Welcome to France! We have an excited race ahead of us today.
Let's get right into the action.
It takes a while but after the cat. 3 climb we get a breakaway established.
Montaquti, Paolini, Navardauskas, Polanc, and Simon.
At the sprint point their lead is hovering around a modest 5 minutes.
Back in the peloton a few moments later a solo attack from Zubeldia.
Behind him Frank, Anton, and Brajkovic want to follow but can't keep up.
Coming up on the cat. 2 climb before the 1st time up Alpe d'Huez.
Zubeldia has caught the morning breakaway
and Brajkovic's group is closing in as well.
The peloton is 3'30" back.
The turn to get on Alpe d'Huez for the first time.
Brajkovic's group final connects for a 9 man lead group.
The peloton is still locked in at 3'30" back.
Movistar and Sky are working well together as the peloton is starting to shrink.
Paolini and Simon are dropped by the breakaway and swept into the peloton.
Right before the descent back down from Round #2 Navardauskas is picked up by the 89 rider strong peloton. Again Sky and Movistar doing all the work.
Saxo Bank helps out on the downhill and catches Polanc.
Leaving just Zubeldia, Frank, Brajkovic, and Anton in lead as
the last original breakaway member, Montaquti, is soon to be caught as well.
The peloton is not resting and making this a tricky descent.
Only 41 riders are left once Montaquti is caught.
Already behind are Ten Dam, Talansky, Van den Broeck, and Mollema.
Here we go, Round #2. Expect fireworks this time.
The lead group of 4 just has a 35 second advantage.
Froome isn't playing games. He attacks straight away.
Rodriguez, Quintana, and Valverde are right on his wheel.
But they pull up when the reach the 4 leaders.
Expect Rodriguez who goes again. Contador follows.
Froome and Quintana use Contador's attack as a springboard
to try and reach Rodriguez who has found a nice gap.
10kms to go! Froome catches Rodriguez.
It's Contador and Quintana behind them.
And behind them a group of 4 has gone free: Nibali, Valverde, Horner, Martin.
7.8kms to go. J-Rod tries attacking Froomebot.
To no avail. Now Froome starts to reeving up his high cadence.
Rodriguez is matching him pedal for pedal.
Unlike the Irishman Martin who is slipping away.
Froome goes again. But Rodriguez is putting on one hell of a show!
Behind them Quintana has gotten rid of Contador.
Here are the final 6 remaining with less than 5 kilometers to go.
Froome, Rodriquez, Quintana, Contador, Nibali, and Valverde.
Finally Froome starts to pull away. Rodriquez's concern now
should be to keep 2nd from a charging Quintana.
Or maybe not. Rodriguez is pulling Froome back! This is an incredible.
So we got the battle for 1st and the battle for 4th, 5th, and 6th.
Contador, Nibali, and Valverde will make this last kilometer really interesting.
Because 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place are locked up as Rodriguez couldn't comeback.
Quintana follows them in for a podium finish.
Contador hangs on for 4th leaving Nibali for 5th. Valverde just misses out.
Hopefully I can win and get back in the game.
Sorry about that.
