The peloton finally catches the day’s early breakaway.

As epic as the climbing stages typically are, they always reshuffle the deck.  In other words, I was missing my favorite sprinters until their grand return today in quite a charmingly picturesque stage 10.  Throughout this lovely 122-mile day of predominantly flat western countryside terrain– made for the likes of Greipel, Sagan and the famous Missile, among others– the stage winner remained an unpredictable prediction.

The beach-front final stretch in Saint Malo.

 In the end my sense got blown apart, thanks to a literal turn in the final sprint, coupled with a last-second crash that rattled the lines and had fingers pointing at the Missile himself.  As the dust settled, my predictions came in fourth, third and second, all behind today’s first repeat-stage winner of the year, German Marcel Kittel.

Today’s big unpredictable finish!