The second of our two Quebec classics comes from the city of Montreal and it is the hill by which the place gets its name which is the main difficulty in on this 13km circuit.
The peleton will go round a total of 16 times and the Mont Royale climb is right at the beginning of the circuit giving us a flat rating.
Sprinters seem to be favoured by the CTour squads but a nod to that early hill climb has been made. Sprinters of some ability over hills names such as Davis, Napolitano, Ventuso and Crocket will probably be familiar to you by now.
There is a six man break to entertain us in the early going which establishes itself by the second circuit of the race. Eliad (El-Al), Howard (Milka), Brolin (Ikea), Betencourt (Quiksilver), Serrano (Santander) and Bogdan (UBS) make up the numbers in the move.
Six man break early on
The Mont Royale climb looks like the place to launch an attack here and over the course we see five riders use this to bridge across to the front move which has been kept to within three minutes all the way through. Gallego Martin of Santander goes across on the 7th circuit, Tolleson (Mercedes) and Stevenson(Falcon) move across on the 8th and finally Flugal (Ikea) attacks across with Bru Pascal (Quiksliver) on the 10th circuit.
Five more riders bridge before we get to the closing stages
With five circuits left though the break only has a 1.15 lead, they have been controlled all the way by Unicredit and Petronas. As we come up the Mont Royale for the 4th to last time we see Eritean Daniel Teklehaimont leading the way for Unicredit, however Milka's Y Nepomnyachsniy makes a move here.
Unicredit on the front a lot today for Napolitano, but a 12th rider breaks away
This attack only serves to bring everything back together, but after a quick head count the peleton realise there is one of the number missing. Alex Flugal probably the biggest threat because of his climbing ability has slipped away!
Flugal sneaks off to keep this move going
He is the only one of the front break to survive, the wind has picked up and it is really swirling through the Montreal streets. With two circuits remaining Flugal still has 1.12 and the teams of the sprinters are panicking. Petronas go on the front and pull hard through Gregory Bole and they are ripping it to shreds in the process.
Petronas pull this apart
The five Petronas men up there are Bole, Feillu, Laloutte, Scholtz and Crocket, they are there with a sole Milka guy it is Y Nepomnyachsniy. The commentators slap their hands to their heads, but it is to their relief that this is hauled back by Quiksilver. Flugal still leads by over a minute though and now yet another tricky name Dutch Valley winner Scheirlinckx tries to bridge to the Ikea man.
This is the type of move Scheirlinckx made to win Dutch Valley (well actually he wheel sucked Hermans!)
They hit the bell and Flugal leads by 52 seconds from Scheirlinckx and 1.16 on the peleton. They start to climb the last ascent of Mont Royal and Flugal clearly is beginning to feel it. Despite his expertise on the hilly stuff his lead reduces dramitically by the top.
10km to go: Flugal's lead is less sucure
The Ikea rider only now has 31 seconds on Scheirlinckx and 44 seconds on the 38 man peleton. As the Quiksilver rider continues to pump out a good rhythm the peleton seem to lose cohesion a lot of riders are clearly on the limit. Milka launch yet another of their unpronounceables in Pole Szczawinski who starts to move away with Ventuso just behind.
Szczawinski moves clear of a fractured peleton
Scheirlinckx has struggled to make an impression on the downhill section as we reach flatter roads with 5km left Flugal still has 28 seconds on him with Szczawinski at 44 seconds and the now 31 man peleton at a minute (Ventuso was bought back).
It is beginning to look ropey for the sprinters already and then a bit of a death knoll for the peletons chances of catching as Romian Feillu pacing for Petronas falls right at the front of the chase.
Feillu falls at the head of the race
It is lucky that not virtually everyone goes down here, it does take out Galdos, Sagan, Dviri, Selander and later Haedo and Chicchi (though both the last two were out of contention anyway).
This is good though for the lead three who now have a comfortable enough advantage to fight for victory. They have pretty much become three, though Flugal still holds about 7 bike lengths with 1500m to go.
However Flugel is out of energy having been on the front for the best part of 40km and Szczawinski closes the gap with Scheirlinckx in close order. Has there ever been names that could score so highly at Scrabble in such high positions in a premier cycling race? 400m to go and Flugal is over taking by the Milka man.
Szczawinski heads for home
He takes the win ahead of Flugal who just holds off his long time chaser Scheirlinckx for second place.
Milka take a useful win here
Behind the sprinters battle the strongmen for high placings with Davis 4th, Ghyslebert 5th, Ventuso 6th and Del Nero 7th
