Stage 17 – Another “Little Guy” Achieves Stage-Win Glory.

These mountain stages provide opportunities for the “little guys” in the Tour.  If they can join a breakaway, and then somehow execute an attack on their companions, they just might steal a stage victory and write their names into the history books.  This was the happy outcome today for German Simon Geschke (Giant-Alpecin).   For only his third professional stage win, and first time in a major tour, Geschke attacked the breakaway before the summit of the 2^nd-to-last climb, and then held on to win high in the Alps.  He won a 5,000 Euro bonus at the top of the highest climb, and also captured the Most Aggressive prize for two additional bursts of glory.  American Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Garmin) raced hard to erase Geschke’s 1:30 lead, but fell short by 32 seconds for second place. 

The GC boys felt no threat from the breakaway, and staged their own separate race as much as ten minutes behind the stage leaders.  First, came shocking news that Tejay Van Garderen had abandoned with 70 Km to go because of illness.  Turns out he has been nursing a cold which worsened during the rest day.  Today, he had headaches and no energy, and could not keep up with the pace of the peloton.  There goes his dream of a podium finish!

The rest of the GC hopefuls stayed with Froome, attacking without success.  Quintana beat Froome to the line, but gained no time.  All the others previously in the top ten lost up to 2 minutes.  Contador took a fall on a bumpy part of the last steep descent, and could not catch up to the Froome group to contest the finish.  Froome’s Yellow Jersey is looking more and more safe, with only three more mountain stages where he might be challenged, and with he and his team showing no signs of weakness.

Matthias Frank (IAM), part of the breakaway, gained more than 5 minutes and moved into 8^th place, but is still almost 9 minutes behind Froome.  Talansky also moved up five places and gained almost 7 minutes, but is still only in 12^th place with a deficit of over 16 minutes.

Peter Sagan again joined the breakaway and collected an additional 15 points to raise his Green Jersey lead to over 100 points.  In addition to the Yellow Jersey, Froome appears to have locked up the Polka-Dot Jersey (King of the Mountains) as well.  Quintana has an insurmountable lead for the White Jersey (Young Rider). 

With all the big prizes decided in advance, these final stages will be animated by the “little guys” trying to get a taste of glory.  So, the stages will be fun to watch, but there is no more suspense on the big prizes.

This is what these Tour de France climbs are like - long and steep!  Ashley Jensen climbs Mt. Ventoux (May 2011).

Aaron & Nan Kennard working to overtake two other riders on Mt. Venoux (May 2011).

Nan is having all together too much fun!  She is supposed to be suffering on this climb, but it doesn't even faze her!  (Mt. Ventoux, May 2011).