every climb. On the ascent of the cat-1 Col du Pas de Peyrol, after 135 km together, Merckx was dropped by Virenque. His lead over the peloton was down to 9'00" and he had about half-a-minute over Merckx. On the descent there were two nasty crashes out of the peloton by Matthias Kessler and Sebastian Hinault. Over the eighth summit (Col d'Entremont) Virenque had a minute over Merckx and had maintained his advantage over the peloton. On the final major summit, the Col de Prat de Bouc, with 31.5 km to the finish, Virenque led Merckx by over four minutes and had 7'45" over the rest. Merckx was caught by the peloton on the descent and then dropped by the peloton (he finished a minute down on the peloton). Virenque held his lead, the peloton did not make a major effort to catch him, and he came in over five minutes ahead. He had been out in front for 202 km and raced the final 62 km alone. It was his seventh career Tour stage victory, his maximum points haul was enough to put him in the polka-dot jersey for the first time in 2004 and his win also jumped him 51 places in the classement général. Stage 11 15 July 2004 — Saint-Flour to Figeac, This 164 km stage remained in hilly territory but featured no climbs as severe as Stage 10. There were just five categorised climbs, the largest being the cat-2 Côte de Montsalvy at 99.5 km. The day was warm, road-side temperatures reached as high as 45 °C and there was little wind. After the usual early escape attempts the peloton split on the very first climb at 6.5 km, although they were soon back together. Very quickly after the regrouping Jens Voigt and Juan Antonio Flecha broke away, they were joined by four others, but never got further than 20 seconds ahead and soon rejoined the US Postal led peloton. Minutes after that group had been swept up seven more riders tried to get away, they were soon caught and again another four riders made an attack. This group grew to seven before being caught on the second climb, the Cote de Therondels. On the short descent, after 56 km raced, David Moncoutié and Egoi Martínez made a break, they were soon joined by Flecha and the trio managed to push their lead above 30