Welcome to Paris Tours, or Chartres Tours as the race actually goes from Chartres to Tours. Despite that, the course for the riders is the same. We're moving south pretty much the entire course. It's a nice day in France, but it's windy also. Will we see some echelons? Let's begin!
We have the 1st attack as the riders leave town. Schomber finds a way to be useful and gets in the break. He is followed by Grashev and Ponce who seems to be motor pacing the race car?!
Allegaert is joining Ponce and we have also Müller and Filutas approaching from behind.
The latter two were too much for the peloton as they got reeled back in. But they seem to be content with the other four up the road. Looks like we have the day's breakaway.
We fast forward for about 40 kms and we see the breakaway working against the wind. They have a 5 minute advantage, but still 180 km are left in this race.
Back in the peloton we have a lot of teams contributing towards the pace setting right now. Vesuvio, Festina, eBuddy, ISA, Lierse and Berg are all working.
140 km left to race and the gap to the breakaway has fallen to 3'45''. As expected the pace is still quite lax at this point.
With a 100 km to go the breakaway still has 3 minutes. So it's coming down slowly but surely, as we see the peloton in the distance.
We see the peloton here on a little false flat section as we're approaching the final stages of the race. The gap is now at 1'44'' with 64 km to go. Something tells me there won't be any fairytale stories here for the breakaway.
The cooperation in the breakaway has ceased now as the gap is almost below a minute. 42 km remaining now.
The breakaway is caught with 27 km left, but more importantly we do see a split in the peloton as we have a front group of 26 riders now. Degenkolb, Gaviria, Coquard, Grosu and Swift are the sprinters in the front group. The rest are 1'03'' behind at the moment.
It looks like things might come back together, but at the same time the elastic could break at any moment. Anyhow ISA are trying to make it difficult for the others to come back.
An attack now from World Champion Wisniowski! He is followed by Summerhill, Kneisky and Andersen.
Van Aert is working to chase them down and this increase in pace now could make more splits in what looked like a peloton that was coming back together.
A strong effort by the Belgian brings them all back. The peloton is now 76 rider strong with the only noticeable absentee being Holloway who is already over 2 minutes behind.
Going over the 1st of the two hills, we see eBuddy have taken command at the front. Setting a tempo strong enough to prevent attacks.
eBuddy continues the pace setting on the longer 2nd hill also. Most of the sprinters are positioned near the front. 8 km to go now.
We have a split over the top! Houle, Pedersen, Groenewegen and Enger are in a group 43'' behind.
5 km to go and Grosu is behind his teammates Vermeltfoort and Ariesen at the front. Followed by Andersen and a long line of sprinters.
Houle and Enger have caught up to the front group as we enter the final 4 kms.
Ariesen has started his leadout with 2.7 km to go. Seems a bit early, but the others are happy to follow this pace.
Ariesen isn't a proper leadout rider and it looks like he's not at full strength either. This is more pace setting than leadout work. Andersen takes advantage and attacks with under 2 km to go!
The sprinters now have to start sprinting as Andersen has a nice gap as he goes under the flamme rouge.
500 m to go and the Dane still has a gap. Ariesen, Degenkolb, Swift, Gaviria and Coquard are spread across the road behind him.
200 m now, Andersen looks really good.
Yes! Soren Kragh Andersen lifts his arms in the air! He is the winner of Paris Tours with a perfect late attack!
Coquard wins the sprint for 2nd ahead of Grosu, Swift, Degenkolb and Gaviria.
Lo Cicero is 7th, Avelino comes in 8th, Kristoff 9th and Guardini rounds out the top 10.
Paris Tours 
