Time for the infamous stage where the locals have had to put tarmac over the cobbles after complaints from several teams. That makes it a stage very similar to yesterday with a small hill in the finale.
Naud and Kimmince opens the attacking with Taborre looking like he enjoys his yellow jersey in front of the peloton.
Constant attacking results in a hard pace up the cat. 2 climb resulting in Clarke and Shamsonau losing contact with the peloton while no one have managed to make a real gap in front halfway up the mountain. Jensen leads Earle and Ford over the climb just under a minute ahead of the peloton.
That puts the Dane on equal footing with Taborre in the mountain classification.
Looks like the peloton can live with this break and they slow down after the summit allowing everyone lost behind to get back up and the break to have a 4 minute gap with 100 km to go.
90 km and 5’13
Ford takes the intermediate more by coincidence than anything else. Earle 2nd and Jensen 3rd.
80 km and 5’16
Looks like Quickstep have woken up after yesterdays invisibility.
70 km and 4’28
60 km and 3’49
50 km and 3’03
40 km and 2’51
30 km and 1’52
When the gap goes under 1’30 with 25 km to go three riders decides to attack hoping to copy Taborres achievement. They are Bugge, Hatanaka and Proni.
12 km to go and Jensen decides that the waiting game is over. Probably his only chance to keep the peloton at bay as well...
The front trio has 52 second to the chasers and a further 20 seconds to the peloton. Venchi – Ferranti, Jaguar – Eritel and Quickstep looks determined to bring their captains to compete for the stage win.
The chasing trio is caught with 8 km to go, but the morning break still has 52 seconds thanks to Jensens pace-increasing attack.
5 km and 49 seconds: It could be another one for a break!
With 2,5 km to go the break turns right and enters the final climb with 36 seconds to the peloton. Serry is putting in a massive pull almost getting a gap to the rest of the peloton.
Looks like Jensen is paying the price for all his work today with just over 1 km left.
Still 26 seconds between the break and the peloton!
Earle does the pace setting in front on the final climb and the CT-rider is first to open the sprint as well.
There’s no looking back as especially Haavardsholm have a lot of speed in his bike right now.
But the peloton reacts to late and only manage to catch Jensen from the break. So much for being the most active rider in the break…
A magnificent and surprising win to Eddie Stobart Pro Cycling and Nathan Earle.
Nothing of importance happens further back.
At least that’s how it seemed watching the finish but apparently small gaps appeared further back and among others Julien Simon ends up losing 42 seconds to the other favourites.
