Tour stage 11

A quiet day overall for the team in today's flat 11th stage from Sisteron to Bourg-les-Valence. The objective of the day was to keep out of trouble and not lose any unnecessary seconds to fellow GC candidates. They succeeded in this; Rubén and Egoi expertly guiding Samu up to the sharp end of the peloton when Saxo Bank put the hammer down inside the final 25 kilometres. The trio stayed out trouble and they all came in inside the top 20. Good riding! That's how to protect your captain! The remaining four riders also came in with the pack and hopefully got to recover a bit ahead of tomorrow' s stage to the top of the second category Mende. Although Samu is aware of the difficulty of that last climb, he does not think it will be hard enough to separate the main contenders. "Perhaps someone will attack and get a gap", he said, "but they won't be big as it's only three kilometres long. In addition the Ax-3-Domaines is coming up on Sunday, so one will have to measure one's effort".