Connor, Einer Rubio, and Matteo Jorgenson attacking before Col de la Loze, as they were not dangerous in GC. Later, Florian Lipowitz attacked, trying to chase for the stage victory, which backfired as Picnic PostNL were pacing full gas for Onley, who had lost time on Madeleine but was much fresher than others who had pushed higher watts earlier. O’Connor soloed to his fourth Grand Tour victory, all of them coming from hard breakaways and long attacks. He did the highest performance on Col de la Loze with 5.53 ᵉW/kg for 69:22, as he did not draft as much as the GC riders.

As it was the easier side of Col de la Loze, Pogačar and Vingegaard could not get a significant gap, with Oscar Onley staying with the favourites, as he was more fresh, especially than Lipowitz, whose long-range attack for the stage win backfired. Lipowitz lost 1:39 min to Onley on Col de la Loze and is now only 22 seconds ahead of him in GC before the last mountain stage, with Primož Roglič not too far behind either. Pogačar was once again the fastest from the GC group but lost a mountain stage victory for the third time in a row to a breakaway winner in this Tour.

Results powered by FirstCycling.com

It was the hardest stage of the Tour so far, with several hard climbs and the finish up Superbagneres, first time used since 1989 Tour.

Oscar Onley before the final climb spent 4286 kilojoules for 4:22h at 16.98 kj/kg/h. The peloton did 5.5 ᵉW/Kg for 54 minutes on Col du Tourmalet, 5.7 ᵉW/Kg for 14 minutes on Col d’Aspin, and 5.7 ᵉW/Kg for 22 minutes on Col de Peyresourde. With them being at a higher altitude, it made the stage even harder. Remco Evenepoel, after feeling bad on the previous stage, dropped out of the race with Mattias Skjelmose, while Matteo Jorgenson lost 19 minutes.

It was one of the rare opportunities for breakaway riders to go for a stage win on a mountain day, as UAE Emirates did not have enough firepower to bring back Thymen Arensman, who had a 3 minute lead before Superbagneres. After an incredible performance yesterday, Tadej Pogačar also was not feeling great and did not attack, despite targeting every mountain stage, with Arensman winning the first stage for INEOS in the Tour de France in a while. Pogačar, in the 2024 Tour, in a similar case, caught Jorgenson on Isola 2000, doing one of the greatest climbing performances and burned the huge lead that the American had, but on Superbagneres he was missing his usual legs.

Results powered by FirstCycling.com

Felix Gall attacked early from the GC group and did the highest performance with 6.22 ᵉW/Kg for 33:08 min at a medium altitude. Jonas Vingegaard, who was pulling more than Pogačar but could not drop the Slovenian, did 6.17 ᵉW/Kg, while Pogačar saved his legs in the draft and was the fastest out of anyone with 6.13 ᵉW/Kg. Thymen Arensman, after a close call against Simon Yates on stage 10, did 5.94 ᵉW/Kg for 34:54 min. It was quite an impressive performance, as even Primož Roglič, who yesterday in a mountain time-trial generated an extremely high level performance after a hard stage the day before, produced a less impressive effort with less fatigue than Arensman, who was in an early breakaway.

It was the first hard mountain stage of the Giro d’Italia Women with a stage finish up the Pianezze Valdobbiadene (10.65 km, 7.54%) climb.

With the Women’s Tour de France two weeks away not all the favourites are here but still it is a very strong field with Marlen Reusser, who has been flying up steep climbs this year, Elisa Longo Borghini, Anna van der Breggen, Antonia Niedermaier, Lotte Kopecky, Lorena Wiebes and other strong riders.

Liane Lippert did a hard pull for her teammate Reusser early in the climb and reduced the group to a handful of the riders. The Swiss engine after Lippert’s job was done attacked to reduce the group to six riders but as no one wanted to work or cooperate, many riders came back forming a 13 rider group. In the last 3 kilometres Reusser attacked again but later Sarah Gigante surprised with a powerful acceleration riding away from everyone and powering to her biggest win in Europe, beating big stars Longo Borghini and Reusser by 25 seconds.

Results powered by FirstCycling.com

Gigante on Pianezze Valdobbiadene did 5.29 ᵉW/kg for 32:39, a very high-level performance after many years of suffering and health issues, the most recent being iliac artery surgery and skipping the Tour Down Under 2025. Her first race of the season was the Tour of Norway only one month ago. The climbing level was exceptional for everyone. Even Anna van der Breggen, who finished 13th with a time loss of 1:52 to Gigante, did 5.03 ᵉW/kg for 34:31. In her prime years, that might have been enough for a victory in the 2010s or even early 2020s, but with the performance levels increasing, especially among the top 10 to 50 climbers, it is not easy to get even a top 10 at a World Tour stage race.

German Continental team Bike AID climber Anton Schiffer took his first professional stage win, beating Matthew Riccitello and strong competition on Stage 3 of the Sibiu Tour.

It was the second consecutive climbing day in the Sibiu Cycling Tour, featuring the Păltiniș climb (8.75 km at 6.47%). Similar to the Balea Lac stage yesterday, the pace was high already in the first third of the ascent, with the group splitting and Matthew Riccitello attacking from the bottom. He was followed by Anton Schiffer and David De La Cruz, who was later dropped.

Riccitello did most of the work on the climb, as he was the race leader, while Schiffer — who had to switch bikes before the HC climb yesterday and crashed in the final 100 meters of Stage 2 — was looking to recover lost time. In the end, Schiffer launched a late sprint to win by 3 seconds, with Riccitello finishing second but extending his overall lead.

Results powered by FirstCycling.com

Riccitello produced the best performance with 6.78 ᵉW/kg for 19:31, while Schiffer did 6.63 ᵉW/kg, benefitting from more drafting. After dropping everyone except Harold Martin Lopez on a very high-kilojoule stage at the Tour of Hellas, not winning the 2024 Zwift Academy against Mattia Gaffuri and eventual winner Louis Kitzki, and performing well in other races despite some bad luck, Schiffer seems set to step up to professional level, after transitioning from triathlon a few years ago.