Following Lenny Martinez’ remarkable solo attack and victory on the climb to the finish line in yesterday’s stage, Paris-Nice race organizer A.S.O. had designed stage 6 of Paris-Nice 2025 as a 209.8-kilometer challenge in somewhat hilly terrain on a route from Saint-Julien-en-Saint-Alban to Berre l’Etang.

While yesterday’s route appealed to the general classification favorites in the peloton, the hilly route of stage 6 appealed to puncheurs and possibly sprinters. The route included three Category 3 climbs.

Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) had abandoned the race overnight. He did not appear at the start of stage 6 following his crash in yesterday’s stage and the snow and hailstorms of stage 4. Perhaps the warmth of the team car had appealed more to the Danish Tour de France winner than the current cool weather conditions in France. Hopefully he would return stronger in his next races of the 2025 calendar.

The two Frenchmen Remi Cavagna (Groupama-FDJ) and Thomas Gachignard (Team TotalEnergies) joined forces with Jakub Otruba (Caja Rural – Seguros RGA) to create a long-lasting breakaway. Their lead over the chasing main peloton was more than three minutes after sixty kilometers of racing.

Gachignard decided to wait for the main peloton when 110 kilometers remained. The two remaining breakaway participants pressed on in optimistic fashion.

Otruba later resigned too, so all the hard work was now left for Cavagna himself. The Frenchman, however, was known for his great power on the bike and his eternal willpower. 

A split occurred in the peloton when sixty kilometers remained. A fourteen-man group was formed, which pressed on with chasing Cavagna and fighting for their general classification ambitions. The group featured riders such as race leader Matteo Jorgenson, Edoardo Affini, Victor Campenaerts, Axel Single, Maximilian Schachmann, Mattias Skjelmose, Mads Pedersen, Florian Lipowitz, Bob Jungels, Tobias Foss, and Magnus Sheffield. The reduced peloton group was dominated by riders from Visma-Lease a Bike, Lidl-Trek, and Ineos-Grenadiers.

With fifty kilometers remaining, the rest of the peloton was approximately thirty seconds behind the new GC favorites group. The riders in the dropped peloton group were chasing hard to bridge the gap before it was too late, and their GC ambitions were eradicated before the weekend’s mountain stages. 

General Classification favorite Ben O’Connor (Jayco-Alula) was one of the riders who had been dropped. UAE Team Emirates were also suffering.

Sole frontman Remi Cavagna decided to wait for the peloton when 42 kilometers remained.

It had started raining.

The general classification favorites group, dominated by Ineos-Grenadiers, Visma-Lease a Bike, and Lidl-Trek, pressed on at the front, while the remains of the original peloton – led by Jayco-Alula and UAE Team Emirates – were 01:15 minutes behind twenty-seven kilometers from the finish line. 

Yesterday’s stage winner Lenny Martinez was now tailing more than four minutes behind together with Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) and Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep).

The front group was still pressing on at maximum power when eleven kilometers remained. They were now 01:40 minutes ahead. Significant changes would be made to the general classification because of today’s decisive and animating racing. 

Riders in the front group approached the finishing kilometers of the stage at high speed. Maximilian Schachmann attacked from the front with one kilometer left. The Soudal-QuickStep rider looked strong. But he was reeled in by the group and Mads Pedersen launched his sprint with one hundred meters left. 

Mads Pedersen won stage 6 of Paris-Nice 2025 for Lidl-Trek.  Great Britain’s Joshua Tarling finished second for Ineos-Grenadiers, while his teammate Samuel Watson completed the stage podium.

“After such a tough day it is of course super nice to win. I’m also pleased my teammate Mattias Skjelmose moved up in the GC,” stage winner Mads Pedersen told Roadcycling.com shortly after the finish. 

“I knew it would be a horrible day with such cold weather. I don’t let the weather influence my riding, but I don’t enjoy it. It’s another victory in the pocket for me, which is really nice. It doesn’t matter if you win with one centimeter or one meter.  Winning from a small group without Tim Merlier was ideal today,” Pedersen explained.

Matteo Jorgenson remains general classification leader for Team Visma-Lease a Bike. Florian Lipowitz is second for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, while Mattias Skjelmose is third for Lidl-Trek. Thymen Arensman is fourth and Joao Almeida fifth.

Stay tuned to Roadcycling.com for complete coverage from Paris-Nice 2025.