Nicolas Roche on the Tour de France podium today after an aggressive ride now that he is free of team responsibilities (Photo: Stefano Sirotti)
Although Nicolas Roche did not manage to hang on for a first stage win at the Tour de France today, his constant attacking in the last 50km earned him the combativity award for most aggressive rider on stage 11.
Roche's first attack came on the first climb of the day, the third category Cote de Rogna with 50km to go.
The Tinkoff-Saxo rider jumped across to an earlier move by Jan Bakelandts of Omega Pharma Quickstep and the duo pulled out a 45 second lead on the peloton as they began to close in on lone leader Martin Elmiger of IAM Cycling.
The trio were joined by Europcar's Cyrille Gauthier and Jesus Herrada of Movistar on the penultimate climb of the day with about 30km remaining.
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But with their gap whittled down to just 20 seconds by the Orica GreeEDGE and Cannondale teams on the final third category Cote de Echallon, Roche launched a solo attack in a last ditch effort to stave off the peloton in the final 20km.
He was overhauled by a Tony Martin-led chase on the descent off the final categorised climb however and will have to fight another day if he is to get that elusive Tour victory.
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While he didn't win the stage, Roche had some consolation in the award for most combative rider and will wear the red number tomorrow.
Today’s stage was eventually won by former yellow jersey Tony Gallopin (Lotto Belisol). He attacked on a late non categorised climb before the descent into the finish at Oyonnax after 187.5km.
From the lead group he had left, Michael Rogers (Tinkoff-Saxo), Peter Sagan (Cannondale) and Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) caught him. But with just 2.5km to go, the Frenchman jumped again.
This time the other three stalled and looked at each other, leaving Gallopin to get a small gap.
And while there was a regrouping behind, with Giant Shimano trying to get the stage win for John Degenkolb, Gallopin just about hung on to win, with the German in second at the head of 35 riders, all of whom recorded the same time as the winner.
Roche would finish 85th, some 8:14 back after a glory or bust effort that we will hopefully see more of now that his team leader Alberto Contador is gone and the Irishman has a freer hand to go for his own glory.
He is also 55 minutes down overall which means he will be given leeway by the overall contenders to go in escapes if he has the legs.
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