It snows in Colorado as the riders prepare for the second stage of the USAPCC. Yesterday's stage saw Kritskiy already taking the leaders jersey with a late attack. He will be looking to defend today against both punchers and GC men like Pozzovivo, Zaini and Schreurs.
Three brave riders try their luck early on and from a break on the first flat part of the stage. It are Tankink, Bablidze and Dieteren start the first of two early hills. The latter two finished in the peloton yesterday and are only 20 seconds behind Kritskiy for GC.
Bablidze and Dieteren each take one of the mountain sprints but only a maximum of 12 points available today so Zeits keeps the mountains jersey.
They gradually increase their lead over the peloton untill Lukoil and Vespa take over from Tinkoff. The trio's lead rapidly decreases to just over 3 minutes with 50 km left.
A small group of mainly sprinters already lets go of the peloton. Bad news for Bouygues as their leader Suaza is in there aswell. It could be the small climber isn't chasing a good GC but tanking a bit to get in a break later on.
Grygorenko and Der try to attack but it's no surpise that they can't get away from the storming peloton on the flat roads.
Hopeless attacking from our three leaders aswell. The peloton catches them right before passing the 10 km to go banner.
There is a second intermediate sprint at the foot of the final hill. Popkov takes it with Zaini and Bole coming 2nd and 3rd. They don't use this to surge forward but all sit up and go back to the peloton.
Nobody seems to be intrested in attack on the final hill. Vorobev, Klimiankou and Tatarinov set a gentle pace as the riders enter the final 2 kilometres.
The sprint finally starts as the riders go under the red kite. There are still two Tinkoff domestiques at the front but Mendes is coming up past them.
Mendes has a clear lead when taking the final turn but race leader Kritskiy and Izagirre are coming from behind and they seem to be going faster than the Prio-Porto rider.
Kritskiy doesn't have the punch to close the last gap so Schreurs decides to jump out of the Russian's wheel. He will have to finish very fast cause Mendes can already smell the finish line.
Mendes holds on to the win! He clearly was the strongest on this final uphill sprint.
Schreurs takes the 2nd place while Kritskiy finishes 3rd and thus defends the race lead because of the 8 extra bonus seconds. Zaini and Kiserlovski complete the top 5 as 54 riders finish in the same time.
