When Tadej Pogačar hit the deck on stage 11 of the 2025 Tour de France, the first person there to help him was a mysterious man dressed all in blue.
As the world champion picked himself up off the tarmac and assessed the damage to his bike and body, his teammates and support cars were nowhere to be seen.
Enter stage right, our man in blue, who came sprinting across the road from behind the bunch of favourites that was now swiftly leaving Pogačar behind.
Keeping a cool head, our hero remounted the chain on Pogačar’s Colnago Y1Rs aero road bike and spun the cranks to check everything was working.
As Pogačar remounted his bike, the unidentified mechanic gave him an almighty push on the backside, getting him back up to speed as the Slovenian attempted to straighten his right shifter with a few hard knocks.
Pogačar was off the deck and back up to speed within 20 seconds, averting any threat to his general classification bid at this year’s Tour, had his rivals not slowed down out of respect (per one of pro cycling’s unwritten rules).
But who was this person dressed in blue, and how did they remain so calm in such a stressful situation?
Thanks to Belgian newspaper Sporza, we now know…
"We're here to help everyone"
As many veteran Tour de France fans will know, Pogačar’s helper was a member of the Shimano neutral service – an in-race team of mechanics that any racer can access in their moment of need.
With both cars and motorbikes in the race, the neutral service teams carry spares of the components used by all teams in the race – so that they might help a rider in a moment when their teammates or team support cars aren’t around.
The cars also carry spare bikes for moments when riders can’t continue on their own, as well as food and drinks for the riders.
According to Sporza, the man who helped Pogačar was Raf Pauwels, who jumped off a motorbike driven by his partner Patrick Dils.
Of the Pogačar situation, Pauwels says: “There we were, among the best in the world, and almost immediately Pogacar crashed.
"We saw that the chain was off. Tadej immediately stood up, which was a good sign.
"He tried to put the chain on himself at first, but that didn't work. Then I literally took the chain out of his hands and that was it.
"I pushed him into action and he even said, 'Thank you'. That's what you do it for."
Coming to the aid of the world and defending Tour champion is surely a career highlight for the Flemish mechanic, but Pauwels notes: "Something like that feels good, but we're here to help everyone. Not just the number 1 in the rankings, but also the number 200."
Cycling's newest celebrity
As so often with things like this, Pauwels’ calm and effective action in the heat of the moment has transformed him into an instant online celebrity.
Before Pauwels had been identified as Pogačar’s mysterious hero, former WorldTour-pro rider, Phil Gaimon, sung his praises – calling him “the Shimano Stig” (in reference to the similarly dressed ‘Stig’ character from Top Gear) – and demanded he be unmasked, saying: “Tadej owes him some champagne.”
Likewise, the official Tour de France instagram account has already immortalised ‘Shimano guy’ in a meme where he pushes Pogačar to a stage win, Usain Bolt to a 100m sprint victory and parts the red sea.
Despite their newfound fame, though, Pauwels’ driver, Dils, explained to Sporza that they’d rather not have to make such interventions: “The less we have to do, the better for the riders."
Let’s hope we don’t need to see the duo called into action again at this year’s Tour, then.
More on Pogačar at the Tour de France
- Seven remarkable numbers behind Tadej Pogačar's Tour de France success
- Tadej Pogačar vs Jonas Vingegaard: can Pogačar be stopped as the 2025 Tour gets underway?
- 11 surprising things you need to know about Tadej Pogačar
- We've weighed Tadej Pogačar’s Tour de France bike – and it's currently under the UCI weight limit
- 'If Pogačar has a life-changing injury, we will have blood on our hands'
