The second mountain stage of the Tour de France proved to be a successful day for the general classification riders with only one change to the top 10 overall as Bauke Mollema (Trek Factory Racing) and Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) swapped 10th and ninth places, respectively.
After the scale of time loss on the previous day's stage 10 climb to La Pierre-Saint-Martin, the GC contenders were content to make it through stage 11 ahead of tomorrow's demanding third day in the Pyrenees. Chris Froome (Team Sky) retained his overall lead by 2:52 ahead of runner-up Tejay van Garderen (BMC) and by 3:09 ahead of third placed Nairo Quintana (Movistar).
Van Garderen ensured his BMC team covered all the dangerous moves in a frantic start to the 188km day before the pieces of the breakaway jigsaw fell into place.
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The American finished 13th in a big GC group, 5:21 minutes down on stage winner Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo), after Team Sky allowed the breakaway to succeed into Cauterets.
“It went pretty smooth, the breakaway was really hard, it took almost two hours for it to get established and get guys up the road. Astana was a little bit aggressive on the Tourmalet but all in all it was a good day,” van Garderen said of the stage.
With two category 3 climbs, a category 1 climb and the Hors Category Col du Tourmalet, the parcours presented an opportunity for the likes of van Garderen, Quintana and Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) to spring a surprise attack on Sky in order to make up the time lost on the summit finish in La Pierre-Saint-Martin.
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