Rafal Majka broke free to claim a solo triumph on Stage 11 of the Tour de France, as Chris Froome maintained his lead in the general classification.
After blowing away the field to win a dominant mountain finish on Stage 10, Team Sky rider Froome and the other yellow-jersey contenders seemed content to call a truce of sorts and make it to the finish line safely given another difficult summit end awaits on Thursday.
The 188-kilometer route from Pau to Cauterets still had its challenges, though, with six category climbs to negotiate including the famous Tourmalet, which appeared on the Tour for the 80th time.
And Tinkoff-Saxo man Majka displayed the sort of form that saw him win last year's King of the Mountains jersey and two stages by opting to go it alone in the final 40 kilometers — a decision that yielded victory.
In the early part of the stage, Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) won the intermediate sprint to reclaim the green jersey in the points classification from Andre Greipel (Lotto-Soudal).
Majka was part of a seven-man break that had over four minutes on the peloton by the halfway stage, while Dan Martin (Cannondale-Garmin), a stage winner in 2013, quickly worked his way up to the leaders.
Majka sped ahead of the break inside the final quarter of the stage as the rest of the leaders became somewhat scattered.
The Pole reached the summit of the Tourmalet first, collecting 25 King of the Mountains points and a cool €5,000 as an added bonus.
Serge Pauwels (MTN-Qhubeka) had originally tried to go with Majka and the gap between the two kept fluctuating before Martin caught Pauwels and became the main chaser.
It was a fruitless battle, though, as Majka maintained his lead and rode over the line with his hands off the handlebars, before giving a small fist pump in celebration.
Froome and company safely followed in the bunch, as the Briton maintained his lead of 2:52 seconds over nearest rival Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing), while Astana's Vincenzo Nibali endured another tough day and dropped out of the top 10.