Tim Wellens wins the Tour de France carnival stage in Carcassonne

Perhaps it's the fear of tariffs, perhaps it's inflation, perhaps it's wars and the fear of their escalation, perhaps it's these things or who knows what else, but now the breakaways at the 2025 Tour de France are forming in installments. And always by subtraction, or rather extinction, of strength and patience.

Today, the Grande Boucle riders didn't even split into pursuers and pursuers; they disintegrated, dispersed into microparticles. And well before the usual dissolution at the finale, when all common cause loses its meaning and everyone thinks only of their own cause. A cycling carnival unfolded towards Carcassonne. First came the dissolution, the dispersion into unity, then the recomposition. In small groups, then in a large peloton.

A Mardi Gras, a festival that saw one of the best domestiques pedaling the roads of France parade towards the finish line of this Grande Boucle. Tim Wellens had a day off from the shadow of Tadej Pogacar and found nothing better than to ride forty-six kilometers alone towards the finish line. Tim Wellens won the fifteenth stage of the 2025 Tour de France, thus solving the great problem of today . Namely: staying alone was the only way to solve an impossible problem: how to reach the finish line when everyone is trying to be smart and there are people chasing behind? Warren Barguil, Victor Campenaerts, Alexey Lutsenko, Carlos Rodriguez, Quinn Simmons, Michael Storer, Aleksandr Vlasov, Tim Wellens knew there was only one answer to this big question. And that was: stay alone. Because it's hard work on your own, but at least you can be sure that no one will cheat and rip you off.

Everyone tried, Michael Storer seemed to have succeeded, then Victor Campenaerts seemed to have succeeded. All delusions. That's how it goes in the Aude. It's a land of great dreams, enormous illusions, and horrible awakenings.

It's been happening cyclically since the pre-Christian era. The Volcae had managed to resist the Roman army, even driving them back beyond the Aude. They celebrated their resistance, but the next day they were wiped out. In 280 AD, Carcassonne (then called Julia Carcaso) gained independence from the Roman Empire by establishing a regime of democratic anarchy. The experiment worked for a couple of years, then the Burgundians arrived and destroyed everything. In 1348, the plague thwarted the attempt to collectivize agriculture and pastoralism, a socialist attempt ante litteram. And in the 1910s, the First World War arrived to interrupt the great collectivist transformation in winemaking.

Imagine if cycling could have gone any better.

Many had the illusion of being able to do the trick, of winning. The last one was Julian Alaphilippe . In the bunch sprint, he managed to beat Wout van Aert and celebrated, because beating Wout van Aert is no small feat, let alone doing it at the end of a stage where you crashed and arrived at the finish line with a shoulder that hurt like hell. Too bad Tim Wellens had already passed minutes ago and Victor Campenaerts had already dismounted after the finish.

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