Red Bull blame derailleur issue for Roglic losses on Tour de France stage 4

Primož Roglič continues to bleed time on the Tour de France, but his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe squad maintain the Slovenian’s issues on stage 4 to Rouen were mechanical rather than physical.

Roglič was dropped even before Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) launched his searing attack on the final climb of Rampe-Saint-Hilaire with a little over 5km remaining, and he would concede 32 seconds to his compatriot and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) by the finish in Rouen.

At first glance, it appeared that Roglič had simply been unable to handle the pace in the breathless finale, but Red Bull sports director Rolf Aldag revealed to Daniel Benson afterwards that his rider had been unable to shift out of his big ring on the final climbs of the day.

“He got a technical issue after that Mick van Dijke crash, so that was with 20km or so to go,” Aldag said. “After that, his front derailleur wouldn’t work properly anymore, so he did some torque efforts because he stayed on the big ring all the way to the finish. 

“Riding on that 17% climb and all the way to the finish on the big ring, that is not actually his speciality, as we all know. He likes quite a high cadence, so that was pretty difficult for him.”

Roglič has cut a relaxed figure since arriving at this Tour, when he confessed to reporters that winning the race wouldn’t change his life. The 35-year-old has known only heartbreak at the Tour in recent years. 

He lost the yellow jersey in dramatic circumstances to Pogačar in the final time trial in 2020, and he has crashed out in each of his three subsequent Tour appearances.

“Today it would have been nice to be in that group of favourites, but there is an explanation for it: staying on the big gear on that steep climb was not perfect,” Aldag said. [Roglič] was pretty relaxed about it when he cooled down. It is what it is. Luckily, nothing really bad happened. He was pretty relaxed about it.”

In the overall standings, Roglič is now 13th overall, 1:27 off Pogačar, who is level on time with yellow jersey Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck). He is 1:19 behind Vingegaard and 29 seconds down on Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), the other podium finishers from 2024.

Aldag dismissed the idea that Roglič’s pre-race ambition of a podium place was already being revised downwards. “No, we only reassess after stage 9, then we will see,” said Aldag, who struck an upbeat note about his rider’s chances in the stage 5 time trial to Caen on Wednesday.

“Hopefully he can do a good one,” Aldag said. “If Remco pulls out what he pulled out in the Dauphiné, then he seems to be unbeatable, but the other two are also super strong. I think being in that range and not losing dramatic time [is the target].”

Roglič’s teammate Florian Lipowitz, so impressive at the Dauphiné, lost almost a minute on stage 4, but Aldag downplayed concerns about his leader’s supporting cast.

“Early in the race, it’s important to have more guys to bring bottles and so on, but in a situation like this, what does a teammate help?” Aldag said. “He couldn’t have jumped on Lipowitz or Vlasov’s bike with the shifting problem, so it is what it is.”

Roglič himself, mind, made no complaint about a gearing issue when he spoke with FloBikes and ITV Sport during his warm down. “I’m suffering a lot these days,” he said. “I always want to win, but I don’t care about the time gaps. I just put everything on the road day after day.”