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The Mountains Await
The peloton as been up a few big hills, mountains by the Island of Great Britain standards. but nothing like what is looming on the horizon. Stage 13 started relatively easily with a category 3 climb and then a long hundred kilometer flat run at the Alps. The break and later the peloton would end the day with a Category 1 scaling of the Col de Palaquit follow by a Haute Category trip up to the finish line at Chamrousse. A nice size group of nine decided they wanted a head start up the first climb. Alessandro De Marchi started it off at 5 kilometers into the stage and was joined on the first climb by Rudy Molard (Cofidis), Jan Bakelants (OPQS), Giovanni Visconti (Movistar), Bartosz Huzarski (NetApp-Endura), and Daniel Oss (BMC). Unfortunately for the break, Blel Kadri (AG2R) got himself in with the rest, unfortunate, because he was only ten minutes down on the Maillot Jaune. Combine that with Katusha missing the move and it was unlikely the group would be allow to stay off of the front.