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Alpe d’Huez was far from the oft seen sunny and vibrant mountain usually shown during the Tour. Unfortunately for us at the top of the mountain it was a chilly ten degrees with rain pelting down in the morning.
Fortunately for the riders and supporters the rain had dissipated in time for the first ascent of the mythical mountain.
This was the first time the Alp had been ascended twice in the one day and also the first time they would descend down the back and that was no mean feat.
Driving up the back we could see what the riders were nervous about. A steep descent with narrow, rough roads; nowhere near the near pristine bitumen laid on the front of the mountain almost every year.
Riblon was a member of an early six man breakaway containing van Garderen, Moreno Moser and Jens Voigt.
On top of the mountain anticipation grew for the remainders of the breakaway with Riblon, van Garderen and Moser all arriving at the same time to the cheers of the crowd.
Then Jens Voigt appeared and, as always, the catch-cry of “Shut-up Legs!!” was heard all around. This brought a wry smile through the gritted teeth of Voigt.
The oldest man in the peloton is easily the most popular among the crowd.
Tension grew as the second ascent of the climb began. Van Garderen had an ever-shrinking lead over Riblon, having pulled away after summiting the first time.
However it seemed Riblon would run out of mountain to catch him on. Meanwhile, about six minutes behind the battle for general classification was heating up.
Quintana burst off the front with Froome barely able to hang on. The Englishman then had Porte bring him up some food despite the warnings by the Commissaires.
Quintana obviously knew this is where he had to make his mark with the young Colombian stepping on the gas again, this time successfully breaking away from Froome.
Contador struggled on the climb, eventually surrendering almost one minute to the yellow jersey and only just hanging on to second position from Quintana, who is now in third.
Further up the road and it seemed Tejay van Garderen would be the first to the top for the second time in the day, only to have his heart shattered as Riblon caught him with only two kilometres to go.
Riblon’s win was the first by a French rider on this year’s Tour and was celebrated by all the French on top of the mountain.
Cadel Evans has slipped to 29th after being unable to continue with the pace being set by Sky. Michael Rogers remains the best-placed Australian and is in eighth place with Richie Porte 20th.
The latter two Australians finished almost alongside their team leaders having done their best to drag their leaders up the final climb.
However with so many riders out of General Classification contention and the sprinters teams relatively relaxed from their duties they rode the mountain at a leisurely pace.
Adam Hansen even had time for a quick beer in Dutch Corner, given his team leader in Andre Greipel was hardly going to threaten up the climb and there were no sprint points on offer at that point.
Friday sees a heavy mountain stage with five categorised climb being undertaken. The riders will take on the two Hors Categorie climbs first (Col Du Glandori and Col de la Madeleine) before ascending the second category Col de Tamie.
They will then top it off with two Category 1 climbs in the Col de L’epine and the Col de la Croix Fry.
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