the general classification overnight – along with 's Alexander Vinokourov among those that did not feature within the peloton. On the descent from the climb, a group of riders including Cadel Evans, George Hincapie and Tejay van Garderen broke out from the peloton, in the hope of pulling Evans nearer the overall lead of 's Bradley Wiggins, following his time loss the previous day in the individual time trial. Having caught Kern and Feillu on the road, the group lost ground to the peloton and with Wiggins later joining up with the group, Evans' efforts were in vain; with the group now back together as a whole, their efforts went back to the original break. Kern was part of another six-rider wave that went clear on the descent from the Col de Richemond, with the highest-placed rider being ninth-placed Luis León Sánchez of . took up station on the front of the main field, not allowing Sánchez to gain too much ground. The gap peaked out at around the 30-second mark and with nobody looking to help Sánchez with the pace-making in the group, they sat up and allowed to be reabsorbed into the peloton. 's Arthur Vichot attacked out of the lead group with around to go, and soloed away from his breakaway companions to take the victory by 26 seconds from the rest of the group. The peloton crossed the line around one minute down on Vichot, with Wiggins maintaining his 38-second overall lead as he was part of that group. Stage 6 9 June 2012 — Saint-Alban-Leysse to Morzine, The queen stage of the 2012 Dauphiné, the penultimate stage consisted of six categorised climbs during its parcours, the first of which coming after only with the first-category Col de Plainpalais. After a pair of third-category passes, the field tackled another first-category climb, the Col de la Colombière coming with remaining of the stage. Inside the final , the day's two remaining climbs were ascented; the third-category Côte de Châtillon, and the race's second and final hors catégorie climb, with the Col de Joux Plane – reaching an altitude of – being the start of the run-in towards Morzine, with the summit of the climb coming with to go of the stage. Nineteen riders went clear of the peloton almost immediately after the start of the stage; among those riders were the two combatants for the mountains classification,