The second flat stage of this year’s Tour of America kicks off. It is 170km in length and almost completely flat the entire way with only a slight rise at the finish in the sprint to the line. There are three sprint points along the way. The profile may not be particularly hard, but there is rain forecast for the entire day and the wind is blowing really hard. Let’s see if that affects the results at all.
Clearly the rain has put a dampener on the spirits of some of the riders, as there are no attacks for quite some time. So let’s have a look at race leader Anuar Manan
So far this year his stand-out result has been second place at the Mumbai Cyclothon II behind Daniele Bennati. This chance to wear the leader’s jersey in a race, as well as taking the stage, is a big moment for him and his team in the fight to avoid last place in the rankings.
We get to the intermediate sprint, 36 kilometres into the race, and there is still no break! This is a rare case of the sprinters getting their big chance to sprint for the intermediate points. And it is none other than Manan who takes it, ahead of Greipel and then Kip. This extends Manan’s lead by another 2 seconds over the German rider, as well as giving him a rather solid lead in the points jersey. Of course this could all change at the end of the day, but Manan will be pleased.
With only 99km remaining in this 170km stage, there is finally an attack. This one comes from Thomas Ziegler, who lit up yesterday’s stage with a late attack.
Bizarrely, no one goes with him, and so we are left with a one man breakaway. Through the second sprint point of the day he has a lead of 2’43”, over Le Bon and Monsalve, who lead the peloton. None of the sprinters go for the points this time.
The gap pushes out to about 4’30” with 50km remaining. Some of the big teams don’t like this and so they start to work. Teams notably on the front are Hollister, WWE and Meiji, who have largely managed to avoid working today despite having the race leader in their team.
The gap comes down to 2’31” with 30km remaining, but a lot of teams simply stop working then and the gap goes out. By the time we get to 22km remaining, at the third and final intermediate sprint it is once again back out to about 4 minutes. Back in the peloton the sprinters have clearly decided that they want to sprint this time. Greipel takes second place, ahead of Manan, meaning that they have no net change in their GC time gaps to each other, but they have both picked up extra time over everyone else.
Greipel obviously gains some confidence here and so he sends a couple of riders to the front of the peloton and they just destroy the gap. Through the sprint point the gap was over 4 minutes, but with 16km to go, only 6km later, it is down to 1’48”.
Hollister start to help set the pace and Szmyd makes the catch with 11km to go. In just 11km they have brought back Ziegler who was over 4 minutes ahead.
The fierce crosswinds make it difficult to form a train leading up to the sprint as everyone is pushed to the right side of the road. Hollister get to the front with a few riders, however.
In the Hollister train the order is: Szmyd Martinez Serebriakov Kip Maksimov Feillu Manan
On their right, sheltering from the wind is the WWE train, which is set up as follows: Polito Becerra Greipel
With 3km remaining, Szymd and Polito both come off the front of their trains, but Polito is blocked by the other train and so when he comes off he disrupts Greipel, who suddenly has a gap open up in front of him to Becerra.
Becerra slows up and Greipel starts to fade back. Up front, Martinez once again is blown way too early and so with 1800m left, Serebriakov is forced to go for it.
Manan is struggling to hold Feillu’s wheel as De Fauw starts to come up on his left. No one has come around Serebriakov yet.
And nor can they! Serbriakov holds off everyone else after a 1.8km sprint. The crosswinds seem to have prevented others from coming around anyone else.
Because of this fact, Kip takes second and Maksimov rounds out the podium. Feillu is fourth, the late-charging De Fauw is fifth. Jorgensen gets sixth and Greipel recovers somewhat for seventh. Our race leader Manan is in eighth, with Kopp once again ninth and Sano in tenth.
