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Fabian Cancellara went for broke on the lower slopes, and I nearly popped my eyeballs out to get on his wheel. He was wearing the yellow jersey by virtue of winning the prologue the previous day and was determined to make it two wins out of two. As I got up to him on the steepest bit of the climb, I looked back and saw that only Edvald Boasson Hagen had made it with us. The rest of the Tour was stuck to the lower slopes. As we reached the top, with a few hundred meters left, Cancellara tried hard to get me to do a turn, but I kept my head down on his wheel, knowing that if I could get him to lead out, I fancied my chances of coming around him. Boasson Hagen was similarly glued to my wheel, probably thinking the same thing, and the bunch was closing in. Just when I thought I might lose my nerve and attack, fearing we would be caught with 200 meters to go, thankfully Cancellara opened up the sprint.

He did so at the perfect moment for me, just before the pace dropped off, and I soared around him to take my first Tour de France stage win, freewheeling enough to be able to do the chicken dance all the way over the line. Cancellara wasn’t happy with me, initially because he felt I had ridden his coattails to the win, which was true, but he was a superstar, and I was a rookie. Then that celebration really got up his nose, taking it as a personal snub and a sign of disrespect.