Tour de France 2023: Moutiers - Bourg-en-Bresse

 Kasper Asgreen would finally have the stage winning success that had so far eluded Soudal-Quickstep in a breakaway on a flat stage. We were reminded that the breakaway can still win on a flat stage, and upset the formula of how flat stages typically go down. The sprinters missed out on an opportunity for likely their last stage win before Paris.

Route Description: The 18th stage was from Moutiers to Bourg-en-Bresse over 184.9 km. The stage started in the valley at the foot of the Col de la Loze climb used the previous day. The course then snaked its way along the valley floor to leave the Alps behind.On the route were two category 4 climbs followed by the mid race sprint was located 132.9 km into the stage. The remainder of the stage was relatively flat and nearly perfect for a sprint finish.

Race Summary and Analysis:This stage started with 152 riders leaving Moutiers. Notably Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) did not start the stage. The early breakaway would be formed by Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-Quickstep), Victor Campaneaerts (Lotto-Dstny), and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X). They would get a maximum lead of one minute 48 seconds, but for the majority of the stage their lead would be at around one mnute or less. The teams with sprinters still in the race set the pace in the peloton to be able to reel in the break. Jayco-AlUla, Alpecin-Deucinck, and DSM-Firmenich each had riders at the front of the peloton focused on managing the break. With 65km to go the break had only about a 24 second gap when Pascal Eenkhorm (Lotto-Dstny) attacked from the peloton. Campanaerts would drop back to his teammate and they would work together to regroup with Asgreen and Abrahamsen. The break would have a 40 second with 20 km to go and a 20 second lead with 10km left in the stage. The sprint teams usually want to capture the breakaway between 20 and 10 km to go. The ideal situation for these teams is to capture the breakaway closer to 10 km so that way they don't have to worry as much about counterattacks. The later the catch is made in a stage, particularly inside 10 km, reduces the amount of time that the sprinters can line up their lead out trains. The chaos involved with the breakaway being caught in the final 3 kilometers sometimes results in unexpected stage winners. The breakaway had a lead of less than 10 seconds with 3 km to go. The usual rule of thumb is that a breakaway should lose one minute per kilometer to the peloton in the final 10 km of a flat stage. The breakaway at this point should have been still cuaght seeing as the peoloton could probably visually see the four leaders. The peloton would miss out on making the catch of the breakaway as they finally caught the tail end of the leading quartet at the finish line. Instead the breakaway riders would contest the stage win and Kasper Asgreen would finally break the drought for Soudal-Quickstep. This team had no luck with Fabio Jakobsen before he abandoned, and had sent Asgreen and Alaphilliippe in multiple day long breakaways to come up empty handed. Jasper Phillipsen (Alpecin-Deucinck), wearer of the green jersey, would finish fourth.