Breakin' up is hard to do, making it stick is almost impossible. Don't tell that to a cyclist -there is always a chance that it just might go. "So you're saying there's a chance?" I love to watch the perfected lead-out train of the sprinters, but more than that I love it when the break survives and gets a stage as a prize for work done. Going rogue is a huge gamble that the house/peloton usually wins, but on the infrequent occasion one slips by and the house pays.
De Gendt (Vacansoleil) who held the race lead for two days before Matt Goss took it from him on stage 3, jumped from the get-go after just 6k in the bag. De Gendt was joined by Voeckler (Europcar), Pauril (FDJ), De Greef (Omega Pharma), Gregorio (Astana) for close to 190k of work. Work that would eventually pay, and pay big for De Gendt and Voeckler.
This was the first of the hilly stages with the riders climbing three category 2 and four category 3 climbs. Not the best of days to escape, definitely not an easy day. The rogues were given a 5min gap but since De Gendt was 2nd on GC and three others were only 16sec down on GC the break was kept under close watch.
Cat and Mouse. The motivated peloton went to work to close the gap, but the tete de course was not done. They lost De Greef, but even with a four man break they kept the surging field to a 23sec gap at the red kite. De Gendt wanted the jersey back and went to the front and took monster pulls. Voeckler waited for his chance and took the sprint ahead of Pauriol and De Gendt. Haussler (Garmin) was first out of the field sprint with a gap of 13sec. Chalk another one up for the rogues.
1 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Team Europcar 5:04:20
2 Rémi Pauriol (Fra) FDJ
3 Thomas De Gendt (Bel) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team
4 Rémy Di Gregorio (Fra) Pro Team Astana
5 Heinrich Haussler (Aus) Team Garmin-Cervelo 0:00:13
6 Peter Sagan (Svk) Liquigas-Cannondale
7 Romain Feillu (Fra) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team
8 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne
9 Grega Bole (Slo) Lampre - ISD
10 Danilo Wyss (Swi) BMC Racing Team
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