Tadej Pogačar hands over the lead in the Dauphiné to Jonathan Milan.

Before the audience, static, the athletes quickly showcase their talent and youthful fleetingness, and of them, replaced by younger ones, nothing will remain but memories, perhaps some numbers, and a few remarkable feats that only the most passionate will recall. Towards this oblivion, Romain Bardet accelerates on the final slope of the day, the one at Nonette, 20 kilometers from the finish line. The peloton, led by Vingegaard and Pogačar, grants him the stage for a small 10-kilometer performance that drives the devoted fans wild, it’s their homeland, before the greedy sprinter teams take control. With just six days left in his career, Bardet will be in his hometown, Brioude, with the volcanic air of the nearby Puy de Dôme, from where the third stage of the Dauphiné will start, following Italian Jonathan Milan’s sprint victory in Issoire, in the volcanic park where Pello Bilbao won in a breakaway during the 2023 Tour.

Milan takes the yellow jersey from Tadej Pogačar, the monster of the times, the last competitor Bardet encounters at age 34, who began racing the Tour during the eras of Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana and, like his contemporary Thibaut Pinot, already retired, fell victim to the French urge to find a cyclist who could win the Tour, with 40 years having passed since the last French victory, by the badger Bernard Hinault in 1985. Bardet succumbed to the national dream, making it his own until the pain and frustration of failing to achieve it became unbearable. He finished second in 2016 and third in 2017, and then he said enough. He rejected embodying the wishes of others, reclaimed his dreams, and found joy in cycling for its own sake, fighting and occasionally winning. He left a French team, returned to being the young cyclist he once was, and stopped worrying about the consequences of his decisions.

He fell, as always, but returned to descend as he did when he was young, seemingly reckless as a skier, and, like Charly Mottet, a cyclist from 45 years ago in Hinault’s shadow, he won, a pure climber, an adventurer in breakaways, with occasional victories, such as a stage in the Villuercas of Zurbarán in 2023, and finally received the blessing of the Tour with a yellow jersey in Rimini at the end of the first stage of the previous edition. Thus, not out of disdain but out of love, the PicNic rider planned to bid farewell to cycling in the Dauphiné, a race more suited to his style and taste, rather than in the Tour, with which he had already found peace. “With the Tour, emotions are a rollercoaster for three weeks, and like all rollercoasters, it ends with a fall into the abyss,” Bardet says in an interview published by the race. “The Dauphiné has always been more consistent for me.”

“It’s time to finally unpack the suitcase. It has always been ready, prepared for the next trip. But this time I will truly empty it and store it away,” continues the French cyclist. “I’m ready to stop organizing my days around training and start living. From now on, a satisfactory day won’t depend on what I plan to do in the next race.”

And while Bardet reflects on life, Pogačar, as a cyclist, talks about the next day, about the suitcase he always has ready, for the Tour. “I won’t move, I’ll go where the peloton takes me, and I don’t care if I lose the yellow jersey,” he announces before heading to Issoire. “I only need to be in yellow in Paris on the last day of July.” The Slovenian, who praises Jonas Vingegaard’s daring offensive on Sunday, anticipates there will be a sprint, as do Mathieu van der Poel, with his wrist still affected and slightly painful, and Lidl, which has everything, didn’t oppose him. They caught Bardet and launched Milan to the stage, and thanks to the bonuses and his lower position totals that Pogačar did not contest, he claimed the lead.