Bradley Wiggins said after stage 11 that he felt an overwhelming sense of relief that he could put the day that he believed would be the most difficult of the 2012 Tour behind him. There will be some heavy legs after an epic battle that significantly altered the overall standings and the moral of some will have taken a heavy hit after the race to La Toussuire... particularly the defending champion Cadel Evans. The Australian tried in vain to make up some of his deficit on Wiggins with an attempted long-range attack that started on the col de la Croix de Fer but only lasted a couple of kilometres before it was nullified by the Sky team.
Stage 12 has two big climbs but this is likely to serve more to establish the advantage of an escape than influence the overall standings as there is over 140km between the Col du Granier and the finish in the Ardeche. The longest stage of the 99th Tour begs for the opportunists to show themselves while the GC guys will be hoping for a temporary truce so they can recover from the efforts required of them in stages nine, 10 and 11. There are still 17 teams without a victory in the Tour of 2012 so a list of the candidates of fighters would be a long one but a name that comes to mind is Sylvain Chavanel...