14 DAY TRIAL // The mountains are upon us again and the stage finishes at altitude, meaning that fireworks are likely to happen and excitement will again be felt in Le Tour de France.
Here are the mountains that the peloton will have to go over today: the Col de Portet-d’Aspet, the Col de la Core, the Col de Latrape, the Col d’Agnes, the Port de Lers and the finish at the Plateau de Beille.
The last one is a Hors Categorie one and will probably be a good place for the general classification contenders who have lost a little time to launch and attack.
I believe that this will be a fairly tough stage for my team as I will be expected to control the breakaway and will likely have to deal with the big names who will try to gain time on Andy Schleck.
After having gone through the stage I must say that a number of my worst fears have begun, tough reality and that my Tour has taken a rather nasty turn.
After a rather uneventful start to the stage, a group of climbers separated from the peloton, but I managed to get it back and then get Frank Schleck, who was the best placed rider in the Polka Dot Jersey, up on the road, to take three of the four categorized climbs that made the stage.
After the last climb, I left him pulling at his own pace and he quickly got more than 2 minutes on the rarefied peloton and I hoped that I might get some more points in the mountain classification with Frank while protecting brother Andy with the rest of my team.
The lower slopes went well for me but then just as Alberto Contador hit the front and launched his decisive attack Andy was blocked by some other riders and the new physics of PCM 2011 cost me the Tellow Kersey for about 12 seconds.
Take a look at a video of the stage: