Le Tour 2010 - Barredo almost channels Merckx whilst GC leaders sit and ponder : Stage 16

I'm fairly certain the large majority of the peloton would rather have pulled the rug back over their head than arise, pull on their cycling apparel, and prepare for the monster day ahead.

With Stage 16 from Bagneres-de-Luchon to Pau (199.5 km) repeating the same peaks of a stage famously won in long breakaway fashion by Eddy Merckx on a day long ago in 1969, Carlos Barredo (Quick Step) almost channeled Merckx for the win, sadly falling agonizingly close. After considerable efforts to dislodge himself on the final climbs of the day (the Col du Soulor and the Col d'Aubisque) without success, he finally managed to get the flea off the dog with a scintillating burst away from the 8 strong break group at the 44 km mark and soloed to within 1 km of victory, only to be caught under the flamme rouge.

On a day featuring two Cat. 1 and two hors categorie climbs (the Col de Peyresourde only 11 km into the stage, the Col d'Aspin, the Col du Tourmalet, and the double whammy Col du Soulor and the Col d'Aubisque - OMGWTFBBQ!) those in the peloton not considering suicide as a tantalizing option would have been thinking GC time gains. In retrospect that was probably not going to happen, given the extreme nature of the day climb-wise, and the fact that getting over the summit of the final climb of the day still meant a 61 km trip to the finish line. And in actuality it didn't - the top 10 GC remained at status quo with carnage time wise only happening to lesser mortals.

Within 5km of the start of the race, and with the Col de Peyresourde looming (that'd make you hurl up your breakfast that early in the piece!) a bunch of 11 riders had gapped the bunch, and amazingly two of these riders - Lance Armstrong and Carlos Barredo - would remain a feature in the tete de la course for the rest of the day: clearly Lance was looking for a nice send off prize.  Just before hitting the slopes of the Peyresourde, the lead bunch had swollen to 20, amongst the add ons one Ryder Hesjedal of Garmin-Transitions, the number 10 GC contender.

Maybe the peloton had that in mind, because the lead bunch was never let much out of sight, and indeed a couple of additional riders (Alexandre Vinokourov and Carlos Sastre) made the shortish jump to them after the descent of the Peyresourde.

Ascending the Col d'Aspin, the break looked like being sucked up by the peloton under half a minute behind, so Sandy Casar let the cat out of the sack and scooted, with a bunch of riders following, whilst others cracked and went backwards into the loving arms of the main pack.

Climbing the Col du Tourmalet, the rider shuffle continued, with some faltering, and a few brave souls from the still close main group taking wing and joining: in all it was a fairly fluid time composition-wise for the escapees. It finalised at 10 members at the summit, mostly due to the fact that the main peloton had shut down somewhat, and the gap had gone out to over 3 minutes.

This gap continued to increase measurably over the journey to the Col du Soulor and, arriving at its base, the leaders were over 6 minutes in advance. Ascending, a number of squabbles broke out amongst the leaders on the road, with Armstrong being the initial antagonist with 2 runs, followed by Barredo and Pierrick Fedrigo (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) asserting their importance, and for a while it was a bit of a raffle who'd survive (Sandy Casar and Ignatas Konovalovas of Cervélo didn't).

Running off the Soulor and heading towards the final climb of the day, the Col d'Aubisque, the lead bunch obviously made a collective decision that they'd dropped everyone who was going to be dropped, and set about being good little escapees, climbing the Aubisque in relative peace and harmony. The only excitement here was the battle between Christophe Moreau of Caisse d'Epargne and Pierrick Fedrigo for the KOM points, with Moreau trying to sneak closer to current polka-dot holder Anthony Charteau (BBox) and Fedrigo trying to protect team mate Charteau's lead: in the final push, Moreau won it rather easily.  

With the lead bunch descending to within 44 km of the finish line and the main peloton some 8 minutes distant and decidedly unlikely to win the gap back, Carlos Barredo made his jump for freedom from the group shackles, and sniffed solo glory. The remaining riders all seemed a little nonplussed (thoughts of "is this guy nuts?" likely ratcheting in their skulls) and took their sweet time about reacting, with the consequence that Barredo had skipped out to a 45 second gap after 14 km.

Although the gap slowly reduced from thereon in, at 5 km to go Barredo still had a little under 30 seconds, and he still believed, as did perhaps all we viewers too.  Coupled with this was the fact that a few riders started to miss turns on the pull - the chance still was there! Alas, with two representatives each from Radio Shack (Chris Horner doing the work for Lance Armstrong) and Caisse d'Epargne (Ruben Plaza pulling along Moreau) Barredo's lead was slowly whittled away, and passing through the flamme rouge poor old Carlos sat up and dejectedly watched his pursuers scoot by onto possible glory, with his dreams of emulating Merckx fluttering away in their passing breeze.

 Given the lack of credited sprinters in the group (what a surprise) the 8 riders huddled together like bait fish at a feeding frenzy, none game to go for broke, eyeing off each other whilst the line drew ever closer. Sitting at the back, Armstrong made a slow rush (hey is that a new oxymoron?) to the front at the 250 meter mark, which finally stirred the bunch, and those who had any gas left used it. Lance was pretty quickly overwhelmed and threw in the towel, whilst Pierrick Fedrigo, with most juice in the tank, came up the inside barrier for the win, followed by Casar and Plaza.

Carlos Barredo trickled in 28 seconds down, looking and no doubt feeling rather dejected: cheer up mate!, 'coz at least they awarded you the Days Most Aggressive ride.

In what was a massive effort, Thor Hushhovd had managed to drag himself over the lumps all day in the top GC contenders group, and so he found himself lining up for the final sprint home with nice green jersey points still available! Gerald Ciolek (Team Milram) was his only competition but any real showdown didn't eventuate, and Thor took 10th place and the maximum remaining 6 points to cap off a great day by regaining the maillot vert. All praise the God of Thunder!

Stage 17 - THE SHOWDOWN!

Ride Safe!