Our second stage in Picardie is probably the toughest one of the whole race with fairly tough parcours in the last 45km of the stage. We have three short climbs and a sprint prime there before the finish that is 14km after the last little hill. It is uncertain whether this will be enough to split away the sprinters - but it is probable that some riders will at least try.
Cavendish, Steegmans and Caspar were nowhere yesterday and no doubt their lead out men would have got some tellings off. Today is possibly going to be very difficult to set up, so it will be interesting to see how it pans out. Tolleson's late surge won him the day yesterday, but Dumoulin is surely a dangerous rival.
With tough late parcours no-one really looked to go early and only one rider decided to break the monotony.
Bimbo's Portelo goes solo
With the king of the mountains leaders only on 5 points this is a nice chance to gather some points in that one. But with the tough ending any sprint time gained is unlikely to be useful. The Portuguese rider at least gets to admire some scenery though.
Picardian village
The first climb tops out just 4km from the sprint prime, meaning that KOM point grabbers can help themselves to some time bonuses. Portelo obviously takes the maximum 3 pts on the KOM prime and 6 seconds on the sprint bonus. But behind Fredrik Kessiakoff takes the 2 points on the climb and the sprint bonus of 4 seconds as well.
Nice little harvest for Telenor man
Colby of Petronas grabs 3rd place on that 1st KOM meaning he has the overall lead there temporarily. On the sprint though Lego's Weissinger gets up and takes a nice little 2 second bonus. On the second KOM prime Portelo takes it ahead of Kessiekoff again and this time Leukemans will take his second KOM points. Meaning the top four KOM is like this:
Portelo, Colby = 6 pts
Noval = 5pts
Kessiekoff = 4pts
The sole breakaway man could have done with getting to at least the first of the last three climbs but alas he ran out of steam and was caught (and subsequently dropped) just before this difficult last section. So the first fairly shallow climb was once again taken by an on fire Fredrik Kessiakoff...
Swede is in form today
He takes it over Leukemans and then Colby just about snatches the third place. It leaves us with Kessiakoff and Colby tied on 7 points, Portela on 6, Noval 5 and Leukemans on 4 pts! The next prime is yet again taken by the unstoppable Kessiakoff over Ruijgh and Leukemans - but with an 8km gap and things getting stretched behind a new surprise attack comes from the peleton.
GC 2nd place Dumoulin looking for the prime by attacking
He is joined by Hivert (Highroad) and Foder (Telenor).
Two fairly unknown riders join the Frenchman
They surprise the Pokerstars rider by steaming past him in the sprint, also going past is Cassidy of Vespa. This means no time bonus for the Pokerstars rider.
Hivert will take sprint prime over Cassidy and then Foder
Cassidy and the 100% Me man (Downing) drop back, but the other Pokerstars rider (Van Looke) gets up and help his team mate create a gap. At the bottom of the final climb it is 50 seconds and so they work together to reach the top.
Foder - > Hivert ->Dumoilin
But the move is nuetralised by the peleton who have remianed largely intact despite the difficulties of the last section. So it is a second sprint...
Lack of sprint trains here
The lead out men seem to be bushed, as yellow jersey Tolleson is sitting about 5th wheel. Milka have something going on in the bottom right its Alexandr Nepomnyachsniy driving Caspar. But as we reach the 3km point it is not really moving up. This is looking way too easy for Tolleson.
Where an earth are the other sprinters?
As the sprint starts at last some of the sprinters start to move forward but they have given the Mercedes Picardie leader a huuge headstart.
1500m to go
Tolleson has about 3 bike lengths, its the riders directly behind him who are the fastest. The pale blue jersey of Petronas is Aboukoumov and Caspar (Milka) is followed by Cavendish (100% Me). They are catching Tolleson but not that fast.
Caspar tries to ghost his way up with 750m to go
Caspar and Cav are trying to come very very late, but the Mercedes man holds on.
Very easy for the Mercedes man
Tolleson now is big favourite to take the overall win as he now has 28 seconds on Dumoulin and Caspar and 32 seconds on Thomas and Cavendish.
Kessiekoff takes the KOM with a determined performance.
