Five categorized climbs and many more ups and downs, it looks like a perfect stage for escape artists. After the Puy de Dôme and a rest day, the riders aren’t done yet with the scenic volcanos from the Auvergne region as stage 10 kicks off from the Vulcania theme park. Col de la Moréno (cat. 3) after only 7km of racing will make it a brutal start. Shall the breakaway not be formed there, col de Guéry (also cat. 3) at km 27 gives another opportunity to make a difference. There are a lot of candidates including the enfant du pays Rémi Cavagna but do they really want to take Mads Pedersen along with them? The winner of stage 8 in Limoges stated that he’s hungry for more and already warned that he’d use the rest day to prepare for an assault to Issoire. Since he doesn’t have enough speed to outclass the pure sprinters, his chance to win another stage is throughout breakaways like he did in Saint-Etienne last year for his breakthrough victory. He’s hard to beat at the end of a hard fought stage…
