A windless day greets us in Denmark this morning for the Grand Prix Herning and early on seven riders decide to try their luck on what could be an outside chance for a breakaway win.
Tsgabu Gebremaryam Grmay Mikel Landa Daniel Vesely Nevio Tirloni Alessio Signego Maxime La Lavandier
and Carlos Alexandre Manarelli
ride away on the various road conditions that are used on this course.
They ride over the white roads and cobbled bridges of the region building up a decent lead.
Bpost having placed a rider in the break are looking a little to Pokerstars to do the work today. Pokerstars duly send Martijn Maaskant and John Degenkolb forward to join Jan Polanc and Robin Stenuit in doing some of the pace making.
The break have done a careful job of building the lead, never really quickly pushing the gap out but with 66km to go the gap reads at just under five minutes. Going through the longest cobbled section Vesely gets a puncture reducing Rothaus number in the break to one.
Going into the big long cobbled section Pokerstars lead Bpost and Trilux riders into it, but the hammer still does not really go down as Saab-Scania lead a controlled pace out of it.
Saab of course are riding for their cobbler cum sprinter Matti Breschel and you sense that they would like a little selection but not too much of one so to expose the Dane to the dangers of cobbler experts Nikolas Maes and Frederik Nolf.
The pack does lose a few numbers from this section including three Rapha Condor-Qhubeka riders, with star cobbler Adam Blythe in the Dunkirk stage race they are riding for Amadou Bakari perhaps today. The 25 year old from Gabon would probably prefer the whole race to be cobbled!
Pokerstars with plenty of riders with cobbled experience themselves sense they need to be the ones to drive this properly and after Saab just steadily bring the gap down to the break to 2.30 with 28km to go the team in green hammer three the first of the last three cobbled sectors.
But now Bpost and Saab ramp up the chase eager not to get a repeat of the stage Nolf won in the De Panne Tour.
Nolf is reeled in, but as he is David Boucher attacks. Pokerstars are playing the old one-two!
But all this succeeds in doing is catching the breakaway, and getting everything nuetralised. Still with a largish pack of 40 now together and a lot of decent sprinters there. With Pokerstars having played their hand, Bpost now look to try and create a selection before the penultimate sector.
Maes goes with Breschel intelligently right on his wheel, if the Bpost man gets away he will be very difficult to catch. This whips Pokerstars up into a frenzy, clearly they are not going to allow this duo to prosper!
They motor over the second to last sector and make the catch before the final cobbled section. The game of attacks though is not over, Maes knows that this is a rare classic where he is the only Bpost leader. The Belgian goes yet again on the final short section of broken roads!
Breschel is looking in powerful form and he knows he just has to follow these two and counters with Nolf.
Sensing the big three are getting away from them Bakari tries to mount his own response with the likes of Johan Vansummeren, Anders Lund and Steven Tronet
With 8.5km to go Maes holds a 13 second lead on Nolf and Breschel with Bakari et al back at 32 seconds. The attacks from the pack are leading to a reforming behind Vansummeren really pulling everybody back to his team leader. Maes has not quite broken everybody as we lead under the 5km to go banner.
Maes though proves a lot of catching as he uses his motor to maintain a 20 second gap from Breschel and Nolf who now lead the pack. Breschel can see Maes slipping away to victory and launches a very early sprint with 3km to go.
He catches Maes with 2.5km to go and Nolf who tries to respond is some way back with the pack lead by a couple of Pokerstars men and Tronet.
Breschel has several bike lengths and closer examination of the pack is that this sprint is very disorganised.
With Nolf fading on the right hand side George Atkins
has nicely led out Martijn Maaskant
The Trilux rider in amongst the sea of green is Aleksei Saramotins
who possesses a decent kick.
Meanwhile the fans are delighted as Breschel grits his teeth and burns Maes away, a determined performance by the Dane.
Maes is now being reeled in by Saramotins and Maaskant, meanwhile Jay McCarthy
and Sven Vanthourenhout
lead teammates Tom Stamsnijder
and Giaux through the rabble with Unicredits Bonnet also there.
We reach the kite and the man in yellow and black is losing his superpowers and is beginning to struggle. Maaskant and particularly Saramotins sense an opportunity for a surprise result. However also in the hunt now is Giaux, Stamsnijder, Bonnet and Degenkolb.
800m to go: Giaux comes up the left hand side of Saramotins and he is really motoring. Bonnet, Stamsnijder, Vanthourenhourt and Degenkolb round Maaskant.
500m to go: Giaux is side by side with Breschel, it seems as if the Saab man has gone too soon, meanwhile it is now Degenkolb who is finishing the fastest.
The line appears and as Giaux has free road, Degenkolb is stuck unable to round Breschel and Stansnijder eases into third. Bonnet seems to have run out of gas also.
Jerome Giaux, a non factor in the other cobbled classics takes the Grand Prix Herning!
The weakened field played into the Belgian's hands here, that and Breschel's twitchiness. Breschel finishes second ahead of Stamsnijder, another useful race from Koppert. Saramotins may have thought he was going to win at one stage finishes fifth behind Degenkolb. Vanthourenhourt caps off a very good day for Red Bull by holding off Bonnet for 6th.
Pokerstars had strength in numbers once again taking 4th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 21st and 29th. But they missed the podium and after the initial late attacks never really looked like forcing a decisive selection. The windless conditions probably worked against Maes who caused Breschel to panic and go after him in the late stages. The all African team of Rapha Condor - Qhubeka bar one late attack from Bakari struggled in the final run in taking 20th and 22nd.
