On the first big mountain stage of this year’s Tour, Esteban Chaves and Rigoberto Urán went for the break. Our veteran Colombians made the bet that it would stick. After 162 kilometers across three Pyrénéan cols on the way from Pau to Laurens, Rigo and Esteban just didn’t have the legs to hold out for the win. They had to relent when the attacks went on the Col du Marie Blanc and sat up once they were out of the race for the win.

Meanwhile, their teammates focused on getting through a very tough day without wasting a pedal stroke. They stayed out of the wind, as the race wound through green forests, climbing in and out of the mist. This Tour, we’re either going to be off the front or conserving.

The Tour is three weeks long and tomorrow is another chance. We’ll climb the Col d’Aspin and the Tourmalet—two of the Tour’s most storied climbs. Up the final ascent of the Cauterets Cambasque, power saved today could make the difference between riding away and being dropped tomorrow.

Neilson Powless is now tied for third in the Tour’s King of the Mountains competition, 10 points behind the leader. He could win up to 42 points tomorrow. Neilson would love to get the polka-dot jersey back. For the moment, we’re focused on tomorrow’s stage. The victor will go down in Tour de France history.

Only champions win over the Tourmalet. The mountain is one of the highest passes in the Pyrénées and the first great col the Tour ever climbed. It was first included in the route in 1910 and has since been raced over 87 times in total. It’s going to be one heck of a race. First, hear our thoughts about today’s stage.

It was a day at the Tour de France, a very hard stage. We had two guys in the front, but nothing happened, because in the end Chaves and I dropped. We will try tomorrow.

It was a really hard day, strong. It was super hard to get in the breakaway as well. I got in there with Rigo, but we couldn’t finish the work off today. Tomorrow, we have another opportunity. We will continue trying tomorrow and 16 more.

It was a hard day in the first big mountains. I didn’t make it into the break, but we had Rigo and Chaves in there. Unfortunately they didn’t have the legs. For the rest of us, it just turned out to be one of those days you have to get through as easy as possible. It was definitely not an easy day, but we are ready for another day tomorrow.

I tried to get through as easy as possible. It’s not like as easy as possible, but more like expending as little energy as possible and try and keep it in the tank for tomorrow. It was crazy. In a normal race, you would go that hard and there would be maybe thirty guys left at the top, but we go full gas and there are 60, 70 guys left at the top. It is ridiculous. Tomorrow is going to be a very similar day, a lot of fireworks, a lot of battling, a lot of sore legs, and a lot of watts put down.

We had seven riders trying to get in the break and in the end two made it. Neilson was trying in the beginning and it was hard. In the end, the group basically split, with 36 riders in front and we had Rigo who was fighting for it and Esteban. UAE was controlling behind. They just kept the pace in the peloton to keep the situation under control. The race exploded in front and it was a fight for the victory and a fight for the yellow jersey. Rigo didn’t have his best day today. We tried and we are going to try tomorrow as well.

The GC is already quite established, so the presence of so many well-placed GC riders in front complicated things for us, partly because of the time gaps and partly because they are really good riders and it just didn’t play out as we had hoped. Neilson was quite heavily marked at the start. We’ll have to give it another go tomorrow.