Omega Pharma - Quick-Step Cycling Team, and the rest of the peloton, saw Jens Voigt (Radioshack-Nissan) ahead with a gap of about four minutes with less than 40 kilometers to go. He had attacked earlier out of a break of more than a dozen riders. The temperature was dropping, rain was falling, and Voigt was still going strong.
Suddenly, the peloton spread across the road and riders began smiling and chatting. They sat up, and the gap went up to almost six minutes as Voigt ascended Cat 3 Battle Mountain. The peloton only picked up the pace to set themselves up to preserve their GC placing, or perhaps move up, in the final kilometers.
Voigt went on for the solo win, and the rest of the field gave their legs a break after a prior three stages of hard racing in the Colorado mountains at high altitude.
Levi Leipheimer of OPQS, meanwhile, did his best to ensure his GC placing remained the same for the next stage. He finished 4th in the stage, and remains 4th (+8") in the GC.Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team) outsprinted Andreas Kloden (Radioshack-Nissan) for 2nd, and as a result took back the leader's jersey because van Garderen finished ahead of Vande Velde.
OPQS looks next to a 190.2km stage on Friday.