Tour de France 2023: Roanne - Belleville-en-Beaujolais

 Today's stage was another hilly chaotic stage. A win occurring from the breakaway after an extremely fast start and some action by the yellow jersey contenders prior to the Alps. This would result in Cofidis second stage win this year and a second victory by a Basque rider.

Route Description: The twelth stage was from Roanne to Belleville-en-Beaujolais. This hilly stage rolled along  terrain in the Loire and Rhone river valleys. The stage included two category 3 climbs in the first half of the stage followed by some unrated hills before a big descent into the Rhone river valley. In the last 70 kilometers lied three category 2 climbs with the last one having a time bonus for the first ride over the top. From the top of the last climb 28 kilometers remained to the finish line.

Race Summary and Analysis:This stage featured a fast start over the hilly parcours. The pace was ridiculous with attacks and counter attacks not letting the break form. As part of the high speed start comboned with the narrow roads caused David De La Cruz (Astana). He would have to abandon due to his injuries. With 111 km to go Wilco Kilderman (Jumbo-Visma), Marc Soler (Marc Soler), and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) formed a break that was able to get a 10 second lead over the peloton containing the yellow and white jersey, but would be brought back to the peloton. At 100 kilometers to go Mads Pederson (Lidl-Trek), Dylan Teuns (Israel-Premiere Tech), and Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma) formed a break that got a 12 second lead over the peloton. Ion Izaguirre (Cofidis), Andrey Amador (EF Education EasyPost), and Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar) counter attacked to form a chase group to capture the Pederson, Teuns, and Benoot trio. At 89 km to go Adam Yates decided to attack from the reduced peloton. This prompted Jonas Vingegaard to react which pulled Tadej Pogacar to respond and ride his wheel. These attacks kept the breakaway attempts from gaining time on the peloton. It is important to note that the continued high speed of the start had dropped all the sprinters to be dropped very early on. The route was on many narrow roads and so during a section of road that was going uphill the Peloton split in two. The group that got separated from the main peloton included Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla), Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious), and Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma). The loss of Sepp Kuss from the front peloton was a significant blow to Jonas Vingegaard. Kuss is the last Jumbo-Visma rider on major climbing stages to provide the pace for Vingegaard, and this could potentially have been a problem for the yellow jersey. Several small groups of riders would jump out of the peloton to join the Pederson, Benoot, and Jorgenson trio. Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) decided he was going to leave the peloton behind and join this breakaway with 88 km to go. He sprinted to make up the 19 second gap. Sensing that the successful breakaway may be forming Julian Alaphillippe (Soudal-Quickstep) attacked from the peloton to go chase down the breakaway. With 85.4 km to go Jesper Stuyven attacked to make the breakaway. He would catch Julian Alaphillippe, and they would work together to catch up with the rest of the 13 man breakaway. Starting at 80 km to go the peloton let up their pace and the breakaway finally gets over one minute and then expands the time gap to two minutes. The breakaway would consist of Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), Andrey Amador (EF Education-EasyPost), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Guillaume Martin, Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), Ruben Guerreiro, Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar), Dylan Teuns (Israel-PremierTech), Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny), Tobias Halland Johanessen (Uno-X), Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies), Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-Quick Step) and Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek). At 66km to go four Ag2r-Citroen riders in the yellow jersey group, formerly called the peloton, which contained only about 43 riders started setting the pace. The motivations of the of the team were not very clear since the breakaway was unlikely to be caught with so many motivated riders motivated to win a stage. It turned out that by maintaining the time gap between the yellow jersey group and the king of the mountain group, containing Landa and Emmanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), would allow Felix Gall to climb up the general classification. The size of the breakaway meant that polka dot jersey points wouldn't be available.

With 50 km to go Andrey Amador and Mathieu Vanderpoel attack and gain 20 seconds on the remainder of the breakaway during the ascent of the first category 2 climb. At 48 km to go Mads Pederson could not keep up the pace of the breakaway and was dropped. A half a kilometer later Jesper Stuyven is also dropped. This destroyed the chances of Lidl-Trek winning the stage. The two Lidl-Trek riders would never be able to even chase back on during the descent. With 45.9 km Vanderpoel drops Amador and would crest the climb by himself. He raced on for kilometers trying to build a lead. At 32 km to go Thibaut Pinot and Matteo Jorgenson would catch Vanderpoel. An eight man group would form. Ion Izaguirre would ride away from this group with 31 km to go. The yellow jersey group and the group containing Kuss would finally merge. In the newly reformed peloton, Ineos-Grenadiers took the pace setting responsibilities to limit the time gap as Thibaut Pinot was jeopardizing Carlos Rodriguez's place in the general classification. Ion Izaguirre would solo the rest of the way to Belleville-en-Beaujolais. This is the second stage victory for Cofidis and a second stage victory for a Basque rider after a start in the Basque country.