Geschke Takes Stage 17; Contador Drops Back; Van Garderen Out

Simon Geschke of Giant-Alpecin surprised the peloton by holding off several elite climbing challengers to win solo on the Pra Loup, the 2015 Tour de France's first mountaintop finish in the Alps. Geschke began the last climb with a minute in hand over Andrew Talansky of Cannondale-Garmin, and seemed vulnerable, but he maintained his pace while Talansky couldn't finish the job, and FDJs Thibaut Pinot -- who seemed like the man to beat on the preceding climb of the Col d'Allos -- slipped out on the descent and never recovered the time.

The day's biggest victim early on was Tejay van Garderen of BMC, lying third overall. Van Garderen was unwell from the start of the stage, conceding four minutes before climbing off the bike with 70km remaining. Sam Bennett of Giant-Alpecin also left the race today, as did World Champion Michal Kwiatkowski, who was stage-hunting earlier in the race before seeing his legs desert him.

Geschke led the Tour onto the slopes of the Col d'Allos, with a couple minutes on a group of some 20 riders who had an additional twelve minutes' gap on the race leaders. FDJ's Thibaut Pinot ignited the attacks on the Col d'Allos, the race's highest point, while the Trek Factory Racing team took over pacemaking duties from Team Sky, for reasons unknown (Bauke Mollema dropped from the group shortly thereafter). At least some of the tactics were aimed at gaining space ahead of the tricky descent of the Allos. The primary protagonist was Astana's Vincenzo Nibali, a noted descender, and his activity cost overall leader Chris Froome his supporters, though eventually Richie Porte dropped back from the breakaway. Nairo Quintana took a dig at Froome but no dice.

The descent was uneventful for the leaders with the exception of Alberto Contador of Tinkoff-Saxo, who crashed and suffered a mechanical problem, switched bikes with Peter Sagan, and lost over a minute in the process. By the finish he was more than two minutes down on the day. Apart from that, there was no real action among the bigs on this stage, which frankly wasn't designed well enough to cause any real challenges among the top contenders. The Pra Loup was only 6.2km at 6%, barely a challenge to the likes of Froome or Quintana, and while they traded blows on the way up for the heck of it, they finished together and the battle for yellow waits another day.

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