What Pogacar Is To Climbing I Am To Pie
A mountain stage can feel like a slow burn until it suddenly becomes a wildfire, and Stage 6 in the Pyrenees is exactly that. We are Michael and Adam, and we come in hot on the first true summit showdown of this Tour de France, where the numbers alone sound unreal: 186.2 kilometers, 4,100 meters of climbing, and oppressive summer heat that forces every team to ration matches. If you’ve ever looked at your own ride stats and wondered how pros do it day after day, this recap puts the effort into perspective fast.
From there, we get into the moment that turns the race: Tadej Pogacar attacking early on the Col du Tourmalet. We talk through how the move develops with Del Toro in the mix, why the timing is so shocking, and what it means when a top contender like Jonas Vingegaard can ride well and still lose time. This is Tour de France tactics at full speed: team control, pacing, and the ruthless math of the general classification when the elastic finally snaps.
And then there’s the part that made us both wince at the screen: the descent. The footage of the cars flying downhill only hints at what the riders are doing, and we unpack why “just going down” is one of the most technical skills in cycling, especially when speeds creep toward the 70 mph range. We also cover the day’s toughest news, as a crash takes the previous stage winner out of the race on concussion protocol, a reminder that the Tour can change in a blink.
We wrap with a clean jerseys update (yellow, green, KOM polka dot, and white), a quick look at the flatter Stage 7, plus listener moments from the roadside in the Pyrenees and a fun detour into which countries make up the peloton. If you like Tour de France analysis, mountain stage recaps, and cycling culture with real stakes, hit play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave us a review. What was the boldest move you saw on Stage 6?
Adam and Michael’s friendship has grown through years of shared miles, challenges, and laughter on the bike. Their passion for cycling has carried them through life’s twists and turns, creating a bond full of stories, jokes, and unforgettable rides. In their podcast, they bring that same spirit to the mic—sharing adventures, trading banter, and welcoming listeners into their cycling community. Whether tackling steep climbs or cruising open roads, their conversations capture the fun, friendship, and freedom that cycling brings. Tune in for stories that celebrate the ride and the camaraderie that makes it unforgettable.
and Remember,
It's a Great Day for a Bike Ride!
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1 SPEAKER_00: All right, welcome back to Cycling Men of Leisure's
Leisure Breakaway.
Today we're talking about stage six of the tour, which took us
into the mountains for the first real showdown of this year's
race.
And it definitely did not disappoint.
We got the big moments, the surprises, and everything you
need to know from the unforgettable day in the
Pyrenees.
I'm Michael, and as always, my best friend across the internet
up in Michigan, Adam.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I have an announcement.
I actually was able to watch a little bit of it at work today.
I'm excited.
I got I I got something cool to talk about.
But I thought you'd been watching it the whole time.
I can't watch at work.
They got me locked down.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I work for the government, right?
Uh, it's called a cell phone.
It's in your pocket.
You pull it out and you watch.
True.
Uh, and uh okay.
Now hold on.
I thought you ran the show over there.
Apparently I'm wrong.
SPEAKER_01: That's the problem.
They got me locked down.
All kidding aside, uh, once Tour de France accepted us, accepted
Road Adventure The Cycling Man of Leisure to be able to share,
it opened up a thread.
Uh, and I'm really hoping nobody from work is listening to this.
And I was able to watch.
And let me just tell you, I don't want to steal your thunder
because I know this is a great project, and you are taking the
lead on this one, which I'm which I'm enjoying sitting back
watching the fruits of your labor.
But let me just say, we have some beautiful, wonderful
friends in Georgia.
You and I went close to 40 miles an hour, but 107 kilometers an
hour, or what is 63 miles an hour?
Holy.
But, anyways, I don't want to steal your thunder, but let me
just tell you, watching that chain going up and down like
that.
Ho ho ho ho ho ho not me, must have no no.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
I totally agree with you.
That was just insane.
Uh, today was an interesting day.
They started out in Po.
Uh, they finished in Gavani, uh, a distance of 186.2 kilometers,
which for us Americans, that's 115.7 miles.
They gained 4,100 meters, and this is what blows my mind.
That's 13,450 feet.
SPEAKER_01: And they did that in one day.
And when you and I do like rag or rag brae, or I guess that's
about it.
But we do that in a week.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or we do 4,100 feet in a in a day.
Right.
Not meters, just feet.
Right.
So, yeah, it's crazy.
Um especially when you think about Pikes Peak, 14,115 feet.
So they almost went all the way up Pikes Peak today.
Wow.
I mean, as far as climb.
Clearly, they were going up or some probably steeper things
than that.
But anyway, this was a high mountain summer summit finish.
The average temperature, uh, 33 degrees Celsius.
That's 91 degrees Fahrenheit.
Very hot conditions again today.
I mean, this weather is not giving them any breaks.
Um was a very interesting uh stage.
Uh as you know, the big stage winner was Toddy.
Um, or maybe you didn't know.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how much you saw, but I uh I I
searched when I got home for a nice summary.
SPEAKER_00: He it was incredible.
He attacked on the Code do Kodu Tormelay, um, which was the big
mountain today.
Uh it blew everybody's mind.
He was like five uh kilometers from the top, and him and del
Toro, well, Del Toro took off, actually.
Uh Toddy got right in behind him because right as they start
breaking away, Del Toro looks behind to make sure that that
Toddy is right behind him.
Uh and they just attacked, and no one was expecting an attack
that far from the top.
And Del Toro and I mean, just pulled him up the hill.
Not that he wasn't cycling, but together, uh, just blew
everybody away.
And then coming down, Toddy produced one of the fastest
ascents ever recorded on this climb, and I think it was like
74 miles an hour.
That's just nuts.
Now, you and I have talked about it.
There has been a couple of rides downhill where we've managed to
get in the high 40s, close to 50, if I remember correctly.
I think you're absolutely correct.
And those couple of times, very few, but those couple of times,
I know me, I won't speak for you, I was holding on, I'm
scanning the road for any little teeny pebble, because I'm like,
you know what?
At this speed, say at 47, 48 miles per hour, at this speed, I
hit just something, little teeny thing wrong.
I it, you know, I'm fracturing two clavicles and probably
getting a nice uh couple weeks in the hospital.
Um, it's scary.
I cannot imagine going 70 miles an hour on a bicycle.
And when I look at the mountains in the hills that we've done,
mountains in Georgia, hills in Iowa, I go, you know, you go
off, you're gonna tumble a ways, but you know, there will be a
cornfield or something.
There is some of these things where it's literally almost
straight down, and the only thing that's gonna stop you is
the road as it hooks back around, uh, you know, 100 and
100 150 yards down, basically straight.
So hats off to those guys.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you something.
When we did that in Georgia, uh, I believe it was the year we had
43 team members.
And forgive me, I don't know exactly where I should have been
prepared before the show.
I could have gone on Strava and found it.
But all I know is my wife would be at home and she said um uh
she would watch the rides.
And of course, what did Strava do?
It said top speed, I think it was 43, 44.
I don't want to be dishonest.
I'm not sure what it what it was, but all I know is I got a
call and it said, Hey, when you're not around your friends,
give me a call.
Now, I don't know about your marriage, but I'm willing to be
honest.
Not a good thing.
No, never.
If your wife ever says, Call me when you're not around your
friends, right away it's like, uh oh.
You know what my answer is?
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, all my friends are here, can't break
away.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that would be that would have been smarter.
So we went to town that night.
We went out to dinner, and I said, Hey, I'm gonna step
outside and call my wife.
And you said, Okay, no problem.
And I called her and she said, What were you doing?
I said, What do you mean?
And she said, What do you think's gonna happen to you with
a little plastic helmet on and a stupid de brim on your head at
43 miles an hour or whatever it was?
And I said, Oh, honey, I was being safe.
And and and she said, Oh, yeah, and what about a blowout?
I don't want to tell her, but that's what I was thinking the
whole way down.
Please don't blow out, please don't blow up, anyways.
Watching that today, what happened was is I had it.
I have you've you've been in my office before.
I have um double monitors, and then I have a third one on my
right.
And on so my employees wouldn't come in and be like, the guy's
only sitting there watching bike racing.
I put it on the monitor where my employees couldn't see, and so I
was kind of working on a project, and I looked up and all
I saw was uh the uh chase car.
What do they call the cars?
The mechanic car?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, mechanics car.
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
107 kilometers or whatever.
And and I'm like, why are they showing that?
And then the camera went up, and I was like, Oh my gosh.
So that's crazy, man.
Crazy, crazy, crazy.
SPEAKER_00: But it was it was incredible.
I mean, you just see the technical skill, and you think
going down the the hill, it's like, well, there's nothing
technical about no, that is very technical, and at those speeds,
it is extremely technical.
Yeah, fantastic job.
But uh UAE Team Emirates basically controlled uh the race
before uh Toddy launched his just basic blowout decisive
move.
Uh Vindigo rode a strong race, but man, let me tell you, he
just could not keep up.
Um, but it this this stage really created the first uh
major time gaps among the overall contenders and kind of
reshaped the general classification.
I do have the saddest news of the day.
The uh the winner of yesterday's uh stage, uh Tor Stein Treen, uh
won the stage yesterday, uh, was going down uh the mountain
today, and he had a rider in front of him, and it was
actually on his own team, and they touched wheels, he went
down, and he is now out of the race.
Um not pass the concussion protocols, and even if he would
have, he had several cracked ribs, so he had to leave the
tour, and that's really sad because after yesterday's ride,
uh they were talking some really, really big things about
him and and some potential, and then to get taken out um of just
something as minor as touching, you know, a teammate's wheels is
is horrible.
The good news is he goes home a stage winner, so there's uh
there's something.
Something that uh I'll never be able to say.
Uh well, you can say it all you want.
I I don't care.
It's not true, but you can say it all you want.
Anyway, the jerseys uh wrap up as follows.
Yellow, uh Toddy is up in the yellow.
Green goes uh to uh Patterson.
The KOM also goes to Toddy, but Toddy will be wearing his yellow
jersey tomorrow.
So I'm going to guess that uh Jonas Vindigo will be wearing
the polka dot jersey and then the white, obviously, Del Toro
with his breakaway with his team captain will be wearing white
tomorrow.
So Toddy Bagaca is uh the big winner today, and pretty much
everything everybody is talking about.
So uh overall, the lead team is Lionel Trek.
They are the ones that are on top.
And tomorrow looks like uh it will be another interesting, uh,
interesting ride.
175 miles or kilometers, excuse me.
Only going to be going up about a thousand meters.
Uh, so the profile is going to be relatively flat, so it's
gonna be more of a of a sprinter's uh day tomorrow.
So we'll see.
So what do you got for us?
SPEAKER_01: Our good teammate, one of the original cycling
women of leisure, and our friend Mandy, um, she reached out to me
this morning and she sent me some pictures.
Um, and she in July 20th, in 2022, was able to see Quinn
Simmons um ride by, and she was holding an American flag up by
the Pyrenees, and he looked over and gave him a nod.
And she's got some very close pictures.
Wow.
Uh, she said it was a great stage to be there for, and Toddy
and Jonas battled it out on the climb.
Uh, and she was in Paris for the final stage as well, and for the
first stage of the women's tour, as they started the women and
the men finished.
Um, it was the women's first tour after 20-plus year hiatus,
and that's why they started them the same day as the finish.
So there was a huge crowd.
So, Mandy, thank you so much for reaching out to us and sending
the pictures.
It was really sweet.
Um, I'll have to send them to you, Michael.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's that's really cool.
There's so few American cyclists that it's that it's neat when
one of them does well or you've got a cool story about him.
Uh, we're just not a big cycling country, not like Europe and all
of those places over there.
But you never know.
That could change.
SPEAKER_01: And I, sir, I made a uh I made a promise to you that
I would look up your nationalities.
And uh while we're recording here, I have sent you two
pictures that Mandy shared with me.
Um, but you asked for don't look nationalities.
So I have the original start of 184 writers, I have the
breakdown of country, the percentage, um, and would you
like to give us a guess of the number one country who produced
the most writers for the 2026 Tour de France?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
Now, just to caveat that you have not told me any
information.
I have not done any research.
SPEAKER_01: I have not.
Um you have not, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00: You've taken these results and buried them in your
back in a phonetic or a uh a sealed jar in your backyard.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I printed them off about 14 minutes ago, and uh
I've spent ow oh sec seconds.
SPEAKER_00: The old Carson thing where you do the uh the great uh
whatever the guy's name or whatever.
All right, I am going to guess I am going my first guess will be
not like I've got multiple guesses, but I'm I think I've
gotta go with probably one of the Norwegian countries.
Uh it's either going to be France or the Netherlands.
Final guess?
Final guess.
Or I could phone a friend.
I I got this buddy Adam that might know.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's not fair.
I've got the answers in front of me.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's final guess.
SPEAKER_01: Can you see now that I've moved my seat, the board?
This one is a and don't take my answers wrong.
This one is an applause, and this one is a trombone.
Go ahead and put go ahead and hit the trombone.
Ladies and gentlemen, the country providing the most
amount of riders to the 2026 Tour de France is Belgium.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I was so I was gonna say Bel it was between
Belgium and the Netherlands.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, but you were so close because Belgium
was 31 riders at 16.8 percent, and in your defense, France was
30 riders at 16.3 percent, and then the Netherlands was next at
17 percent.
Um then we jumped down in uh Italy and Germany both have 12,
Spain and Austria, Australia have 11, and then we get into
single digits.
Uh Norway eight, Denmark seven, Great Britain seven, United
States six, um Colombia five, Switzerland four, Slovenia
three, Czech Republic three, and then uh Austria, Ecuador, uh
Latvia, New Zealand and Poland two each, and then Mexico.
Oh yeah, then we go on one each.
So twenty-seven national nations total.
Uh the sole Mexican is uh del Toro.
SPEAKER_00: Del Toro.
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
And uh then yeah, there we go.
SPEAKER_00: So so the top three, give me the top three again.
Yes, sir.
Belgium, France, and Netherlands.
Okay.
I'm a little disappointed in, you know.
Where's where's I mean, I you told me like where's
Switzerland?
Switzerland and Germany.
You'd think Swi the the Swiss and Germany and those, you'd
think that they would have big contingents.
Um but okay.
SPEAKER_01: Well, sir, that is the homework for the night.
Uh we do have one more piece.
Uh, our good friend Wade Paul, I mentioned that he's been writing
in uh a lot.
And thank you, sir.
He wanted to clarify something, but he also has something really
funny, so I couldn't hold back.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: He said he wanted, he said he understood other.
So last night we talked about the points, and he said he
understood that.
He said my question about the jerseys is um, do they time
every writer individually?
Is every rider given a time throughout those climbing gates,
or do they give the Peloton the same uh speed?
SPEAKER_00: As I understand it, basically um there's gonna be
like four, five, six, whatever they determine is like the point
riders, meaning that on the KOM, if you go through that gate and
you're one of those top four, five, six riders, they have a
designated number of points.
You will say you're through you're the third rider through
on the king of the mountain at that particular point, and say
that's four points, you get four points.
Uh, once those that number of riders goes through, at that
point it doesn't matter.
Okay.
No more points left to give out.
It's just like the intermediate uh intermediate sprints and
things like that.
They say, you know, we're gonna, you know, top three riders are
gonna get, you know, points, and uh they race it out, and those
top three riders get the points, and then after that, there's
there's no points to give, so they don't worry about it.
So it's they don't worry about like you know, all the other
people there.
They're just looking basically they're looking at the places,
and they determine, yeah, we've got three places or four places
or five places or ten places.
Wherever the points are, once those points are gone, then you
move on.
Okay.
So the the Peloton itself would not receive anything on a king
of a mountain, it would just be the the lead people that that
make it through that gate.
SPEAKER_01: Well, he wants to finish with a comment, and I
could not hold back.
He said, Toddy is a beast, and he says reminds me of myself on
Ragbry.
What Toddy is to climbing, I am to pie eating.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, hats off to you.
Absolutely.
But you're in Iowa.
Come on.
SPEAKER_01: Well, listen, uh, I might be a little bit selfish,
but I hope he's in southern Iowa because the pie in southern Iowa
is is oh, there is a difference.
SPEAKER_00: The northern Iowa pie is not as good as a southern
pie.
And I've got reasons for, I mean, I I've got theories about
that, but okay.
We we won't go into my uh Iowa pie theory on on this episode,
but maybe we'll we'll touch on that later.
SPEAKER_01: So tell us about stage seven.
We're trying to keep these a little bit shorter.
SPEAKER_00: So uh stage seven is like I said, pretty much a flat
stage, 175 kilometers, and um not any climb.
So it's it'll be flat.
You'll be going through a lot of you know farm country and that
type of stuff.
So hopefully we'll uh maybe tomorrow get to see some cool um
field art because it's always interesting.
SPEAKER_01: So we'll see.
As always, thank you so much, sir, and we will look forward to
seeing you tomorrow.
Until tomorrow.
SPEAKER_04: Welcome to the