Up and Down

It was an impressive show of strength for Tony Martin today. He was able to put himself into a two man breakaway, which was super difficult to get into (despite the size of it in the end) and then he was able to hold off a chasing group of 28 riders for the entire stage. He had one companion for most of the day, but dropped him on the final long climb and used his time trial skills to power away from everyone. Bottom line is that he put on a show! For the rest of us it was not an easy day either. It was directly uphill at the start today and everyone was all in. I tried my hand at a big move early and suffered dearly after being caught. I fought tooth and nail to try and recover a bit while drifting backward in the group. Then I was never able to come to the front again before the huge group of 28 riders went away, but thankfully Fabian had good legs and was able to make the effort. Once that group was gone the peloton was led by Astana all day. They let the break and ultimately the yellow jersey go, but they didn't let the peloton have it easy! It wouldn't have been any different in the break or peloton today because the effort was still intense and probably one of the hardest races I've had. It was an opportunity the team would've liked to capitalize on, but Tony Martin was too strong. I tried to stay with Frank and Haimar as best as possible the rest of the day and then saved my energy in the last 5km once I knew they were taken care of. Tomorrow is going to be another doozy and surely the gc contenders are going to fire some real bullets.