It's a short time trial, but a nasty uphill test with some short 150m sections close to 20% amongst a climb that pretty much averages 6%.
Gaps will not be huge, but then again the lead five on GC are only separted by 40 seconds. A quick reminder of those top five:
Rank
Name
Time
1
Ruben Elvira Lobato
16h57'03
2
Carlos Alberto Ospina
+ 16
3
Ruslan Grychenko
+ 30
4
Ricardo Serrano
+ 40
5
Luis Felipe Laverde Jimenez
s.t.
Pivavorna Lasko had a hard time of it yesterday with the likes of Ospina and Grychenko putting pressure on them, meanwhile this could be the terrain for Laverde Jimenez to show himself.
It is one for the pure climbers really and Cativen have several strong climbers, which will likely be highlighted in next month's Tour of Utah. Today John Freddy Agudelo sets an early marker.
You'll note he is on one of those 20% ramps, the last of which cruelly is in the last 1000m, he sets a time of 18:39 for the 7km climb which is good enough for the early lead.
His time holds off follow South American climber Ronald Gonzalez by a second and is seven seconds too fast for the likes of Dutch chrono man Malaya Van Ruitenbeek. These three proving our early leaders.
Experiences and recovery following our four tough hilly days are key with Andreas Klöden as ever dependable in this type of test. He judges the climb really well to set a new best of 18.30. underlining that a mixture of experience, TT talent and climbing ability is required today.
It is a massive new best by nine seconds and certainly sends shock waves through the racers thinking today's stage would be a matter of a handful of seconds, time for later GC candidates can be made up despite the short distance.
Possibly the favourite for next months ITT event in Canada is Shaun Higgerson, but this is not his cup of tea as he can only set 18.41. This is eleven seconds behind Kloden. Tamás Lengyel, Franklin Chacon and Esteban Mardones
fair little better with times of 18.43, 18.40 and 18.39 repectively. Another Kloden type though nearly knocks the Germanb off his pedestal as Isidro Nozal sets 18.32, very close indeed.
With 40% of our racers having finished Klodi and Nozal lead our stage standings.
1
Andreas
Klöden
18.30
2
Isidro
Nozal
18.32
3
John Freddy
Agudelo
18.39
4
Esteban
Mardones
18.39
5
Franklin
Chacon
18.40
They are stunned however by 35 year old Portuguese climber Nuno Ribeiro who clearly shows he has been saving something obliterating the course with 18.21!
It's the sort of ride that comes out of nowhere, though with Kingspan we should expect something special on what is described as a mountain Time trial. The specialist climbers are certainly coming into their own now as Ludvig Lundberg, Xavier Tondo and Yennier López Fonseca set decent times of 18.36, 18.32 and 18.33 respectively.
The pre-stage favourite and former Vuelta champion Francisco Mancebo has his teammate riding high on the stage today. He also will have heard when and where to push his efforts.
Indeed as he comes through the finish he has managed to shave four seconds off of Riberio's time to set 18.17.This proves too challenging for the likes of the majority of the GC challengers with only Peter Pancake managing to get to within 20 seconds of Mancebo before our top five GC men.
The big favourite to gain here Laverde Jimenez sets out on his ride.
The Colombian have never really enjoyed chrono's though is clearly a good climber. That said he is unable to really push it on this short climb setting a slightly underwhelming 18.40.This is only good enough for 19th on the stage.
It still should see him overtake Serrano who started on the same time as hime today.
Indeed P Lasko's number two sets a time of 18.48, nine seconds slower than Laverde Jimenez. Grychenko had ten seconds on Laverde Jimenez and with Serrano losing 9 seconds to the Colombian you might expect Grychenko to lose more.
However the Ukranian rider is in great form here and sets a time of 18.44, only losing four seconds to Laverde Jimenez and good enough for a decent 32nd on the day.
Suddenly Ospina who was second on GC this morning needs to defend as well as attack.
It proves a bit of a neither attack or defence ride really with a time of 18.46 certainly nothing to write home about.
It means that Lobato just needs to write home in 19.02 to defend his leaders jersey - with that being only a time four riders have ridden at or slower than, it feels unlikely.
Still you can tell the last couple of days have hurt the race leader as he produces a pretty lame effort.
Lobato finishes with a time of 18.52, hanging onto his lead by ten seconds. The net effect for the GC contenders is to draw them closer together before tomorrows final showdown.
Ospina, Grychenko and Laverde Jimenez know any sort of registerable gap into the finish will result in them dethroning Lobato. But we have just the one climb of God's Window tomorrow so we we will see how decisive that proves to be.
