Welcome to the 2025 Tour of the Battenkill! It should be a straight forward tough race for the cobbles specialists, but with the fields being split between here and Rheden, we might see some surprise results coming through!
Right off the line two riders launch the first attack of the day. These are: Pelikan and Ivanovas
Chaos ensued after the first few cobbled sectors of the race as the group was at one point expanded to 14 riders where most quickly faded away. We now have six riders in front split across three groups these are: Ruiz, Edmondson, Dressler, Kozhatayev, Segaert & Ivanovas. The latter two might be hanging on by a thread at this point.
The Lithuanian gets caught by the pack and after the break solidifies Ringheim joins the fray at the front. Ruiz, Ringheim and Dressler leave their compatriots in the dust and has created a 6 minutte gap to them while their former breakaway mates have a gap of 20 seconds at 154 km to go.
It’s been rather uneventful for the last 70ish kilometres but with 81km to go we start so see disruptions in the front of the pack as a group of 12 riders have created small gaps that ripple throughout the peloton. Grieg are the culprits trying to tire out Pedersen’s competition. As he’s the only big favourite in the 12-man group. I doubt it’s a lethal move in any way shape or form but it’s a nice show of strength from the Scandinavian side! The gap to the trio at the front has been reduced to just shy of 3 minutes.
With 64km to go the 12-man group has increased to a 33-man group with most of the major favourites being in the mix already. Names such as Wisniowski and Stallaert are still stuck quite far behind in fifth group with Rutsch in the group right in front of them. Dressler has been swept up a while ago Ruiz and Ringheim are fighting to hold on at the front.
With 58km to go it’s all even at the front, the aforementioned riders are all trying to make it back to the front where a round of attacks from pretty much every Grieg rider in the group has occurred. But it’s Boutopoulos who looks to be the first one to actually get a gap.
After 10km solo the Greek rider is joined by seven other names: Senechal, De Gendt, Abrahamsen, Owen, Rossi, Gaday & Ulloa.
It’s a really messy race! With 43km to go Tiller made the minor bridge to the front and now he has Senechal in his wheel, the duo is looking strong but the gaps are in the single digits at this point with more of the big guns at the back still playing the patient game.
They got brought back and now it seems like Pedersen is done with letting his lieutenants do the job for him as he tries to go solo at 33km to go. He has Vermeersch in his wheel.
The duo is joined by a somewhat surprising name in Salzmann. They have a 24 second gap to a 13-man group behind them with 23km to go.
With 16km to go the pace is too slow for Pedersen who decides to go full throttle and launches and attack that leaves the Austrian in the dust with the Belgian trying to follow.
The attack doesn’t really amount to anything as their gap has risen to 43 seconds and now it’s Vermeersch that’s trying to swing for the win!
Vermeersch could be on his way to celebrating a famous victory! The Belgian has built up a 45 second gap to Pedersen under the 10km portal, but as you can see the pack is also rapidly approaching behind and they have their sights set on catching the trio!
And over the top his gap widens to a massive 2 and a half minutes! Salzmann suffered a horrifying puncture as Tediashvili and De Gendt are looking to battle it out for the final podium spot!
Here we have him majestically going under the flamme rouge!
And that’s it Vermeersch takes a huge victory for Xero!
Pedersen takes a second-place finish, which will be disappointing for the absolute favourite of the day!
The battle for the last podium spot could become rather explosive however!
De Gendt exploded and has put himself without a shot. Tediashvili is looking primed to take it as The King Power duo of Tiller and Salzmann are trying to close the gap!
But they don’t make it in time and will have to make due to with a fourth and fifth finish.
