Vuelta hotel flooded with five star reviews after Tadej Pogacar leads peloton to shelter

GESA Village Club Mont Louis Les Sorbiers suddenly found itself dealing with the sort of arrival no hotel could reasonably have prepared for.

Led by Tadej Pogačar, around 180 soaked professional cyclists, together with members of their teams, race staff and fans, descended on the hotel after severe hail and torrential rain made racing impossible on Monday.

Staff handed out towels, drinks and hot beverages as riders tried to warm up and escape the brutal conditions outside.

What happened next turned an act of hospitality into an unexpected publicity coup.

Hundreds of positive reviews began appearing on the hotel's Google page. Several riders who had taken shelter there personally left reviews, before cycling fans joined in with increasingly creative accounts of their supposed stays.

Uno-X Mobility rider Tobias Halland Johannessen gave the hotel five stars.

“Perfect location in hailstorms, and even towelservice provided 2 minutes after 180 cyclist came unannounced. They deserve every star they can get!”

American rider William Barta (Tudor) was considerably shorter in his five star assessment.

“Incredibly kind and helpful staff!”

French rider Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek) also left a five star review.

“What a warm welcome! Thank you so much!” he wrote.

Tudor rider Roland Thalmann was one of the few not to award the full five stars, despite offering perhaps the strongest praise of all.

“Absolutely most friendly Hotel I ever saw. Well organised and even able to give free towel, drinks and food for almost 200 spontaneous guests,” Thalmann wrote in his four star review.

Team Picnic PostNL also praised the hotel, describing a “warm and welcoming reception area with friendly staff” and calling it a good place to shelter from severe weather.

The reviews followed extraordinary scenes during the third stage of the Vuelta.

As conditions deteriorated on the Col de Mont Louis, huge hailstones and torrential rain battered the race. Riders were visibly freezing and the roads became increasingly dangerous, prompting the peloton to stop.

Red jersey Tadej Pogačar was among the riders who headed away from the course in search of shelter, with large parts of the peloton eventually squeezing into the hotel.

Pictures from inside and around the entrance showed riders, police officers, team staff and other members of the race convoy packed together as the storm continued outside.

Once the images spread online, cycling fans took over the hotel's review section.

One claimed to have enjoyed a perfectly normal stay apart from encountering a certain Slovenian world champion.

“Very nice place to stay. I even saw Tadej Pogacar. 5/5 would recommend.”

Another reviewer invented a more elaborate meeting with the Vuelta leader.

“Lobby was a bit crowded and a man dressed completely in red knocked on my door and asked for a spare towel in exchange for his sunglasses. Unexpected but still a good trade in my eyes!”

A separate review simply described seeing “lots of cold wet cyclists led by a man in red called Today Focaccia.”

Primož Roglič also found his way into the jokes, with one fan making a clear reference to the Slovenian's previous career as a ski jumper.

“I was sitting in the lobby when an older man, I would say from the Balkans, in a wet cycling outfit came up to me and said: worse weather than during ski jumping, huh?”

A day after the brutal conditions brought stage three to a premature end, the Vuelta heads back into the Pyrenees on Tuesday. Riders will be hoping for calmer weather and a full day of racing. 

If not, one hotel in Mont Louis has already proved it can handle the unexpected.