After another day of putting the Tour de France peloton on red alert in the crosswinds, Visma-Lease a Bike and Jonas Vingegaard are ready to swap out their Classics stars and deploy the top climbers among their ranks on the first mountain stage of the race.
Eight days of brutally-fast action on flat, exposed and punchy roads have seen Visma use their big men to try and break up the racing and take time on their GC rivals, with mixed success.
Race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) has been up to the challenge, making the front echelon on stage 1 and winning stages 4 and 7 after Visma tried to light things up. But now, the race begins to head to the proper mountains, where Vingegaard will try to take back time on his main rival.
With eight climbs and 4,250 metres of elevation gain on offer throughout Monday's Bastille Day thriller to Le Mont Dore in the Massif Central, Vingegaard will look to use his peak shape, which is the best it's ever been, according to him.
Big gaps are what the Dutch team will be expecting to see at 17:30 local time tomorrow.
"I think for sure there will be GC action, on a very, very hard day," said Vingegaard at the team bus after stage 9. "It's a really hard course, up and down the whole day."
In what he describes as "the first real test outside the time trial," is he looking forward to it? "Yes," he said with a smile, with that ITT being his only bad day in this year's race, where he lost 1:05 to the Slovenian.
In the crossover of Visma's Classics riders and top climbers at the Tour is Matteo Jorgenson, who sits fifth and one place behind Vingegaard overall. He's ready for explosive action on the shorter but almost never-ending climbs on stage 10, and full of confidence.
"Tomorrow I expect that it will be a very key and decisive stage," Jorgenson told reporters before the start of stage 9."
"The first mountains we've seen in the Tour de France, which is always a big explosion. And we'll see big, big time gaps."
Jorgenson said between chipping away at the 1:17-lead the World Champion has versus trying to get it back in one fell swoop, Visma will try to use "a bit of both", as they "approach every single day as an opportunity".
The US rider knows from tomorrow that it will be time for him, Sepp Kuss and Giro d'Italia winner Simon Yates to step up and try and put Pogačar and his team under pressure on the climbs, looking to close out this extra-long first week with a bang.
"Today was good, we stayed out of trouble, didn't crash, and got through the day," said Jorgenson to Cyclingnews after warming down on the turbo and debriefing another attacking stage with his teammates at the team bus.
"It's good, I think we're changing teams tomorrow," he added with a laugh, "no, it will be nice having Sepp and Simon back on the front and taking it on in the mountains."
Crosswinds not strong enough to distance rivals
Having tried to light things up again as they did on the opening stage, Visma weren't as successful with the conditions never lining up perfectly enough to split things, meaning the likes of Vingegaard and Jorgenson were simply happy to get through the day.
"It was definitely windy today, but I think the wind was just not in the perfect direction, so it was never the perfect combination," said Vingegaard. "So we tried, others did as well, but we didn't succeed with it today."
Visma's Head of Racing Grischa Niermann also explained their attacking methods on the ninth day, even with a brutal stage coming on Monday, highlighting how they really are trying to maximise every moment possible to try and put Pogačar under pressure.
"For us, we had hoped with a little bit more wind in the final. We did try, but it wasn't windy enough. In the end, it was a bunch sprint, but it was a very hectic day today," said Niermann to reporters at the team bus.
"It was a real try, but we knew more or less that the wind was not strong enough, and Remco [Evenepoel] and Tadej [Pogačar] were always at the front.
"I think a good day, it's always a good one on a day like this when everybody comes in without crashing, and Jonas comes in with the same time as the winner – that was the most important thing of the day."
Stage 10 and climbing begins. Visma will surely bring the heat after making their intentions ever clearer with yet another crosswind attempt, but can they do any damage to Pogačar's lead on the road to Le Mont Dore?
The Tour de France is the biggest race in cycling, and a Cyclingnews subscription offers you unlimited access to our unrivalled coverage. Get all the breaking news and analysis from our team on the ground in France, plus the latest pro tech, live race reports, and a daily subscriber-only newsletter with exclusive insight into the action. Find out more.
