Tour- Stage 7 Recap - First Climbs

So the mountains finally came and they didnt dissappoint, sorry sprinters and Time Trialers but this weekend belongs to the climbers. And it began in style today on the slopes of Andorra's Arcalis the first HC (beyond Category) Climb of the tour. There were some mixed in hills and decent climbs on the ride to the base of the mountain which allowed about a nine rider breakaway to form with about a 12 minute gap over the peloton when they began the ascent. But those nine quickly thinned to a group of 5 then 4 then 1 as the young frenchman Brice Feillu from a wild card team riding in his first tour put in a surge that quickly gapped the others by 30 seconds. But just down the mountain the hurricane that is team Astana was brewing and took up the pace on the climb slowely thinning out the peloton of any men clinging on with the true climbers holding fast. This included the race leader (well not any more) Fabian Cancellara, whose fall off the pace finished his marvelous week in yellow. Astana was pushing the pace with full force, including levi leiphiemer who rode back up to the group after suffering an early crash, this dashed any hopes for american Dave Zebriskie of GC glory as he couldnt handle Astana's heat. With Feillu to far up the road for any of the GC contender to vie for a stage victory they began to focus on trying to pull time out of each other. This started with Cadel Evans, the Aussie who lost big time due to his weak team in the TTT. Evans attacked around 4k left, thinning things out and getting rid of any stragglers, but couldnt shake loose of Astana's big hitters and the other big names. Evans tried to attack again but to no avail with none other than Armstrong holding his wheel. With 2k go and in faces of all his competition Alberto Contador took the opportunity to flex his climbing muscles, literally flying away from his competition, too quick for any response from even the worlds best and putting some more valuable time on them.

Other than Feillu taking the stage for France, the days other surprise came from Bradley Wiggans the slipstream TT specialist who showed today that he could climb with the big boys, allowing him to maintain his high GC position, when most believed he would fall off as Cancellara did. in another minor surprise the yellow jersey did not go to an Astana rider today, but Rinaldo Nocentini. The Ag2r rider who was a bit over 3:00m minutes back going into the stage but was able to get in the early break and survive the climb and claim yellow just before the charging Contador by a mere 6 advantage second. He will not be a major challenger and will probably lose the race lead tomorrow but good for Nocentini to spend some time as the leader of tour and enjoy the glory that comes with it. All the other GC contenders came in 21 seconds behind contador, except for kloden and kreuziger who fell off, this puts lance in third 2 seconds back of contador, and Levi in 4th by 39 seconds, with wiggans holding fast to 5th.