Visma-Lease a Bike expert climber Sepp Kuss says he is expecting leader Jonas Vingegaard to be firing on all cylinders in the third week of this year's Tour de France when the race hits the Alps and Jura mountains.
The 2023 Vuelta a España winner is riding his regular Tour climbing support role for Vingegard, and he expects that from stage 10, when the race hits the Massif Central, he'll be in the thick of the action.
For now, on the flatter stages of northern France, his job is mainly behind-the-scenes, Kuss told Spanish newspaper AS on Friday, bringing bidons to teammates and helping out where he can.
But that'll change as quickly as Monday's stage 10, the 30-year-old American said, with its 4,450 metres of elevation gain and cat. 2 summit finish on Mont Dore.
"I'm doing very well, in the Dauphiné I took another step up in my preparation which was very useful," Kuss told AS.
"My main job's in the mountains, as in the early stages it's difficult for me to be up towards the front, so my work was more internal, being as far up there as I could be."
Kuss, just like all of Visma-Lease a Bike, is convinced that Vingegaard can get back on terms with arch-rival and lead favourite Tadej Pogačar after a rollercoaster first week, which started brilliantly for Visma with their crosswinds success on stage 1, but then fell apart a little in the stage 5 time trial.
Vingegaard is currently 1:13 down on Pogačar, but "this is a three-week race," Kuss reasoned. "It's very different to what we saw in the Dauphiné," where Pogačar resoundingly beat the Dane.
"Those 'marathon' Alps will be a real endurance test, and that's where we think Jonas can make a difference. If one rider is stronger than another, then those strategies aren't so important, but we have to use our strength as a team, too."
One of Kuss' personal records ended earlier this year, when for the first time since he raced a Grand Tour, Visma-Lease a Bike won a three-week stage race without him being on the roster. Up until Simon Yates' victory in the Giro d'Italia, be it Vingegaard, Primož Roglič or Kuss himself, the climber from Durango has always been present.
"I was very envious [of my teammates]," Kuss said with a grin about the end of his stretch of Grand Tour participations resulting in team wins, "I was following the race from home very closely."
But in the 2025 Tour de France, in any case, the Colorado racer will likely have a good chance to start a new run of Grand Tour victory participations, once again.
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