Greig Leach

These five men formed the perfect break away, low enough on the General Classification to not be a threat to the Yellow Jersey and strong enough to build the biggest gap thus far in the 101st Tour de France. The group consisting of Simon Yates (Orica GreenEdge), Adrien Petit (Cofidis), Niki Terpstra (OPQS), Blel Kadri (AG2R) and Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling) built up a lead of eleven minutes before the Astana lead peloton decided to start pulling them back in. Stage 8 feature some of the first serious climbs of this edition of the Tour with three categorized climbs coming bunched together within the last 20 kilometers of the stage. The final climb was a little easier than the preceding two, but the summit was the finishing line of the stage. The final climbs left the peloton thinking that the break would naturally be back in the fold once the real climbers came out to play.