Just as Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) confirmed that he is on the road to resurgence in Orsier-Mellet, Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) said he is aiming for the long haul in this year's Tour de France, as he did successfully in 2019.

Bernal, who finished seventh on stage 4, was always near the front in the Tour's first summit finish and was never in danger of falling off the bike.

But when Roglic moved to the front, Bernal was not able to chase his shadow as much as his other rivals, and in terms of time, Roglic punched the defending Tour champion to the max, thanks to the 10-second bonus for his stage win.

He now sits in sixth place overall, 17 seconds behind race leader Julien Alaphilippe (Detuninck-Quick Step) and 10 seconds behind Roglic. He argued that the final week of the Tour, which helped him win the 2019 race, is what will matter again in 2020.

"It was a really fast, short climb, with a punch at the end, a good climb to see how the GC riders are," Bernal told reporters after the race. 'It was really hard, so I was happy to arrive with them.'

"My goal was not to lose time, and I'm glad I didn't lose time on Logric.

Asked about the back injury that forced him to abandon the Criterium du Dauphiné before the final stage, Bernal said it bothered him a bit on the first stage of the Tour, but he recovered thanks to an easy stage on Monday. On Tuesday, at the Tour's first summit finish, the Orcier-Mellet, "it didn't bother me at all."

Thursday's Mont-Aigual will be a longer, more difficult climb for Bernal, Roglic, and the other top riders. But for now, rather than getting caught by the scruff of the neck in the first summit finish--which Chris Froome has done to destructive effect in previous Tours--Colombia's strategy seems to be to aim for the last half of the race and ride out Logric's storm as best they can.

"It's not good for the other GC riders to gain some seconds," he recognizes. The best-case scenario is to go into week three in as good a position as possible and make up what you lost on the long climb that week."

"I want to go into week three as fresh as possible. All 21 stages are crucial."

Ineos might have hoped that teammate Richard Calapaz would serve as a plan B for the overall class, but he was slightly (but by no means definitively) dented on Tuesday when Calapaz fell 28 seconds behind, dropping him to 21st overall. However, Thursday's stage and the Pyrenees weekend will give a clearer picture of whether he is slowly getting better than the rest of his GC rivals or whether he needs to sound the alarm bells in the Ineos camp.