The queen stage of the Tour de Beauce arrives! It is 157km in length and finishes at the summit of the brutal Mont Megantic. That’s a 6km climb that averages 8.4% and maxes out at just over 15%! There are quite a number of favourites, given that most of the climbers are fairly close in skill level. The top of the list has to be Nicholas Roche, however. It will be interesting to see what other teams can come up with to beat him.
The first attack comes literally within sight of the starting line. It is Hayden Roulston once again. He has clearly come here with good form.
He is joined almost immediately by a whole host of riders. They are: Novak Thwaites Locatelli Stenkjaer Criel Possoni Bobridge Seledkov
Stenkjaer is clearly feeling better after his crash. Criel, Possoni and Novak manage to get a gap on the other breakaway riders and they go on ahead. The rest of the riders are chased down, leaving us with only 3 out front. At this point there are yet more attacks, however. The riders are: Roulston Thwaites Seledkov Veloso Bazajev Claeys Moinard Talansky Koep Kinney Caccia Bobridge Kunitski Mazur
Clearly the peleton can’t allow this to get away and so they chase it down. Criel, Possoni and Novak remain in front.
Once again there are a huge number of attacks and a new group forms, catching the three riders. The composition is almost the exact same as last time: Criel Possoni Novak Mazur Talansky Bobridge Kunitski Claeys Bazajev Caccia Veloso Moinard Seledkov Roulston Kinney
Unsurprisingly this is closed down by Hollister and with 40km of racing completed everything is back together.
Our next wave of attacks starts with Moinard. He is joined by several riders: Mazur Locatelli Bobridge Kunitski Roulston
This group is much more sensibly sized and they are allowed to form a gap. If you thought that would put an end to the attacks, however, then you were mistaken. On the small categorised climb in the middle of the stage there is an acceleration out of the pack by several riders. This is a dangerous looking group. The riders in it are: Rolland Van der Velde Sousa Navarro De Greef Pineau Maisto
Of these seven riders Navarro went into today’s stage as a favourite and Rolland, Van der Velde and De Greef were all considered chances for a top 10 on GC. The climb averages 7% and maxes out over 10% so these natural climbers manage to build a strong gap quite quickly.
At the front of the race, Bobridge leads the group over ahead of Moinard and Kunitski. They have 1’42” on the chasers and another 2’09” on the peleton.
With 75km remaining in the stage, over the long flat section, the two groups come together. Their gap over the peleton is 4’12”. Through the sprint point with 59 to go the gap has widened slightly to 5’04”. Rolland leads the group over ahead of De Greef and Maisto.
Rapha starts to help Hollister with the pace now, and the difference in speed is truly noticeable. It is particularly noticeable when the peleton reaches a short, steep section that is uncategorised. The peleton is reduced almost immediately to 58 men. Miraculously, none of the favourites have fallen back.
The same cannot be said for the break, however, and on this same section Mazur and Roulston are dropped.
The pace clearly isn’t high enough to discourage courageous efforts, however, as Duyn attacks out of the bunch. He is 2nd on GC and is probably hoping that if he can get up the road he might be able to outlast Selander and move into the yellow jersey. He is followed by Stubbe and Tankink.
These three riders team up with Roulston and Mazur, who have fallen back. Stubbe attacks away from the other four but the pace is so high that all five are caught in fairly short order anyway. With 30km to go the lead is down to 3’09”.
That gap stays almost exactly the same through the 20km to go banner. The rain has started, making organising a chase a bit harder and at the same time Roche is almost isolated at this point so his team can’t contribute to setting the pace. Hollister and Rapha are clearly tiring somewhat.
Up front, with 13km remaining Maisto attacks.
Maisto probably figures that he needs to be well ahead of some of the better climbers like Navarro when the mountain begins. Unfortunately for Maisto, Navarro realises this as well and he chases him back.
In the peleton there are also riders willing to give it a go just before the climb. Lowe launches an attack, along with Moreno and pre-race favourite Roche! The race just got a lot more serious.
Hollister clearly aren’t out of energy yet as Martinez manages to catch these three at the base of the climb. The acceleration results in the gap dropping down to 1’50”.
The very first ramp of the climb is just as the mountain starts, where it goes straight up to 11%. Navarro picks this moment, with 5km of climbing remaining, to launch his attack.
Maisto repays the favour and drags Navarro back in. Already several of the breakaway riders are struggling. Their predicament is made worse as Rolland launches an attack of his own.
Navarro gets onto the front of the break and powers up to Rolland. These two attacks together prove to be enough to shred the numbers in the break, and the only ones left are Navarro, Rolland, De Greef, Van der Velde, Sousa and Moinard. Moinard is clearly hurting though.
Through this same steep section, when the peleton arrives it is Moreno who puts in the first dig. He is followed by Roche again, as well as Colorado and Lowe.
With 4.3km remaining for the peleton the race ramps up once again, this time to 13%. Ochoa Quintero manages to keep the attacks under control and he brings the attack back, except for Colorado. Hollister are determined to strangle this race for Selander. The picture should give you some idea of what sort of gradient the riders are dealing with here.
Colorado gets up to Locatelli, who was dropped from the break. They have a 30” lead on the pack. The race gets to one of the steepest points, through a 14% gradient, and Roche puts in an attack to try to come across this gap.
A number of attacks try to follow this and a small elite group forms ahead of the peleton. It is comprised of: Colorado Roche Hesjedal Moreno Lowe Kilun Montenegro
Hollister have no choice but to let them go, as Selander is finally starting to show signs of struggling. His team can only push a moderate pace or else he will crack completely.
Up front, Navarro has been pushing the pace for most of the last few kilometres, and has succeeded in unhitching Moinard, but no one else. Sensing that grinding this one out isn’t an option, he puts in a big attack.
The other four look around at each other. They are clearly all under serious pressure and they lack the pure climbing ability of Navarro. He starts to disappear around the corner under the 1km to go banner.
And he takes a magnificent win on the queen stage of this year’s race.
39” later Rolland takes second ahead of Van der Velde, De Greef and then Sousa. Moinard isn’t far behind them and nor is Maisto.
Roche puts in yet another attack at a similar point to where Navarro did.
His attack is less successful, however, as Moreno succeeds in marking it and drags the elite group up with him.
Colorado leads the favourites across 2’37” after Navarro’s time for eighth place. More importantly, however, he gets a small time gap over the others. Roche and Hesjedal round out the top ten for today.
In 42nd place, 5’52” down on Navarro is Bjorn Selander. He will be relinquishing the yellow jersey today but he has surely done enough to keep himself in a strong GC position. He put in a great ride today and his team rode well for him.
Navarro’s win, as expected, takes him into the yellow jersey, with a 41” buffer back to Rolland. Rolland will hope to make that back in the 10km time trial tomorrow though. As can be imagined the GC has been completely re-written, but Selander is currently sitting in 8th place. He is also still holding onto the points, mountain and young rider jerseys, so really he can’t complain too much. Jayco, Emu and Trilux are fighting it out for the team competition and that too will probably be sorted out tomorrow.
