Pierrick Fédrigo joined a 14-man breakaway just 10 miles into the 65-mile stage over the Col d'Izoard and beat the three other survivors as they raced their bicycles into Briançon on Friday.
Among the Dauphiné Libéré bike race leaders, Alejandro Valverde retained his margin over Cadel Evans and Alberto Contador at the end of Stage 6. The race ends Sunday in Grenoble.
While the overall leaders matched each other in the peloton on the steep climb up Izoard, Spaniard Mikel Astarloza made the only bold move and attacked.
Finishing ahead of the bunch, his efforts raised him from 8th into 4th place, displaying Garmin-Slipstream's David Millar who dropped to 5th overall.
Break away
The 14-man break developed early in the stage between Gap and Briançon. They had dwindled to just four riders — Fédrigo (Bbox Bouygues Telecom), Stéphane Goubert (AG2R La Mondiale), Juan Manuel Gárate (Rabobank) and Jurgen Van de Walle (Quick Step) — on the long climb up the Izoard.
After an equally long descent, Fédrigo attacked them within a mile of the finish line and won the race.
Valverde held his lead of 16 seconds over Australia's Evans (Silence-Lotto) and 1:04 on Spaniard Contador (Astana).
Saturday's stage is a 97-mile grind over two “above category” mountains — Col du Galibier and Col de la Croix de Fer with a mountain-top finish at Saint-François-Longchamp.
Final results at CyclingNews and VeloNews.
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