The tenth stage of the Tour de France 2004 took the riders from Limoges to Saint-Flour . Whereas the previous nine stages - with the exception of the team time trial - were all tailored to the sprinters, stage 10 was the first mountain stage of the tour. With nine mountain ratings in the 4th to 1st category, it was the hardest to date and - at 237 km - the longest stage of the entire tour. At 173.5 km, the Col du Pas de Peyrol ( Puy Mary ), a 1589 meter high mountain of the 1st category.
Shortly after the start there was an attack by Halgand, which Mori followed. Over time, the leading group grew to six drivers. Meanwhile, virusesque and García Acosta followed the leading group. Virusesque and Axel Merckx were later able to break away from the group, and Sylvain Chavanel followed them at the beginning , but he could no longer keep up. After the very restless start, the section between the first and second mountain classification came to a rather calm phase.
In all mountains the top favorites stayed together and watched each other. Only at the Col du Pas de Peyrol tried Roberto Heras to get away, but he did not succeed. In addition, Axel Merckx could no longer keep up with Richard Virusque and had to let go. Virusque's lead was a maximum of ten minutes over the group of favorites.
