The Tour de France Femmes continued to traverse its way toward the Alps, with an almost 160 kilometre long route from Bourg-en-Bresse to Chambéry. A stage back-loaded with climbing action before a descent into the finish town, Team Picnic PostNL were motivated to shake things up in the white jersey standings and try to move into the competition lead with Nienke Vinke; starting the day 22 seconds down on leader Julie Bego.
It was a fast start to the day because due to the nature of the course, a lot of teams wanted to try and get a rider up the road. Eventually the elastic snapped and Megan Jastrab made it into the break of the day for the team. The group worked well together and built up an advantage that reached more than four minutes, but as they approached the climbs the pace in the peloton increased.
In the bunch, the rest of the team did a superb job to keep Vinke well positioned throughout the day and in particular going onto the final categorised climb of the day – the Col du Granier. Out front, the stronger climbers in the break pushed on and would ultimately go on to take the stage win, but back in the GC group Nienke fought hard. Some strong support by the team saw her begin the climb in a good wheel and from there she pushed hard on the pedals all the way to the top.
Noticing she had a gap on white-jersey Bego, Vinke rode a fast bust measured descent and came into Chambéry with enough of a gap to go into the lead of the competition come the line. Vinke and Team Picnic PostNL now hold a 21 second gap over Vinke with the brutally tough Col de la Madeleine finish to come so there is still a lot to play for.
