A good recovery from yesterday's stage for some riders than make an important effort yesterday. Still the strong wind and the hills in the last half of the stage should bring an intersting finish for the stage.
O'Loughlin, Ciaran Cassidy, Balck, Medici and Jeannesson are in the day's breakaway. Balck is the only rider that hasn't been in any other breakaway so far. Cassidy is clearly there for the KoM jersey, which he lost yesterday to Hermans
The Irish guys from the breakaway seems to be the only ones interested for the KoM points on the first climb of the day
Cassidy had no problems taking the points there in front of O'Loughlin. Jeannesson was third there
The pack is lead by Irn Bru, 100%ME and Nokia - Nike are leading the pack, 3 minutes behind the escapes which means that they won't probably survive to the finish
On the flat portion between the first and the second climb there was a split in the pack due to the wind. But Irn Bru, Wiggle and Starbucks work together, as none of their leaders was in the group that got away, and managed to make the repack
The second climbs started with the attacks from Jeannesson, Balck and Cassidy. They managed to get away from the other 2 escapes
Cassidy was only second there as the climb was Jeannesson, but the KoM jersey seems to be his at least for now
O'Loughlin and Medici don't look too good as they definitly lost the contact with the other escapes and they are about to be caught by the pack
Right after the downhill ended the last uphill of the day start and Cassidy got away to take the last KoM points of the day
Cassidy was indeed first on the climb and he has now 20 points advantage over Hermans in the battle for the KoM jersey
Balck and Jeannesson cracked there but they still managed to take the third and second positions on the climb, while they were about to be caught by a very fast pack
Cassidy couldn't stay alone in front for too long and the breakaway ended with 15 km left from today's stage
Another mass sprint there. Vespa, Wiggle, 100%ME and even Starbucks and EON Ruhrgas are looking good
With 3 km to go, right before the sprint started 4 riders from Vespa and 2 from Starbucks were on the right side (from the riders' view) of the road, with Wiggle in good position on the left side. EON Ruhrgas really lost the control there and they are nowhere now. 100% Me aren't in a good position either as they tried to geat in the slipstream of the Wiggle train but they didn't really manage to do that
Minard was in a perfect position behind the first Vespa rider, Petrie-Armstrong, and after an while he accelerated to geat the lead
Even though they are four there, neither of the Vespa riders seems to be able to keep it up with Minard. Wiggle seems to be the only team that could stop the French rider
Right before the last kilometre, after staying in Rowe's wheel Trusov made his move in order to catch and beat Minard
Trusov seems to be faster than Minard at the moment and it seems that is going to between those two for the win today
Last corner and Trusov seems closer than ever to Minard, but the French man seems to have found his power to maintain in front
And Minard takes a pretty clear win in front of Trusov. The battle for the third position was really strong between Mohs and Gavazzi, but the Irn Bru rider got it
A group of riders, which included Roche and Valjavec, lost the contact with the pack on the last kilometres because of the wind but managed to get back right before they crossed the finishing line
