Well it seems the last 1km climb in yesterdays stage saw some action, surprisingly no one staying away over the top, but the small group of riders caught the peloton napping and Jan Bakelants doing what all riders love to do and that's get one up on the chasing peloton.
The General Classification (GC) contenders all showed they have some sort of form. Though its too early to tell how good the form is, 2 days in and the third day is even hillier than day 2. Its not a brutal stage in term of serious climbing, but all these little climbs will weaken the contenders that are not on form, come the High Mountain days we are most likely to see one or two of the contenders crack.
So with some time gaps on the GC, there's opportunity for a break to go clear and stay clear. There will be opportunists looking to slip up the road and be left alone to fight it out, only problem is there's most likely some GC riders who fancy a chance at a stage and possibly taking the yellow jersey for a couple of days. The problem with this is, if one of the GC riders want the stage, the team has to take the responsibility of chasing down the break away, this could work or it could weaken the team and isolate the GC rider later on in the tour. I guess the big question is how confident the GC contender is in achieving a good overall position at the end of the tour. If he isn't that confident he'll most likely put the team on the front to try for, at least, a stage win. The other side of the coin is the team SKY factor, by far the most calculated team out there, and if they feel they can win the stage without using too much effort, they will. My bet is SKY won't chase today, they have 2 riders which are injured and nursing the wounds of stage 1, the team will want to get them back to strength so they have the fire power in the High Mountains to put Chris Froome in a perfect position at winning the tour.
This is such an open stage for anything to happen, like almost every other hilly or High Mountain stage to come. Basically, if the GC contenders want to race, the winner will be decided between them. If they don't want to spend too much energy, then the winner will most likely be from a break away.
My favorites for today - Sylvain Chavanel, Thomas Voeckler, Aljandro Valvercde, Chris Froome
Outside favorites - Pierre Rolland, Dan Martin, Nairo Quintana, Thibaut Pinot, Joaquim Rodriguez.
Last day on the island of Corsica and then it's off to the mainland for the team time trial.
Map and profile of today's stage - http://www.cyclingnews.com/tour-de-france/stage-3
Henry ICEman Uys @met_uys
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