First flat stage ended up in a breakaway with Ricardo Garcia going into the breakaway. Carlos Barbero finished 5th as the best basque rider of Euskaltel, Edward Theuns won the stage from the bunch sprint for .

Second flat stage was won by another rider, Fabio Felline. Enrique Sanz came 6th in the ensuing bunch sprint ahead of Valverde .


Valverde wins the third stage and is now the new leader ahead of Froome and Fuglsang. Bilbao can not climb with those giants and ends up a few chasers group later. Barbero does a solid race but aggressive racing leaves little chance for a large reduced group sprint that we have hoped for. Barbero is 3rd in the U25 ranking for now.


The fourth stage saw some mountains mid-race, where Pello Bilbao saw his chance. He attacked far out and found former breakaway rider Jack Bauer along the way. Diego Rosa was hot for the victory and attacked a few climbs later. This made for a hectic reaction inside the peloton as Valverde and Visconti reacted. Kwiatkowski was left to chase for SKY’s Froome, Carlos Barbero managed to stay with the favourites in this group and so soon a big split saw just a handful of riders in front. Bilbao was caught and when Kwiatkowski connected the Valverde and Froome group, Bilbao made the pace for Barbero. Unfortunately Rosa attacked 10k out and won the stage but with a great late move, Barbero attacked in the last 5k too, and came second that day.


Due to his great fighting spirit, Pello Bilbao finished 8th. Unfortunately this meant he narrowly missed the sponsor goal of finishing inside the Top 5 but it’s a nice start to the orange project.

Final Results

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	13h36'24
2	Diego Rosa	Astana Pro Team	+ 30
3	Chris Froome	Team Sky	+ 51
4	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	+ 1'52
5	Michał Kwiatkowski	Team Sky	+ 2'54
6	Bauke Mollema	Trek - Segafredo	+ 3'41
7	Valerio Agnoli	Astana Pro Team	s.t.
8	Pello Bilbao	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 4'45
9	Giovanni Visconti	Movistar Team	+ 4'47
10	Samuel Sánchez	BMC Racing Team	s.t.
11	Yury Trofimov	Tinkoff	s.t.
12	Beñat Intxausti	Team Sky	+ 5'34
13	John Darwin Atapuma	BMC Racing Team	s.t.
14	Jan Barta	Bora - Argon 18	s.t.
15	Mikel Nieve	Team Sky	s.t.
16	Davide Formolo	Cannondale Pro Cycling Team	s.t.
17	Alexey Lutsenko	Astana Pro Team	s.t.
18	Jesper Hansen	Tinkoff	+ 6'30
19	Carlos Barbero	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 6'34
20	Dario Cataldo	Astana Pro Team	+ 7'28
21	Peter Kennaugh	Team Sky	s.t.
22	Paolo Tiralongo	Astana Pro Team	s.t.
23	Daniel Navarro	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	s.t.
24	Luis �ngel Maté	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	s.t.
25	Stefano Pirazzi	Bardiani - CSF	s.t.

Shonak wrote:
Thanks everyone.

@Kiserlovski: Odd coincidence but your story Caja Rural inspired me to restart Gora Euskadi too.

@Croatia: Well I wouldn't mind seeing some more basque racing so go for it, I'm sure everybody understands.

Stage 1 was a 15 kilometer prologue which was won by Dennis Rohan. Our best rider was Pello Bilbao since Irizar Markel – Basque’s great Time Trialist – came into this race with next to no rhythm.


A tough MTF stage was up next. Bilbao was covered well by his teammates leading to the foot of the climb up Fredes, however they soon vanished from the peloton. Tim Wellens vs Vuilleremoz was the duel of the day with the Belgian taking eventually the stage win easily and looking about to win the GC. Bilbao stayed with a group of chasers including young Oomen and Anacona, and despite being on the limit, he managed to come fifth in this stage. This put him at 6th in the GC for now.


The next stage was flat and it was won by breakawayee Danilo Wyss for BMC. Bilbao showed his great form and was helped by an exhausted Barbero – our basque GC rider finished 7th and also proved his versatility.


A hellish steep Xorret de Catí presented the big challenge on stage 4, it was a short climb though and so Bilbao felt that he could have gained some time since many favourites were struggling. Slagter won the stage, Bilbao came in 7th and probably missed out on a top result here due to a rather conservative approach, which saw him make his own pace rather than risk an attack. Consequently he dropped down one place to 7th in GC.

Hungry for a stage win, we sent two guys upfront into the botd. That were Irizar and E. Garcia. In the final kilometers of the stage, Irizar kept the large breakaway at the front. In the end only Bille and Garcia survived of the break. Garcia pointed towards Barbero, who had chances for the victory, and refused to help inside the last 3 kilometers. This allowed him to save minimal energy (he was already fairly empty), and in the last turn, he was overtaken, meters by the finish line, by Sinkeldam. Garcia still came second, Barbero profited of a strong leadout by Bilbao in a confusing finish and completed the podium at third. Bitter result.


In the end result, Bilbao placed 7th. This gave us some plus points with the sponsor again. The orange project continued its solid start.

Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, Final Results

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Tim Wellens	Lotto Soudal	13h51'48
2	Alexis Vuillermoz	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 52
3	Dries Devenyns	IAM Cycling	+ 2'00
4	Sam Oomen	Team Giant - Alpecin	+ 2'03
5	Winner Anacona	Movistar Team	+ 2'10
6	Ben Hermans	BMC Racing Team	+ 2'18
7	Pello Bilbao	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 2'23
8	John Darwin Atapuma	BMC Racing Team	+ 2'33
9	Tom Slagter	Cannondale Pro Cycling Team	+ 3'29
10	Daniel Navarro	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	+ 3'49
11	Ramunas Navardauskas	Cannondale Pro Cycling Team	+ 3'57
12	José Joaquín Rojas	Movistar Team	+ 5'21
13	Rafael Valls	Lotto Soudal	+ 5'24
14	Pieter Weening	Roompot - Oranje Peloton	+ 5'55
15	Larry Warbasse	IAM Cycling	+ 6'01
16	Daniele Bennati	Tinkoff	+ 6'02
17	Ben Gastauer	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 6'04
18	Cyril Gautier	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 6'05
19	Jarlinson Pantano	IAM Cycling	+ 6'07
20	Eduardo Sepulveda	Fortuneo - Vital Concept	+ 6'08
21	Romain Sicard	Direct Energie	+ 6'10
22	Rohan Dennis	BMC Racing Team	+ 6'15
23	Pierre-Roger Latour	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.
24	Thomas Voeckler	Direct Energie	+ 6'17
25	Jesper Hansen	Tinkoff	+ 6'20

Shonak wrote:
I just won Vuelta Murcia and when I crosse the finish line, apparently Barbero abandoned or whatever. Just pcm things. fml