Primoz Roglic lost 32 seconds to Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard on stage 4 of the 2025 Tour de France due to a combination of a mechanical issue and poor positioning.
A crash 24 km from the finish damaged his derailleur, forcing him to climb the decisive Rampe Saint Hilaire on the big ring, which hindered his performance. He was already positioned around 40th at the foot of the climb, making it difficult to stay with the lead group.
On the climb itself, he was 28 seconds slower than Pogacar and Vingegaard, and he lost an additional 4 seconds from the KOM banner to the finish line. The absence of teammates with a similar bike size to swap with further compounded the issue.
“He had a mechanical issue after that Mick van Dijke crash, so that was with 20km or so to go,” his sports director Rolf Aldag explained. “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.”
