More than 60 km into the stage, Gabon's Juma Jomo-Gbomo became the first to be granted a little space. He'd also win the sprints along the road.
Two of our men tried to bridge; first Mendigain, then Padilla. The latter was caught 20 kms from the finish line. Jomo-Gbomo had about 40" left.
After he had been caught, the reduced bunch hit a small bump. Our train lost much ground while Movistar's tore the peloton into pieces. Six riders, including Gaviria and Demare, quickly eliminated most of the opposition.
The gap Gaviria won by was almost to be expressed in miles. Teammate Rojas got second, finishing ahead of Demare. Tinajero concluded in 4th.
B-J Lindeman's acceleration triggered the break of today alongside Julien Vermote, Joseph Perrett, Luca Chirico, Andrea Piechele, Rakunako Taylor.
Later on Emanuel Buchmann, Jesper Hansen and Giacomo Tomio moved heaven and earth to join. The latter, still wearing the best climber jersey, was the first to lose contact before the actual Puerto de Lizarraga (cat.2).
Buchmann showed good shape by dropping the rest before the top. With 30 kilometers to go, his lead over the pack with all contenders was 3'05".
Most escapees caught up with Buchmann again for awhile. Near the foot of Alto de San Miguel de Aralar, Germany's champion escaped along with Lindeman, Vermote just to drop them once and for all on the first slopes.
Merhawi Kudus launched the first attacked amongst the contenders. Less than five to go as Sam, Poels were the chasers at 39" & 53" respectively.
While Kudus reeled in Buchmann, the top riders could finally be caught in one image. Sam had a seemingly small gap over Kelderman, Dan Martin.
It turned out to be a case of optic illusion when Sam had caught up with Kudus and Buchmann. The closest chasers' group was losing around 35".
Sam couldn't respond to Kudus' strong sprint, and came home in second place. As opposed to the rest, he did not lose a single non-bonus second.
Anthony Sleeper ignored his name, launching the first attack. In the end, he didn't make the actual breakaway, which consisted of rather unknown riders. Say hello to Millan, Jomo-Gbomo, Yamashita, Gmelich, Rodrigues, Bordas. The decreasing gap was about 3'15" near the 1st category climb.
Millan, Bordas and Yamashita got rid of the others. Meanwhile, one of the chasing groups had been joined by GC 18th Óscar González; 37 kms left.
The leaders let go of Yamashita but saw the reduced bunch almost bridge 20km from the finish. Daniel Martinez believed the time had come for his attack. By upping the pace, Dimension Data then got the field shattered.
Martinez was joined by a struggling Bailly and Van Gestel halfway on the last climb. The latter did not feel like joining forces, and accelerated right away. The surprisingly strong nearest chaser was Intxausti, 48" behind.
As Intxausti started to cave in, a brand new chasing group was formed. Battaglin, Poljanski, Bennett were strong, yet only König had what it took to get closer. On the line, he even made Dries Van Gestel lose the stage.
Their lead gradually dropped, to less than a minute on the ultimate lap. A short hesitation forced an attack out of Ednaldo, trying to keep the hope of a stage win alive. With about 2.7 km left, a rushing pack sat 27" back.
The breakaway ship stranded beneath the red kite, as Bouhanni flew by. Twelfth place was all Ednaldo could get out of today's last kilometer fire.
When Bouhanni dropped back, his lead sprinter Ewan couldn't finish it off either. Michael Matthews snatched a second stage after a close sprint, as Manuel MartÃnez and Juan Sebastian Molano made the day's top ten.
Seven men chasing a mountain jersey, teamed up in the break. Amongst them, Christopher Juul-Jensen and Wesley Sulzberger were best known.
Before the treble climb finale, some other KoM contenders joined. On the first, Juul-Jensen accelerated alongside Gálviz and young climber Bordas.
Gálviz was dropped on the next ascent. With one more climb to go, Juul-
Jensen and Bordas tried to hold on to lead of 1'30", over 26.8 kilometers.
In the meantime, multiple riders for the overall were forced into a pursuit because of several crashes. Among them were Van der Poel, Van Gestel.
As the two leaders were caught, Andronico Mendigain saw a chance to attack. At first it seemed like a vain move, he was kept well within reach.
All of a sudden the pace dropped, which allowed Andronico to put more than a minute into the bunch. His cadence slowed in the last four though.
He slowed down too much to make it to the line. This group reeled him in near the flamme rouge. Beñat Intxausti was riding with the field's best.
Dries Van Gestel, who'd managed to get back to the very front, launched the sprint with 400 m to go. Could Intxausti get something out of that?
He almost did, if not for race leader König. He left us without a win or an overall top 10, as four of our guys did make it into the best 20 of the GC.
Seven men joined the front lines on the rainy transitory stage. Jonathan Klever did and got accompanied by Julien Simon, Giacomo Tomio, Elmar Reinders, Steven Lammertink, Emanuel Buchmann, Francesco Bongiorno.
The pack didn't give them much space, so they couldn't allow themselves to loaf around. Buchmann ripped the group apart at Puerto de la BraguÃa. Only Klever and Bongiorno still tried their all to stay the closest possible.
Once they had bridged, Buchmann had another trick up his sleeve on the flanks of Alto del Caracol, the last of today's climbs. Bongiorno collapsed, Klever would reach the summit more than a minute down on the leader.
Klever took huge risks on the descent and ultimately caught Buchmann. Hitting the final 15, the two had 1'05" on Bongiorno, 2'50" on the bunch. The earlier efforts took their toll on them, as the lead went further down.
Jonathan played it cool, as he didn't leave Buchmann's wheel in the last kilometers. Suddenly, the pack came dangerously close. Only 20", as the German champion launched the sprint himself with 800 m left to the line.
Jonathan did have something left, to offer his opponent a true challenge. It surely was a close fight between the two of them with just 400m to go.
Klever makes it three! He won the Memorial Marco Pantani last year and the mountain jersey in Poland a couple of months back, yet this a totally different order. Eder and Sam both came home with the peloton, where Kelderman won the sprint for third. He's only one second away from 2nd.
Amazing win for Klever out-smarting Buchmann! Those bonus seconds that Kelderman took aren't that good, but nothing extremely important right now with the current lead
Aquarius97 wrote:
Amazing win for Klever out-smarting Buchmann! Those bonus seconds that Kelderman took aren't that good, but nothing extremely important right now with the current lead
We might want to spell it Clever from now on . We're totally fine with losing bonus seconds only.
The peloton let go of 8 riders, then prevented further attacks. Among the escapees Maciej Bodnar, Damien Howson were the two well-known faces. The lead grew to a maximum of 5 minutes near the first mountain sprint.
Beñat tried an acceleration on the second climb, but his former Movistar teammates him back. The break had 1'40" with an unlabeled climb to go.
That's where Beñat tried to strike once more, dragging along Sebastian and Bilbao. Gaviria, Demare and Nemykin picked up the pace too. Soon, the small group'd put over one minute into the pack, the break had 1'17".
The break of the day was almost caught on the long final straight, except for Tietema. He attacked the rest as he took 20" tackling the last 1800m.
Bas Tietema took the stage, his first ever victory. Intxausti's group was swamped from behind, which means no time gaps or shifts in the overall.
Tour of Alberta (2.1) 
