First high mountain stage out of 2. Ricco, the yellow jersey wearer, is the big favourite but Pluchkin, Kohl, Marzano, Gesink, Ardila, Spilak and Danielson also have real chances to take the stage win today. It will be very hard for any of them to take the yellow jersey away from Ricco though
Hulsmans took the first intermediate sprint of the day in front of Jeandesbosz and Bernaudeau, the 3 of them being the only escapes at that moment
Later Pedersen, Stenerson, Uugunbayar, Poos, Mugerli and Mazet joined the group and the first climb of the day started with 9 riders in front
Jeandesbosz and Mazet proved to be the strongest climbers there and dropped the others. The SIC Radical rieder was the first at the summit
Mugerli, Poos and Hulsmans were in the second group at the summit, already 1 minute behind the leaders, while all the other escapes were brought back in the pack as they are horrible climbers
On the second climb of the day Jeandesbosz let Mazet take the first place
Mazet also took the 6 bonifications seconds at the second and last intermediate sprint of the day
The last climb of the day has more than 40 kilometres but at least has some flat section where the riders can recover from their effort. The leaders started the climb with 2 minutes advantage and they are the only riders left from the breakaway
The first move in the pack was made by Cataldo
Lovkvist was right after him
After an while they joined the front group, where Lovkvist found his team - mate, Mazet. But the bad news for them is that the pack is only a few metres behind
And Ricco came from there to join them
Ricco took the lead of the group and only Cataldo was able to follow him
Closely behind them, there's now a big group lead by Gesink and Pluchkin
Rodrigues and Kohl attacked from that group to join them in front
More riders are coming as the gap isn't big at all: Merabito, Solis, Spilak
But it didn't last for too long and they were brought back in the group, which is basicaly the pack at the moment
Ricco didn't like that and he had enough energy left for another attack
No one came after him for an while untill Spilak decided to accelerate
Sinkewitz and Marzano joined him but neither of them looks strong enough to catch Ricco
After a few moments they were back in the pack. Ricco is still in front and with a nice advantage as well
Ricco enters the last 5 kilometres with a lead of 1 minute
Gesink just attacked from the pack, behind him
He is follwed surprisingly by Zabriskie, Pluchkin and Ardila
Four kilometres later Gesink managed to gain some time back but Ricco still has a confident lead as he enters the last kilometre
Only Ricco, Gesink and Zabriskie managed to stay away from the pack in the last kilometres. Danielson now attacks from there to get some seconds back
Ricco takes his second stage win and he consolidates his lead
Gesink was caught by Danielson but he didn't lose the second place
Zabriskie lost the third spot to the Starbucks riders, Danielson and Efimkin, but still the 5th place is a great result from him
Sinkewitz and Pluchkin lead the pack but they really lost an important fight today
No game crashed so I couldn't export the results, sorry,
