"It’s amazing: everyone is tired on the bunch, yet there were guys going and going… non stop… for many kilometres today. I had to make the time cut, so I had to ride on at the bunch’s pace. Anyway, once we got halfway through the stage, we didn’t have any problems to reach the finish line inside the time limit because we formed a big, nice group to do so. We were worried about Tim [Declercq] after his crash yesterday. We are glad and relieved that he went through the stage alright. I’ll hopefully be by his side tomorrow as well. And, as for me tomorrow, I will try to hang on for as long as possible. There is this climb at the start that will force me to ride hard from the beginning."
