PCM 2011 Diary: Stage 18 – Time Lost, Hope Remains

This stage and the next dispute the title of Queen Stage of the 2011 edition of the Tour and frankly I believe that this eighteenth one, from Pinerolo to Galibier Serre-Chevalier is the one that should get the title.

The end of the stage takes place at 2,645 meters, the highest in the history of Le Tour de France and this should tell you everything about how hard it will be for everyone, even those accustomed to riding at altitude.

And this after another two Hors Categorie climbs that will tire the legs of all riders and might determine who wears the Polka Dot in Paris.

The descents are also loaded with potential pitfalls and once again the burden of controlling the race will be on the shoulders of Leopard-Trek.

The good thing is that I managed to keep all my riders going even though the overall cyclist count is down from 198 to 160.

I started the stage pretty confident of my abilities to control the race and then attack on the last climb but after the first 40 km or so I quickly began to get the feeling that this might not be my best day in the Alps.

The Col Agnel did quite a bit of damage, but no one important tried to attack so I pushed forward to Le Col d'Izoard, which lead to more cyclist being shed out the back door of the peloton but again failed to spark a very big attack.

I again took a chance to put Frank Schleck up the road in order to get the other teams something to work for and maybe protect Andy from some attacks.

It seems that this tactic is not the best one and Andy lost contact a few times in the last 20 km before managing to recover and then limit his losses to Contador to just over 40 seconds.

Take a look at how the eighteenth stage of Le Tour de France unfolded in my simulation: