Ben Healy races his bike like a Frenchman, which is to say that his creativity, pain tolerance, and willingness to gamble extend beyond the scope of his abilities. The Irish rider debuted at the 2024 Tour de France determined to win a stage, and while he rode bravely and twice put himself in position to win, all he won was hearts. He's done himself one better this year, running away with a career-defining win on Stage 6 of the Tour. It was a gorgeous ride, one that validates Healy's place as one of the peloton's premier artists on the bike.
After the race's elite greedily scarfed up the first five stages of the race, Stage 6 was the first chance for everyone else to get a crack at winning something. Tadej Pogacar had just put a minute into Jonas Vingegaard in the time trial, and after five hard days of patrolling the front of the race, it seemed clear that neither Visma nor UAE would invest yet again in setting up their team leaders. The stage's terrain was rugged, and there are more important battles to fight down the road.
That did not make the racing any easier. Just the opposite, as the pronounced dominance of the race's top teams makes every potential breakaway stage more valuable to teams whose goal in France this month is to win stages. That is part of what made Healy's win so special: Something like 15 teams regarded Stage 6 as one of the four days that offered them a chance at glory. The racing reflected the scarcity.
After Intermarché kept a lid on things through the first 20 kilometers in order to set up Biniam Girmay for the intermediate sprint, the front of the race erupted. Healy went first, joined by Quinn Simmons, though it would take nearly an hour for the break to establish itself. A rider or two would leap—Harold Tejada here, Will Barta there—though the internecine logic of the day's racing kept anyone from prying open any gaps without paying for it dearly. The first hour was raced as hard as a one-day Monument classic. Finally, a fairly rugged group featuring Simon Yates, Mathieu van der Poel for some reason, and Eddie Dunbar formed, and UAE managed to finally calm the peloton.
That is another part of what made Healy's win so special: He had to expend an enormous amount of energy to even give himself a roll of the dice. His reward? The chance to dance with a million-time world champion and the defending Giro d'Italia champion.
Once the break established itself, the octet worked together to brilliant effect. It became clear that one of the eight riders would be taking the stage with around 90 kilometers of racing left, which was about when they all started looking at each other and trying to determine what their move should be and when they should make it. The obvious problem was van der Poel, as he would pretty clearly win a sprint if everyone all came to the line together, and nobody wants to spend their one chance at winning a stage leading out a sprint for a golden boy with a stage win, a private jet sponsorship deal, and a €300,000 watch. The break was replete with great climbers, so the most likely place to jump would be one of the two final categorized climbs.
That's not how Healy raced it. He took off with total commitment with 42.6 kilometers left to go, which is an almost suicidally long distance for an even halfway-committed group of seven riders to reel you back in. The only people who make moves like that work are world champions, not Irish guys who are beloved for almost winning bike races. But Healy was precise.
"He’s been talking about this day since the winter," EF director Tom Southam told Escape Collective's Caley Fretz. Healy wore an aero helmet, a skinsuit, and his time-trial tires. Southam scouted the route that morning and suggested the exact centimeter of road where Healy eventually launched from, as he predicted it would give his rider a ramp and, more importantly, cause a fatal moment of hesitation in the rest of the break. That is yet another part of what makes Healy's win so special: He called his shot months ago and caught everyone by surprise.
But the most special part of Healy's win was not its strategic genius nor the brutal conditions of its creation. The most impressive thing Healy did was commit himself completely, riding his bike as hard as he possibly could from the moment he broke free. He did not hesitate, and he did not look back. He hammered on the pedals, alone, for over an hour. It was a pure display of strength. It was a boast. It was a shrug of the shoulders at the concept of energy conservation.
Healy won by 2 minutes and 44 seconds, a mind-boggling margin of victory. He smoked van der Poel by over four minutes. Stuff like that doesn't really happen at the Tour, but that's the genius of Ben Healy. Unlikely results take unlikely efforts, and he's willing to make them when nobody else will dare.
