Thank you guys for still following the story!












Today is the most important stage of this year’s Volta cyclista a Catalunya!
Slagter was the first one to try it!



Unfortunately they weren’t going to let him ride and he had to drop back in the peloton. His daily form was really bad so there was no use for letting him ride any further. A couple of other riders tried it aswell, but they got pulled back aswell. In the end there was only one man capable of riding away:

D. Menchov (KAT)



It’s an almost impossible task to stay in front. Meanwhile when the peloton reaches the climb of the highest category, the one before the finish, Kelderman sets himself in front of the peloton and starts riding a really tough pace!



Due to this pace Ventoso has to drop! With only 2 kilometers before the summit he can’t handle the pace in the 35 men group!





He will lose the leaders jersey for sure! Maybe he can come back in the descend, but then he will most likely drop again at the ascend of the last climb of today! Menchov is caught by the group meanwhile. Meaning that the front peloton is going to climb for victory! Only 35 men left!

When we start ascending the last climb of today Ventoso has to let go immediately, he managed to come back in the descend but he is not strong enough to follow!



Ten Dam goes for it! He sets a tough pace and rides away from the group of favorites! Kruijswijk, Slagter and Kelderman drop out, they have done enough work for today!

There are only 14 men left! With 3 kilometers Ten Dam cracks!!! The group is coming back. So unfortunate for our Dutchman! He didn’t have enough energy to continue his attack!

He now tries to hang on in the 14 men group!



It’s going to be a sprint and Ten Dam has no energy left! It’s a tight sprint but Andy Schleck is the strongest here, a big surprise as Tony Martin takes the 2nd place! Contador takes the 3rd place. Is Martin on dope or something? This is impossible for a rider like him!
Also guys like Amador, Clarke and Meyer still hung on in this group. Weird, cause the race was really tough!



In the end Ten Dam finishes in 13th place and now is in 8th in the GC. A fairly good day for us!

Rank	Name	Team	Time	Player
1	Andy Schleck	RadioShack - Leopard	6h12'05
2	Tony Martin	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team	s.t.
3	Alberto Contador	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	s.t.
4	Wout Poels	Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team	s.t.
5	Fredrik Kessiakoff	Astana Pro Team	s.t.
6	Kanstantsin Siutsou	Sky Procycling	s.t.
7	Hubert Dupont	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.
8	Rinaldo Nocentini	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.
9	Tejay Van Garderen	BMC Racing Team	s.t.
10	Jonathan Tiernan-Locke	Sky Procycling	s.t.

Rank	Name	Team	Time	Player
1	Tony Martin	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team	13h32'30
2	Rinaldo Nocentini	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.
3	Simon Clarke	Orica - GreenEdge	s.t.
4	Cameron Meyer	Orica - GreenEdge	s.t.
5	Fredrik Kessiakoff	Astana Pro Team	s.t.
6	Jonathan Tiernan-Locke	Sky Procycling	s.t.
7	Hubert Dupont	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.
8	Laurens Ten Dam	Blanco Pro Cycling Team	s.t.	TimoMennen
9	Wout Poels	Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team	s.t.
10	Kanstantsin Siutsou	Sky Procycling	s.t.

--












Today is the first of three cobbled classics. We’re looking forward to see what we can achieve in these races! We got a BOTD right away today!

K. Sys (CRE)
N. Vereecken (SKT)
Y. Lampaert (TSV)
T. Vangheel (MMM)
R. Anderson (CSS)


It looks like the picture taker was a bit distracted!

The peloton sets a pretty high pace throughout the race and with 30 km to go Boom attacks together with Roelandts! They’re picking up Danilo Hondo and another guy (don’t remember who), who attacked 20 km before this. The breakaway is now caught!



Unfortunately they don’t make it and they get picked up by a bigger group, it’s a 17 men group. But Hushovd suddenly attacks on the last cobbled section! Nobody has an immediate answer and they start riding to get him back!

But he’s extremely strong and doesn’t lose pace and takes about 50 seconds lead!



He’s winning here, with 300 meters to go he is already celebrating, the group is sprinting for the 2nd place! The Norish rider is too strong! It looks a bit like Boasson Hagen in Milano Sanremo!



Lars Boom takes the 3rd place for us, only Vansummeren had a better sprint than him. A bit unfortunate for us, but we tried it and Hushovd was just a bit too strong. A third place is decent though.

Rank	Name	Team	Time	Player
1	Thor Hushovd	BMC Racing Team	4h46'23
2	Johan Vansummeren	Garmin - Sharp	s.t.
3	Lars Boom	Blanco Pro Cycling Team	s.t.	TimoMennen
4	Kevin Hulsmans	Vini Fantini - Selle Italia	s.t.
5	Taylor Phinney	BMC Racing Team	s.t.
6	Lieuwe Westra	Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team	s.t.
7	Damien Gaudin	Team Europcar	s.t.
8	Sébastien Rosseler	Garmin - Sharp	s.t.
9	Jürgen Roelandts	Lotto Belisol	s.t.
10	Bobbie Traksel	Champion System Pro Cycling Team	s.t.

Today is a good stage for a break away, yesterday we had an energy sapping stage and the peloton will probably take it easy today. The breakaway also contains one of our riders, it is who joined the BOTD together with:

T. Rohregger (RLT)
I. Tamouridis (EUS)
E. Gutiérrez (MOV)
D. Millar (GRS)
B. De Clerq (LTB)



As we expected, the peloton takes things easy today and they quickly get a lead of about 10 minutes. The breakaway will probably stay away! Nothing much happened today until the last climb, a lot of attacks in the peloton there, but nobody could really get away. When we go into the descend, Slagter tries it and he gets away, he takes a minute! But it is still too far to get to the breakaway. Goos had to let go at the last climb, he was completely out of energy unfortunately… The others were fighting for the win!

Due to all of the attacks and high pace, a group of 28 breaks lose from the rest of the peloton! Ten Dam is in it, but guys like Contador, Tiernan-Locke and Nocentini were not in it! They will lose some time today and will no longer be in the same time as Martin, the number one in the GC!

Meanwhile in the break, de Clerq wins the sprint handsomely, he almost got passed by Gutiérrez for celebrating a bit early, but luckily for him he made it! The third place goes to Rohregger!



The result for us is a 6th for Goos, a 7th for Slagter (who takes a minute back on his 3 minute arrearage). Ten Dam finishes in the first group and takes a 12th place and moves up to 6th in the GC.
Only 7 riders left with the same time! The others lose 49 seconds today! A good day for Blanco! Blanco is also first in the team classification by the way!

Rank	Name	Team	Time	Player
1	Bart De Clercq	Lotto Belisol	5h14'26
2	Iván Gutiérrez	Movistar Team	s.t.
3	Thomas Rohregger	RadioShack - Leopard	s.t.
4	Ioannis Tamouridis	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 26
5	David Millar	Garmin - Sharp	+ 46
6	Marc Goos	Blanco Pro Cycling Team	+ 2'17	TimoMennen
7	Tom Slagter	Blanco Pro Cycling Team	+ 3'35	TimoMennen
8	Wout Poels	Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team	+ 4'36
9	Cameron Meyer	Orica - GreenEdge	s.t.
10	Gianni Meersman	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team	s.t.

Rank	Name	Team	Time	Player
1	Tony Martin	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team	18h51'32
2	Simon Clarke	Orica - GreenEdge	s.t.
3	Cameron Meyer	Orica - GreenEdge	s.t.
4	Fredrik Kessiakoff	Astana Pro Team	s.t.
5	Wout Poels	Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team	s.t.
6	Laurens Ten Dam	Blanco Pro Cycling Team	s.t.	TimoMennen
7	Andy Schleck	RadioShack - Leopard	s.t.
8	Jonathan Tiernan-Locke	Sky Procycling	+ 49
9	Rinaldo Nocentini	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.
10	Hubert Dupont	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.

Thanks for the comments! Any feedback or tips to improve the story maybe?

--












Today is the first big cobbled classic on World Tour level! This means a perfect testcase for RVV and Paris-Roubaix! We are looking for a good result with Boom and Vanmarcke here. Ofcourse we got a breakaway today, and a pretty big one:

C. Premont (CRE)
W. Wauters (VCD)
L. Mezgec (ARG)
A. Stauff (MTN)
A. Bazayev (AST)
V. Gusev (KAT)
O. Kaisen (LTB)

Here they are riding on the narrow Belgium roads:



In the peloton we take it easy with Vanmarcke and Boom, trying to save as much energy as possible to use it in the last part of the race!
When we reach the tough, hilly cobbled sections Omega Pharma Quickstep is doing the pace in the peloton and only about 50 riders are able to follow!



It’s 40 kilometers to go when we get a 20 men leading group, they caught the BOTD, the escapees were powerless to resist the high pace!

With 20 km to go the group thins out a little, so only 15 riders left. our two main riders still in it! Now Boonen goes for it, nobody is able to react immediately!



Lars Boom tries to attack aswell, he gets a few seconds on the others, but doesn’t get a lot closer to Boonen. Boonen now took 50 seconds on the rest, he only has 5 kilometers left and he will make it! His pace was just too high!





Due to the other favorites looking at each other, Boom managed to ride away a bit further and he takes the 2nd place with 45 seconds behind Boonen! A nice 2nd place for Blanco! Even more good news for Blanco as Vanmarcke wins the sprint of the others for the 3rd place! Just not quite strong enough for the victory, but a 2nd and 3rd is pretty good for us!

Rank	Name	Team	Time	Player
1	Tom Boonen	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team	5h10'35
2	Lars Boom	Blanco Pro Cycling Team	+ 45	TimoMennen
3	Sep Vanmarcke	Blanco Pro Cycling Team	+ 1'25	TimoMennen
4	Niki Terpstra	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team	s.t.
5	Greg Van Avermaet	BMC Racing Team	s.t.
6	Luca Paolini	Katusha Team	s.t.
7	Sylvain Chavanel	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team	s.t.
8	Fabian Cancellara	RadioShack - Leopard	s.t.
9	Johan Vansummeren	Garmin - Sharp	s.t.
10	Juan Antonio Flecha	Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team	s.t.