In this Tour de France stage 10 recap I provide a brief overview of the first mountain stage on France’s Independence Day, and make a lazy, French, “Girl Dinner.”
Stage Recap
After 9 flat and hilly stages, fans of the Tour de France have been jonesing for a mountain stage. Today’s stage was the first mountain stage with 8 categorized climbs, all but one of which were category 2 climbs. None of the climbs were particularly hard, but there wasn’t a flat kilometer in the stage. In short, it was a stage that had “breakaway” written all over it. And that’s exactly what we saw.
An attack to make the breakaway started right away, and eventually 29 riders join the breakaway of the day. All but 6 teams make the break, and importantly many teams have multiple riders in the break, giving them the opportunity strategically ride in favor of their teammate. For example, EF Education-Easypost had 4 riders in the break; the most of any team. This meant they had 3 riders that they could use to to pace and take turns to shelter their main rider.
Over the stage, weaker riders dropped and, importantly, the break was given enough leeway to put Ben Healy (stage 6 winner on EF) in the virtual lead halfway through the stage. He had enough of a lead on GC over Pogačar that he had an incentive to ride not for the stage win but for the yellow jersey.
With about 20 km to go Healy was forced to pace the break to keep the yellow jersey. This gave riders in the break the opportunity to take a breather and attack for the stage win, which is exactly what Simon Yates did heading into the final climb.
Simon Yates (Visma Lease-a-Bike and 2025 Giro d’Italia winner) won the stage. However, Healy managed to cross the finish line with enough time over Pogačar to move into the yellow leader’s jersey. He’s not expected to keep it into the high mountains, but it is an achievement nonetheless for Ben and EF.
The Dish
The Tour headed to Massif Central today, which is a mountainous area in central France. I took a look at some of the regional dishes and didn’t feel particularly inspired. But there are some cheeses that are famous from the region, so I decided to make a charcuterie board dinner. Or, as I like to call it, French Girl Dinner.
The two cheeses I picked were typical of the region: Bleu d’Auvergne and Saint-Nectaire. They’re both soft, funky cheeses. The Saint-Nectaire is more mild, but for those that don’t love funky cheeses maybe stick to brie for your cheeseboards.
The paté is also from the region, but I couldn’t find the same meats I would find in France. I love wild boar sausage for example! But I made it work with some Spanish and Italian ham and sausage. I filled the rest of the board with fruits from my farmers market and some jams and spreads. The main thing that I felt was missing from my board were cornichons, which are ubiquitous in France, so I made do with olives instead.
Altogether this was delicious. And it doesn’t get much easier than putting a bunch of things you bought on a plate.
Reflections
Tomorrow is a rest day and then we head into the second week of the Tour. In the second week the peloton heads to the Pyrenées so we will get to witness some proper mountain stages, with historic climbs, after 9 days of flats and small climbs. In addition to some exciting mountain stages we will also get some Basque dishes in the upcoming week. I think some of the most exciting stages of this year’s Tour de France will be coming up so make sure to stay tuned for updates in the coming days!