When defending champion and three-time winner Tadej Pogacar hit the tarmac in the final 4km of today’s stage of the Tour de France, he was just outside the buffer zone earmarked by the race organisers as the place where time gaps would not be taken into consideration after a crash or mechanical problem on a flat finish.

Ben Healy gets a custom-painted Cannondale Lab71 Supersix Evo to commemorate his race lead in the 2025 Tour de France.

Healy was in the same main chase group as Pogačar after a fraught, hilly stage around the southern city of Toulouse when the UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader was thrown off balance by another rider's manoeuvre, falling some four kilometres from the line.

Ben Healy won stage six from Bayeux to Vire Normandie and his brilliant Tour continued with a third place on stage 10, from Ennezat to Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy in the Massif Central, enough to secure the race lead at the expense of the world’s best rider and three-time champion.

EF Education-EasyPost Manager Jonathan Vaughters said that Tour de France leader Ben Healy was personally responsible for deciding to ask other riders in the peloton to slow when top favourite and defending champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) fell late on stage 11.

Tour de France continues on Friday with Stage 7, a 197 km trek through Brittany featuring rolling terrain and a dramatic finish at Mûr-de-Bretagne.

Tadej Pogacar narrowly avoided disaster after a crash in Stage 11 of the Tour de France 2025, while Jonas Abrahamsen secured an emotional maiden stage win just weeks after a collarbone fracture.

He's been known to use the Cannondale SystemSix aero frame on occasion (though that isn't common currently) and make use of the POC Procen Air aero road helmet for a lot of road stages. These are the standout signs,