Tour de France, stage 6 preview: How about a breakaway day before the mountains?

July 8, 5:55 PMCycling ExaminerJames Raia

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GIRONA, Spain — Goodbye to France for two days.

The sixth stage of the Tour de France on Thursday will take cyclists into Spain for final non-mountain stage before three straight days of climbing loom in the Pyrenees.

 Fabian Cancellara could keep his leader's jersey one more day, Cancellara (Saxo-Bank) of Switzerland has held the race lead since his opening stage win in Monaco last Saturday. The sixth stage has five categorized climbs, three category 4 (the least severe) obstacles, and two category 3 efforts.

After Frenchman Thomas Voeckler's solo win in stage 5, Cancellara maintained his split-second lead over Lance Armstrong (Astana). Alberto Contador, Armstrong's teammate, remains third, trailing by 19 seconds.

The 181.5-kilometer (112.7-mile) sixth stage from Girona to Barcelona also has few completely flat sections and it's an ideal stage for a breakaway. It's the kind of stage in which a rider not paying attention can miss a break and then have difficulty pedaling his way back to the field.

The Tour de France has visited Spain often, but it's only finished twice in Barcelona.

In some Tour de France editions of yesteryear, double stage were held, and accounted for the two of the finishes in Barcelona in 1957.

In the day's opening stage, Frechman Rene Privat won a stage from Perpignan with a late solo breakaway. In the second stage of the day, Privat's compatriot Jacques Anquetil claimed a 10-kilometer individual time trial in Montjuich Park.

The last time the Tour de France visited Barcelona was in 1965 when Jose Perez-Frances claimed a four-minute stage victory after a 125-mile solo breakaway.

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