Check it out, y’all: Demi Vollering delivered one of women’s cycling’s great final-day reversals, and I, for one, am happy to have followed along. But that epic win isn’t all that’s in store in this Monday EuroTrash: Alex Baudin rode a solo masterclass to win the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes opener, while Ben Oliver and Modern Adventure Pro Cycling announced their European arrival with an overall victory at the Tour de Wallonie. Jordi Meeus sprinted to his fourth win of the season in Brussels, and Noah Hobbs claimed his first pro victory at Heistse Pijl. And: you’re still Tadej believers. Mostly.
TOP STORY
- Queen Demi Rallies for Historic Giro Triumph
RACE NEWS
- Baudin Breaks It Open in Dauphiné Opener
- Meeus Masters Mayhem in Brussels Cycling Classic
- Modern Adventure’s Oliver Conquers Wallonie in North American Coming-Out Party
TEAM, RIDER AND CYCLING NEWS
- Reader Poll Results: Tadej, Of Course — But Not As Overwhelmingly As Expected!
- Ayuso Looks to Reset at Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
- EF Partners with Somnus Lab for Sleep and Recovery
VIDEO
- Meet The PEZ Crew: Andy Rohrer – Gear Break Editor
Queen Demi Rallies for Historic Giro Triumph
As I stirred awake this morning, a thought came to mind: The first stage of the Dauphiné is on. (Still groggy, I couldn’t be expected to remember the race’s new name.)
In fact, the stage was over; a glance at the highlights revealed that Paul Seixas hadn’t made a statement, hadn’t thrown down any gauntlets; in fact, another Frenchman had stolen the victory, out of a break. (See below) A career-making win for Alex Baudin, and a season-saving one for his EF team, but not the possibly auspicious result I’d imagine.
So I then considered: the women’s Giro was likely over yesterday, when Demi Vollering failed to put enough time into Anna van der Breggen on the truncated queen stage, but I’d check in on the final stage.
Pulling up the Max broadcast, the image that appeared was Vollering…Alone. Not appearing to have been dropped. No van der Breggen in sight.
I backed up the feed until I found a frame with both Vollering and van der Breggen — the blue mountains jersey and the pink leader’s jersey, still together.
From there I watched as Vollering led up the day’s second significant climb, a second-category ascent that surely wouldn’t prove selective, not after Vollering failed to shake van der Breggen on far longer and sharper climbs. But then Vollering kicked out of a switchback, gained several meters in just a few pedal strokes — and was gone.
The drama persisted as Vollering crested, and then descended, and then caught the day’s breakaway, a powerful one that included Antonia Niedermaier, third in the GC standings, as well as Elisa Longo Borghini and Niamh Fisher-Black. When Niedermaier gestured to Vollering that she would work, the race was over.
At day’s end Vollering was wearing pink, Niedermaier had leapt over van der Breggen into second place in the General Classification, Longo Borghini had earned the stage win — and I was smiling…still in bed. With the victory, Vollering becomes only the second rider to win women’s racing’s three significant stage races, alongside Annemiek van Vleuten.
An entirely unexpected result, and a phenomenal race to wake up to.
General Classification Top Ten, 37th Giro d’Italia Women, courtesy of Pro Cycling Stats
RACE NEWS
Baudin Breaks It Open in Dauphiné Opener
Not that the first stage of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (There we go!) was disappointing: As much as I was wishing for some early GC action, I’ll take an audacious, surprising winner out of a break any day, and that’s what EF’s Alex Baudin delivered. No Seixas. No Del Toro.
Stage 1 of the newly rebranded one-week tour, traditionally the spotlight Tour de France warmup, kicked off in Vizille on Sunday with five categorized climbs packed into 140 kilometers. Climbing from the flag-drop had fans’ mouths watering: While Seixas wouldn’t face off with either Pogačar or Vingegaard, he would have this early chance to put down some more eye-popping numbers, and to make it clear that he, not del Toro, Onley or Ayuso, is the youngster to watch this season.
But the showdown will have to come later this week, as the day’s decisive move came on the Côte de Rousset, courtesy of Baudin, who had been part of a ten-man early break that gradually shed riders over a bruising day in the saddle. Wout van Aert and João Almeida had both been dropped early and never truly recovered, while GC names like Daniel Felipe Martínez and Tobias Halland Johannessen were also swept out the back door.
By the Rousset, just Baudin, George Bennett, and Clément Braz Afonso remained from the break. That’s when Baudin decided enough was enough. He lit the afterburners and rode clear with a panache that had the home crowd losing their minds, and he never looked back.
Visma-Lease a Bike drove the peloton hard, but it didn’t matter. Baudin crested the Rousset with over a minute in hand and simply didn’t yield. He rolled into Saint-Ismier with time to spare and arms aloft. Seixas, del Toro and most other GC contenders finished together, 45 seconds behind Baudin — with the exception of Oscar Onley, who sneaked away and now holds a 12-second margin over his rivals.
This Dauphiné — er…can we just call it the Auvergne? — still promises Tour-prognosticating excitement. But today offered its own brand of thrill, especially if your name is Alex Baudin. Or Charly Wegelius. Or Jonathan Vaughters.
Top Ten — Stage 1, Tour Auvergne-Rhône Alpes, courtesy of Pro Cycling Stats
Meeus Masters Mayhem in Brussels Cycling Classic
Jordi Meeus claimed his fourth victory of the season Sunday, outsprinting the field in a chaotic finale at the Brussels Cycling Classic. The Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe rider edged Milan Fretin at the line, with Biniam Girmay rounding out the podium in third. Frits Biesterbos and Arvid de Kleijn completed the top five.
The race, held without the sport’s biggest names (most of whom are preparing for the Tour de France) offered an opportunity for the next tier of talent. After a flat opening from Brussels, the route erupted over a triple loop featuring the iconic Muur van Geraardsbergen, the Bosberg, and the Congoberg, before returning to the capital for the finish.
An early five-man breakaway that included Casper Pedersen, Titouan Fontaine, and Sébastien Grignard animated the hilly section before being absorbed by a peloton intent on a bunch sprint. The final kilometers descended into chaos, with multiple crashes disrupting sprint trains and a flurry of attacks going nowhere.
Ultimately, it was teammate Danny van Poppel who set the table, launching a long lead-out that allowed Meeus to power clear and hold on for the win.
Modern Adventure’s Oliver Conquers Wallonia in North American Coming-Out Party
Wallonia may be the French-speaking region of cycling-mad Belgium, but its home tour was a North American coming-out party. George Hincapie’s Modern Adventure Pro Cycling team dominated the 2026 Ethias-Tour de Wallonie from start to finish, with New Zealander Ben Oliver winning three stages, including the decisive finale, to claim the overall title in the team’s debut European season.
The race’s dramatic closing days had all the ingredients of a classic Belgian thriller. On stage 4, American Riley Sheehan launched a solo attack with eight kilometers to go, only to be overhauled by Arnaud De Lie in a powerful last-gasp sprint in the final ten meters. Heartbreaking — but Sheehan’s second place was enough to put him in the orange leader’s jersey heading into the final day. He held a slender three-second advantage over Oliver and De Lie.
The closing stage came down to a mass sprint, but a major crash in the final corner opened the door for Oliver to claim the win and seize the overall lead. Sheehan, who crashed hard in the finale, ultimately finished second overall, just two seconds adrift, while De Lie rounded out the podium a further three seconds back.
Oliver’s three victories across the week mark the first European wins for Modern Adventure in the team’s first year of racing, a statement result from a North American outfit that arrived in Belgium largely under the radar and left with the trophy.
General Classification Top Ten — 47th Ethias-Tour de Wallonie, courtesy of Pro Cycling Stats
Joy and Anguish: EF’s Unforgettable Day at Heistse Pijl
There are days in cycling that defy easy summary, and Saturday’s Heylen Vastgoed Heistse Pijl was one of them for EF Education-EasyPost. Within the space of ten minutes, the American squad experienced the sport’s highest high and one of its most frightening lows.
The race concluded with a bunch sprint, won by Noah Hobbs ahead of Søren Wærenskjold and Milan Fretin. For the 21-year-old Englishman, it was his first career professional victory, but EF’s 340th all-time. On any other afternoon, the team bus would have been rocking.
But this was not any other afternoon.
EF were involved in several crashes in the finale, the last of which took down Mikkel Honoré. The 29-year-old Dane crashed hard and was still in intensive care the day after. He is stable, but the injuries are severe: seven broken ribs, three fractured vertebrae, a broken collarbone, and a collapsed lung.
Team director Ken Vanmarcke summed up the impossible emotional arithmetic with quiet understatement: “Ten minutes later, we win the Heistse Pijl with our young talent Noah Hobbs. You can’t really celebrate wildly when someone is writhing in pain.”
And so EF’s victory salute was muted before it began. Hobbs’s breakthrough, the kind of result that can define a young career, deserves to be celebrated, and in time it will be. But right now, the only thing that matters inside the EF camp is the man in the hospital bed. Honoré is stable. The road back will be long. The peloton holds its breath.
TEAM, RIDER AND CYCLING NEWS
Reader Poll Results: Tadej, Of Course — But Not As Overwhelmingly As Expected!
Honestly I thought it would be even more of a landslide.
Sure, a full two-thirds of you predicted that Tadej Pogačar would win this year’s Tour de France. That kind of majority is unheard of in, say, American politics these days.
But the remaining 33% of you believe someone else will win — and most of you seem rather convinced by Jonas Vingegaard’s recent Giro win. You leaned towards experience: Jonas received nearly four times as much support as young Paul Seixas, who received just a few votes.
One of whom was me.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
Ayuso Looks to Reset at Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
The Tour de France starts in less than a month, which means that the iconic preparation races, Critérium du Dauphiné and the Tour de Suisse, are just around the corner.
Now presents an opportunity, then, to start learning the Dauphiné’s new name: Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Or maybe not. Maybe we just name-boycott. I still call it the Sears Tower, after all.
Regardless of its name, one rider is very keen to put his wheel on the start line in Vizille: Juan Ayuso.
After a turbulent start to 2026, the Spanish rider is back. Three weeks of altitude work in Sierra Nevada have given the Lidl-Trek leader the reset he needed following a season that delivered both highs and heartbreak: victory at the Volta ao Algarve, a crash at Paris-Nice, and illness forcing him out of the Tour of the Basque Country.
Now, nearly two months after his last race, the 23-year-old is ready to pin on a number again at the Tour Auvergne Rhône-Alpes. “My 2026 season has been a mix,” Ayuso acknowledged. “These couple of months without racing have given me the opportunity to really reset and I’m looking forward to getting going again.”
The French stage race doubles as a dress rehearsal for July, with two stages of particular interest: the team time trial in Perreux – a format that will open the Tour de France in Barcelona – and the summit finish atop Plateau de Solaison, a climb that will also feature in the Grande Boucle. Ayuso is clear-eyed about the opportunity, saying he hopes “to be a key animator for the GC battle.”
The race also pits him against fellow young guns Paul Seixas and Isaac del Toro, adding extra spice to what shapes up as a serious preview of the summer’s main event.
For Ayuso, the coming-of-age season is back on track. Regardless of what we call it.
Ayuso finished Stage 1 in a group with most of the other GC favorites.
EF Partners with Somnus Lab for Sleep and Recovery
Here’s some news you can maybe use: EF Pro Cycling has teamed up with Swedish sleep technology company Somnus Lab to optimize athlete recovery across its men’s, women’s, and development squads. Custom Somnus race units — water-based temperature-regulating sleep pads — will be deployed at major races including the Tour de France, Vuelta a España, and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
The partnership centers on a simple premise: consistent, high-quality sleep is a performance variable. Racing life makes that hard to achieve, with changing hotels, climates, and time zones disrupting recovery night after night.
“Sleep is when the body’s recovery processes are at their strongest,” said performance director Nate Wilson. “Somnus Lab allows us to have consistency and a strong impact on maintaining optimal body temperature overnight.”
Richard Carapaz and world champion Magdeleine Vallières have both praised the technology, with Vallières noting she wakes up less during the night and feels more recovered in the morning.
Beyond race use, EF Pro Cycling’s sports science team will contribute technical feedback to support Somnus Lab’s ongoing R&D — making it a genuine two-way collaboration, not just a kit deal.
Mike’s note: But will riders refuse to run the AC, believing it makes you sick — like in the good old days?
British Cycling’s Social Impact Day Returns for Second Year
British Cycling marked Volunteers’ Week with its second annual Social Impact Day on 3 June, sending 42 riders and 230 staff to volunteer at 37 community organisations across the UK — from Manchester Bike Kitchen to Plastic Free Communities in Saltburn-by-Sea.
Social impact is a core pillar of British Cycling’s four-year strategy, and the day also celebrated the first anniversary of the British Cycling Foundation. Over the past 12 months, 62% of GB Cycling Team riders have engaged in social impact activities, completing 180 projects and reaching over 700 individuals nationwide. Six riders have also been trained as mental health first aiders through a Movember partnership.
A highlight was the return to Chorlton Park Primary School’s Bike Train, where over 75 students rode with Olympic champion Sophie Capewell. The school had identified a gap in its Bikeability program — some children, particularly from diverse backgrounds, hadn’t learned to ride — and partnered with a British Cycling coach to fix it.
Foundation Managing Director Tracy Power called the day “incredibly inspiring,” adding that social impact delivery is now embedded across everything British Cycling does, including the upcoming Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes Grand Départs.
PEZ VIDEO
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