Aldag's prediction had been extremely accurate.
In fact, the attacks launched by the other teams came even earlier than he had anticipated.
July 12 marked the thirteenth stage of the Tour de France.
The riders would set off from Agen and ride all the way to Pau in the Pyrenees.
The stage covered 165.3 kilometers, with a total elevation gain of 1,884 meters.
Though it looked like the final flat stage of the Tour's second week, the entire route was actually packed with rolling short climbs.
Between kilometers 116 and 142, there were also two Category 4 climbs: Côte de Blachon and Côte de Simacourbe.
The former was 1.6 kilometers long, with an average gradient of 6.1% and a maximum gradient of 8.5%.
The latter was 1.8 kilometers long, with an average gradient of 6.5% and a maximum gradient of 7.4%.
Neither climb was particularly difficult, but as soon as the race began, with Roglič having withdrawn, UAE Team Emirates—who had yet to wear the Yellow Jersey or win a single stage—immediately sent the increasingly in-form Adam Yates into the day's breakaway.
Huang Chong naturally knew that UAE Team Emirates had sent Little Yates into the break specifically to target him.
But even knowing that they wanted to take his Yellow Jersey in the general classification, there was nothing he could really do about it.
Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe was already short on classic domestiques, and with Hindley their only remaining climbing lieutenant, Aldag could only symbolically send Matteo Sobrero, one of the team's slightly better climbing sprint lead-out riders, into the breakaway as well to see if he could keep an eye on Adam Yates.
Yet just as UAE Team Emirates began changing the pace on a flat stage, seemingly preparing to make something happen, terrible news reached them halfway through