In its long history, Toulouse has seen kingdoms rise and fall. It grew as a military outpost of the Roman Empire in the early years of the first millennium before it was absorbed into the Visigothic kingdom, then the Frankish kingdom, before the formation of the Kingdom of France. The Pink City sits at a crossroads of cultures – it was at the northern edge of the Muslim expansion through Spain and into France in the 700s, or at the southern edge of Germanic expansion in the other direction. Toulouse saw the rise and fall of the Cathars. It is linked to the Mediterranean and the east by the Canal du Midi, and the Atlantic and the west by the Garonne river, which follows a gentle meander through the centre. The city has a keen sense of the alliances it has needed to build with cultures to the north, south, east and west, and it has chosen its friends wisely and strategically.
In the Tour de France, whose 11th stage of the 2025 event unfolded in the baked, lumpy terrain around Toulouse, temporary alliances are the underlying social contract that both binds and fractures the peloton. Just as sometimes happens in life, allies can be chosen, or, more likely, they are a function of circumstances. And on this occasion, on a stage which never settled down into a single shape, the composition of the groups and the alliances within defined an anarchic day of racing.
The most durable alliance of the day was that of stage winner Jonas Abrahamsen and Swiss champion Mauro Schmid, who were the first riders out of Toulouse at the départ réel, and the first riders back in at the finish. Abrahamsen, riding for Uno-X, attacked out of the neutral zone, Jayco-AlUla’s Schmid followed, and the pair were joined by XDS Astana rider Davide Ballerini. These three riders were perfectly happy with each other’s company, and while the race went crazy behind them, they rode on in what might have looked like blissful ignorance, but was actually not blissful, given the pace they had to maintain to keep their lead, and they were no doubt being kept informed of the fragility and narrowness of their lead, which hovered between 30 seconds and a minute for almost a hundred kilometres.
Things settle down in bike races when enough people are happy with, or resigned to, the status quo. However, behind the leading trio, attacks kept coming, and so stage 11 never settled down. And there were 60 kilometres of this before Fred Wright of Bahrain Victorious and Matthieu Burgaudeau of TotalEnergies stealthily bridged across, making a group of five at the front. This quintet was the perfect alliance for a stage like this. Several have form in long and successful breaks, which meant they had the firepower to stay away, while no one rider was significantly better than the rest at either climbing or sprinting, which made them equal partners in the enterprise. What’s more, none of the five teams represented had won a stage yet, and though the Tour is barely at its halfway point, at least six of the remaining days are in the high mountains, with one more day, in Valence, looking like a bunch sprint. Opportunities are already dwindling.
At 80 kilometres to go, the leading quintet had a lead of two minutes over the peloton. But more attacks came. At one point, 26 different riders were between the front group and the peloton, which itself split under the pressure, and even Jonas Vingegaard started driving. But while Groupama-FDJ tried hard to bridge to the front with two riders, another five-rider group emerged from the chaos, comprising Quinn Simmons, Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel, Arnaud De Lie and Axel Laurance, and this move stuck. And while the peloton finally chilled, this new alliance of riders made good their pursuit of the leading five. At 60 kilometres to go, they were 50 seconds behind. Ten kilometres later, the gap was 42 seconds. And at 45 to go, there were only 25 seconds between the groups.
The Simmons group worked well together to an extent, with the advantage over the lead five that there was even more firepower at their disposal. However, while Van Aert, Van der Poel and De Lie had every interest in the groups coming together and the finish coming down to a sprint, Simmons and Laurance were looking at fourth place at best. Turns were missed. Meanwhile, the front five had found even more common purpose in working together – none particularly wanted to come fourth behind (in no particular order) De Lie, Van Aert and Van der Poel. They rode cleverly and cohesively, pushing on whenever the gap got too tight, everybody taking their turns.
Quinn Simmons, who’d probably skipped the most turns in group two, attacked with 14 kilometres to go and temporarily dropped his companions, the alliance in that group definitively over. This catalysed the breakdown in cohesion in the front group – after 140 kilometres of harmonious co-operation, Abrahamsen attacked and pulled Schmid with him.
The first alliance of the day was identical to the final one. Abrahamsen and Schmid were not far enough ahead to start playing tactical games, and their minds were focused by a relentless pursuit by Mathieu van der Poel. With the Dutch rider gaining, they worked together all the way to the finishing sprint, where the ties that bound them for over 156 kilometres were finally loosened, and they turned on each other. No alliance in cycling lasts forever.
