Stage 16 was the day after the second rest day.
It was the day to go into the Alps.
The Stage saw a group of 26 riders go away from the Peloton and they kept increasing the time gap between themselves and the Peloton.
Since the Peloton had all the Jerseys in the Peloton, they - the Peloton, showed no interest in chasing down the breakaway riders.
The Stage was a 168 kms race over basically easy terrain with three medium climbs until the 156km mark. At this point there is a steep and dangerous11 kms, descent from Col de Manse into the Alpine town of Gap.
We got the feeling that since Stage 17 was to be the Individual time trial over a 32km mountain terrain, the main contenders for this year's Tour would take it easy on the descent from Col. de Manse - hold back for what is to come tomorrow.
The time gap went out to over 10 minutes and it was clear that the Peloton wouldn't and had no intention of catching the breakaway group of riders.
On the climb up to Col de Manse, Rui Costa of Movistar, broke away and kept increasing his lead right till the finish.
The drama was being played out behind him.
A group of elite riders - Froome, Contador, Valverde, Mollema and a couple of others, left the Peloton and were trying to get up to the leaders.
Alberto Contador attacked Chris Froome on the climb a couple of times but to avail. Froome with the support for the most part from Richie Porte, held off the challenge. And they more or less went over the Col de Manse together.
Again on the descent, Contador went on the attack - reaching speeds of 60kms plus - trying to break away from Froome.
Contador did all he could and all he knew - he started taking excessive risks and at one point almost fell over and very nearly causing an accident to Chris Froome. Luckily there was no mishap and Porte stayed back to help Froome and Contador to get back to the their group of riders.
Eventually Rui Costa won and Froome and Contador went over the finish line together.
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