Matteo Jorgenson already knows exactly how he\u2019ll spend the Tour de France rest day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will not even touch the bike tomorrow,\u201d he told Velo<\/em>. \u201cI will just stay inside and get some AC.\u201d<\/p>\n After nine heat-ravaged stages working for Jonas Vingegaard, the Idahoan has earned a break.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first week was for real. The heat was difficult for everyone and on the Tourmalet we lost some time,\u201d Jorgenson told Velo<\/em>.<\/p>\n Visma-Lease a Bike reaches the first rest day with mixed emotions.<\/p>\n The 2026 Tour started with the high of winning the team time trial in Barcelona and Vingegaard donning the yellow jersey.<\/p>\n Then Tadej Poga\u010dar delivered another drubbing in the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es on stage 6, and the Dane is now 2:42 back at nearly the midway point of the race.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re looking forward to a reset and looking forward to the Alps,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n On Sunday, Jorgenson was active early in the brutal stage to try to ride into the breakaway, but eventually settled into the main group in the heat-shortened scorcher stage 9.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a defensive day. We were trying to make sure Jonas was safe,\u201d Jorgenson said. \u201cWe knew it would be chaotic with so much heat and such a short stage.\u201d<\/p>\n For Jorgenson, it\u2019s another day of putting the team first.<\/p>\n \u201cI was trying to get into the break to be there in case something happened behind, but it seemed like teams were wanting to control,\u201d Jorgenson said. \u201cIt worked out well. We didn\u2019t have any bonus seconds for grabs and Jonas was there.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s another mission accomplished for Jorgenson, 27, who gave up any personal ambitions early on.<\/p>\n There might be a chance to chase a stage win later in the race, but he\u2019s no longer the team\u2019s No. 2 GC option.<\/p>\n This week, he explained why he\u2019s not chasing a high overall result in his fifth Tour start despite finishing 2024 in eighth overall.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really hasn\u2019t worked out in other years,\u201d he said on stage 5. \u201cI am not going to win the Tour when Jonas and Poga\u010dar are here, so it is much better for me to take it easy in the finales and be 100 percent focused on Jonas.\u201d<\/p>\n For Sunday, he cooled down at the line after a long hot hard day in the saddle, chugging recovery drinks and pouring water over his head.<\/p>\n He was happy the stage was shortened by 30km with temperatures soaring above 100 Fahrenheit in a red-alert heat wave.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was so hot. I am not going to applaud the UCI, because it was the government that said we couldn\u2019t go through this region in this heat,\u201d he told Velo<\/em>. \u201cThat was the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n That AC is going to feel good. The Tour resumes Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/matteo-jorgenson-ac-tour-de-france-rest-day\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2285695158.jpg”] Andrew Hood Published July 12, 2026 10:59AM Matteo Jorgenson already knows exactly how he\u2019ll spend the Tour de France rest day. \u201cI will not even touch the bike tomorrow,\u201d he told Velo. \u201cI will just stay inside and get some AC.\u201d After nine heat-ravaged stages working for Jonas Vingegaard, the Idahoan has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2040609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2040609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2040609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2040609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2040609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Playing defensive in extreme heat<\/h2>\n