No fewer than 6 categorisation-worthy climbs going without. That's a tough day in the saddle, all told, a classic up-and-down-all-day one despite only the one major climb, and in terms of cumulative climbing probably harder than some of the more hyped stages of the entire year; it's a lot harder than anything in Itzulia or Burgos, probably harder than Valdesquí in terms of
cumulative climbing; a couple of Giro stages (especially Blockhaus) and the one final stage in the TDFF are harder, but other than that the stage was probably tougher than almost all of the WWT in terms of its profile (péloton pace and depth is another question of course) - I'd say it's comparable to the L'Aquila stage of the Giro or the Le Grand Bornand stage in the TDFF, with more connectivity of the ascents, but that Tour stage is 170km and has two climbs to finish. There's only a couple of times that a lot of these riders are likely to do a stage as tough all season, depending on profile. Tour de l'Ardêche usually has one or two proper multi-climb stages, and the Tour des Pyrenées has an Aubisque MTF this season. There's a La Molina stage in Catalunya with Tosses and La Molina but it will depend on which side they use.
ayco pushed it hard which split things apart early. A lot of the strongest climbers were caught out, with all the likes of Aalerud, Patiño, and Blanco (fresh off her spectacular win in País Vasco) losing far more than you'd expect but once they were distanced, being unable to work together against a united front up front. Seems like the big climbs were too much to stay in contact with the Jayco move for the baroudeuses you could expect to do well here like Mackaij and Koster, too. So I think it's while there are some decent riders there, there weren't any groups that had enough strong riders AND enough will to collaborate to limit the losses.