After the one stage up to La Planche des Belles Filles almost a week ago, this is only the second mountain stage of the race. It features two tough climbs with the Col de Peyresourde and La Hourquette d'Ancizan, but the finish in Bagnères-de-Bigorre comes after a 27 kilometer long descent. That might prevent bigger time gaps, but not necessarily: If ridden aggressively, some riders could establish enough seperation at the second summit to sustain that all the way through.
There aren’t many big differences between the favorites in their downhill skills. Barguil is for sure the best in that regard while Schleck, Henao Montoya, Velits and to a lesser extent Denifl might struggle. Looking at the stage win, Phinney would be the obvious favorite in a sprint from a reduced group of contenders with his quick finish, challenged maybe by Guldhammer or another late attack by Sicard. But there's also the chance for a breakaway to succeed, especially if the GC riders take it slow.
An interesting group of riders opens the day after a few kilometers. It includes Bettiol, Van Winden, Augustyn, Ulissi and Chernetskiy. Bettiol and Augustyn already finished in the Top 10 three days ago from a breakaway.
Walsleben, Castroviejo, Postlberger and Vermote attacked in an effort to catch up with them.
And so do many more, including Brenes in his polkadots jersey. Let’s wait a few kilometers to see which attacks stick.
It turns out the answer is: all of them. 25 kilometers into the stage, 30 riders are more than four minutes ahead of the peloton. They are:
Ulissi
Rosskopf
Brown
Dees
Jaramillo
Augustyn
Pernsteiner
Vermote
Bettiol
Gogl
Belgasem
Vosekalns
Castroviejo
Gonzalez Salas
Brenes
Manulang
Walsleben
Vangstad
Kolesnikov
Chernetskiy
Hacecky
Shapira
Van Winden
Prado
Wohrer
Boom
Ioannidis
Dunne
Postlberger
Baltazar
Generali and Isostar stand out with four riders each. There’s obviously a wide variety of climbers and non-climbers here. Brenes and Vosekalns should count as the top duo, but a lot of other decent climbers are in this group as well. With a combined 32 points up for grabs, the former’s mountain jersey is safe, as the latter is actually his closest competitor here, but the gap between the two is 36 points.
The peloton takes it easy and the advance of the group has grown to more than seven minutes at the intermediate sprint. A quick look at the escapees that rank the highest in the GC:
30.
Brenes
+ 12’50
33.
Dees
+ 14’54
34.
Chernetskiy
+ 14’59
A coalition of teams of GC favorites, primarily led by Air France - KLM, has been working to reduce the gap to the breakaway to around three minutes even before the climbs begin. It has also started to rain pretty heavily.
A look at the climbs in detail reveals two very long, relatively consistent climbs that are steep, but without the longer really cruel sections other mountains have to offer. The first up the Col de Peyressourde is 13 kilometers long, followed by 10 kilometers on La Hourquette d’Ancizan.
Impressively, Vanderpool managed to fall behind the peloton even before the climbing starts! This might just be an attempt to regain the lanterne rouge from Vlatos, but he has to be careful not to overplay his hand and end up outside the time limit.
At the front, we also have riders in trouble very quickly as soon as the road turns upwards. Gonzalez Salas is the first to drop, followed somewhat surprisingly by Manulang a few hundred meters later.
Ulissi and Shapira lead the breakaway towards the summit, and more and more riders can’t keep up. Some of them are expected, like Vermote or Van Winden, some less so, like Belgasem and Jaramillo.
Around two kilometers from the summit, the group has been reduced to nine riders. Surprisingly, Brenes is in trouble as Vangstad accelerates.
The Norwegian shows surprising strength, usually he wouldn’t be considered among the better climbers in this group. Only Hacecky can counter, a trio of Dees, Bettiol and Shapira follows next.
Hacecky takes the lead and crosses the summit with a 20 second gap to Vangstad. Neither had significant mountain points prior to today. Notably, the gap to the peloton has grown to almost five minutes.
Brenes finds some more energy and overtakes Bettiol to take fifth place at the sprint and six mountain points with it. A group with Kolesnikov, Dunne, Prado and Wohrer is semi-close behind with some more escapees between them and the peloton. Vosekalns, surprisingly, already fell behind much earlier on the climb and is even behind the pack by now.
Said peloton has been reduced to 65 riders atop the mountain. All Top 30 riders are still in there.
Previous attacker Gonzalez Salas has bottomed out and is by now the last rider on the road, already 23 minutes behind the lead. That’s going to be a tough rest of the stage for him. Manulang shares a similar fate as the rider just ahead of the Spaniard, currently alongside Quaade, who has dropped behind teammate Vanderpool.
A quartet leads the race and they’re about to start the ascent of La Hourquette d’Ancizan. Dees and Shapira quickly made it back to the front on the downhill, giving Fablok two riders in this group.
Here’s the situation behind them. 13 riders are still between the leading group and the peloton, that trails them by five minutes. If the escapees manage to keep even half of that over the top of the climb, they should be fine - but that’s a big task.
Into the climb, Dees soon falls behind even the second group, leaving a trio up front. Wohrer takes on the majority of the work chasing them right now.
But his efforts are pretty fruitless. The trio increases their lead to a minute and a half inside the final five kilometers of the ascent. And the peloton isn’t coming any closer either.
Led by Wirtgen and Kangert, the peloton sweeps up one escapee after the next, but the GC contenders don’t seem interested in the stage win, nor in attacking each other for that matter. Still 70 riders large, the pack takes it slow and the gap to the leaders is now back over six minutes.
With the stage win for the breakaway looking more and more likely, Fablok decides to pull the trigger. Hacecky attacks, Shapira stays with him, but Vangstad can’t!
The teammates quickly gain half a minute and their gap is only increasing. But they shouldn’t slow down, or else Vangstad might have a chance to come back on the descent, where he’s much stronger than both of them.
And indeed, they continue to pace. Shapira leads Hacecky over the summit with the Norwegian now more than a minute behind! This could be a glorious day for Fablok!
Another look at the big pictures reveals that Kolesnikov has lost contact with what is now the main breakaway group. But both he and Dees still have a decent chance to stay ahead of peloton.
Brenes still has a bit left in the tank and accelerates to take the fourth place at the mountain sprint ahead of Prado.
With that, he increases his lead in the mountain rankings to 36 points, almost doubling Danacik’s total.
We had to wait until the last 300 meters of the climb, but finally there’s some movement among the favorites. Who else but Sicard could be the attacker. The move does look a bit futile though, he’s not a great downhill rider by any stretch of the imagination, and that’s still a 70 riders strong peloton he would have to escape.
At the very least, the attack did some damage to the pack: A decent gap opens behind the first 20 riders and some big, big names are caught behind!
Most importantly, that’s the man with the Number 1, Madrazo! He didn’t pay enough attention and has to catch up now, but he’s got a lot of teammates around him. Also in this group are Barguil, Guldhammer, Velits, Arndt, Machado and Brambilla.
Sicard holds a small gap of 15 seconds. We’ll see how far that takes him. The groups behind have reunited for now, but it’s a fragile construct with splits opening and closing through the tight corners of the serpentines.
Further ahead, Wohrer and Bettiol have lost touch with Dunne, Prado and Brenes. Dees and Kolesnikov have been caught by the peloton, so it’s eight escapees remaining.
After maybe nine or ten kilometers, Sicard’s adventure is over for now, Aru brings him back. But we can see that a pretty significant gap has opened and split the peloton in half! Madrazo and Barguil made it back to the front, but Guldhammer, Velits, Arndt and Machado are in the trailing group, 50 seconds behind.
That first catch was of course not the end of it, because the French seems to have way too much energy. Let’s see how far he comes this time.
Meanwhile, our leading duo rides safely towards the stage win. They keep Vangstad consistenly at just over a minute and presumably get to sprint each other for the win - what a fantastic scenario for them. Vangstad, by the way, has more than three minutes on his chasers, so he, too, is guaranteed a great result.
This time, it’s Smith who catches Sicard. The second group of favorites has also reunited with the pack. But is either of those things for good now?
Wohrer brings himself and Bettiol back to the main breakaway group. They will be fighting for some valuable points here, with places four through eight up for grabs, since the peloton is a good two minutes behind them.
The Fablok guys have arrived at Bagnères-de-Bigorre. Will they even battle each other? Shapira is in the lead, Hacecky is easily the faster rider.
They go for it and it’s a very close call, but Hacecky takes the win! A bit unfortunate for Shapira, but what a fantastic day for Fablok - Bank BGZ!
With them crossing the line, the time limit is set at 1h’23’25. Gonzalez Salas is only just starting his climb up the Hourquette d’Ancizan, he’s currently estimated at around an hour behind the lead. Not going to be easy, but he could make it!
Vangstad crosses the line around a minute and a half behind the winner. Considering his skillset, this is a great result for him. His DS should be very pleased!
Dunne opens the sprint in the next group. On paper, Bettiol should take this, but he looked pretty spent more than once already today.
As it turns out, they all are. Prado musters a very short acceleration in the final meters to finish fifth behind the Irish, Bettiol, Wohrer and Brenes simply role over the line, completely exhausted.
Guldhammer leads the peloton coming to the finish, Goos takes the final Top 10 spot. No further attacks, no more splits in the end.
Gonzalez Salas is six kilometers from the finish when the time runs out. Reaching tomorrow was the main goal for the time trialist, but attacking early today turned out to be the wrong move and he becomes the second rider who has to give up this Tour de France.
The breakaway turned out to be a bad idea for many other riders, too, by the way. All riders who finished on the last eight places today were in on the move, including guys like Chernetskiy and Jaramillo, with Vosekalns tenth-to-last - some pretty stunning collapses. The lanterne rouge stays with Vlatos, though, who finished a bit more than 40 minutes down today.
In terms of the GC, this was a bit of a disappointment, although it was probably not realistic to expect more than what we got. Brenes and Hacecky moving up to 25th and 31st, respectively, are the biggest moves we see today, except for a lead change in the teams classification: After a steady rise over the past week, Aker - MOT takes the first place thanks to Vangstad’s big performance.
Tomorrow, the only individual time trial is on the plate. Phinney is expected to increase his overall lead, but beyond that, we’ll get a clear picture of where the other contenders stand ahead of the remaining mountain stages, of which there are five left now.
Tour de France 
