And let the mountains begin! The tenth stage takes us into Colorado and though it isn’t the hardest stage ever devised, it should be one of the most selective by far. Almost the entire 193km course is uphill, with gradients running mostly in the 2-4% area, but there are steeper parts throughout. Four mountain primes are on offer today, each of them at the top of slightly steeper sections. The first is at Lone Rock, the second is Webster BM. Red Hill is our third point and the highest point of the day is at the top of Montgomery Reservoir, which comes about 15km before the ending in Breckenridge, where the riders will descend to.
And starting us off today is a great climber, Becerra. He is already 20 minutes down on GC. This is a great move from WWE, who can send him up the road to set something up for their leader Kessiakoff.
Oliveira and Castroviejo go with him. Claes and Beppu follow shortly after.
Our next two riders seeking to bridge up are Karagobek and Antunes. This is a great move from our mountain jersey wearer, who is clearly intent on holding onto it.
All the attackers are brought back by Ochoa Quintero, who is probably under instructions not to let Becerra get away.
Starting off our next attacks is a trio of riders: Uuguunbayar Seledkov Castroviejo
Attempting to bridge up to these guys are: Kwok Antunes Oliveira Reis Becerra
Clearly Cerne are really trying to set something up here!
Once again it is Ochoa Quintero who gets onto the front and this time he drags in Kwok and all the Cerne riders. Becerra, however, manages to climb away from the chasing pack and gets into the lead group.
A new group of attackers goes again: Beppu Reis Kwok Claes
All 4 of these men make it up to the front, but just as they make contact Reis puts his arm up. He has punctured at a very unfortunate time.
He chases for a while, but he manages to get back on and thus we have a lead group of 8 riders with 153km left.
Without a doubt Becerra is the best climber in this group, but the best placed rider on GC is Seledkov, who is in 18th overall, 8’17” down.
The lead group don’t contest the sprint point, with Castroviejo rolling over ahead of Seledkov and Beppu. Their lead is out to 3’50”, but more interesting than this is the fact that we have the first signs of snow already!
Our first mountain points come at Lone Rock, which has a short descent leading into it, then a steep ramp to the prime, but it isn’t too long so it doesn’t concern the riders too much. No one shows much interest in the mountain points, meaning that Seledkov rolls over ahead of Castroviejo and then Claes.
The lead had reached a maximum of 9’50” meaning that Seledkov was the provisional leader, but through this first mountain prime the gap is already down to 8’46” with over 100km left to ride. This is coming down because Focussed Cycling and CSC are both determined to make this as hard as humanly possible.
One man who will be having a particularly hard day is Kip, who now punctures just to make things worse for him. His teammates Hacecky and Shatskikh drop back to help him. They will have to make a real effort to avoid the time limit today.
We reach our second mountain point prime now, and this time Seledkov shows some interest in winning the points. Could he perhaps be defending the jersey of his teammate and current mountain jersey leader Karagobek? Becerra and Reis take the minor places. Their lead is 6’10” with 69km remaining, as they enter a plateau-like section which should allow everyone to recover a bit.
Castroviejo once again leads through the sprint point ahead of Seledkov and this time Uuguunbayar takes third place. As the best sprinter in this group you would think that he might want to seize some of the points on offer, particularly with his team leader in trouble behind the peloton. The lead is down to 5’39”.
We reach our third mountain prime on top of Red Hill, which is probably the steepest climb of the day, but still averages only 5.9% over 2.4km. This time more of them show some interest. Becerra takes the points over Castroviejo and the ever-active Seledkov takes third.
Seizing the opportunity that this steeper gradient offers, Navarro and Agudelo attack together.
They have both lost some time before today so this is a great chance for them to put themselves back into the race as real overall contenders. Both also have domestiques up front to help them out.
Not wanting to take any risks, however, Kiserlovski jumps onto their back wheel.
This prompts several counter-attacks: Vital Kessiakoff Nicacio Sano Sicard
Realising the danger present in all these riders, Soler keeps everyone in check for his leader Anton. Though he drags everyone back in, there is another attack from Nicacio just as he reaches the summit.
Four riders follow him and as they hit a false flat they have about a 30” advantage. The other four riders are: Navarro Kessiakoff Sano Sicard
This is an incredibly dangerous group of climbers, particularly with Sicard here. Because of this it is once again the super domestique Soler who brings everything back together. We soon find out why because, on the false flat just before the climb it is none other than Anton who launches the next attack.
He is followed by Sano, Nicacio and Sicard, but Martinez digs deep to catch them all. The gradient just isn’t steep enough to get away yet.
That won’t stop people from trying, however, as Sicard launches the next bid for the line.
He is followed by everyone else involved in the previous attack as well as Agudelo. Remember that Sicard has already shown his strength on the flat after limiting his losses when Hollister broke up the race the other day.
All of these attacks have rapidly reduced the advantage of the break. Becerra and Reis have dropped the others, who are now caught by the five GC attackers.
As another testament to this race’s speed, Soler is dropped by the peloton. He put in a lot of work just before the recent flurry of attacks, so it isn’t too surprising. He also was involved in the mass crash yesterday, so could be feeling the effects of any slight injuries.
The attackers can’t stay away for too long, however, as Kiserlovski himself sets the pace to run them down.
There are 22.5km to the finishing line, with only 6km left to race. The gradient steeps to around 5-6% average for the rest of this climb to the Montgomery Reservoir and there are likely to be some very tired legs back in the pack.
Two of the constant aggressors today launch the next attacks. They are Agudelo and Nicacio.
In fact, Agudelo can’t sustain his attack for long and so Nicacio goes past him in a solo attack.
The race is now split apart by Ochoa Quintero, in his effort to claw Nicacio back, which he manages.
The list of riders in the group is: Kiserlovski, Ochoa Quintero, Szmyd Nicacio, Vital Sicard, R. Feillu Navarro, Seeldraeyers Agudelo Sano Anton Kessiakoff
The biggest name to miss out is probably Txurruka, who most would tip to be here.
Sicard and Navarro now try to get away close to the summit.
Kiserlovski, however, seems to just want to keep this group as it is to the finish, so he runs them down. Sicard goes over the top with a few bike lengths, but he certainly can’t sustain that gap. Anton is in third over the top, behind the race leader.
Way back we hear news that Tommersen has fallen on the descent, but no one pays attention to that. All eyes are on the front 13 riders.
Coming under the 1km to go kite, the front line of riders is: Nicacio Agudelo Vital Navarro Anton
On the other side the line is: Sano Seeldraeyers Kessiakoff
Then the Hollister and Focussed boys.
The descent helps Nicacio, who stays at the front the whole way until the last 300 metres, where things get a bit crazy. It is close between him and Navarro, but who has it?
It is Daniel Navarro who takes today’s mountain stage win!
Nicacio holds on to 2nd with Agudelo in 3rd. Seeldraeyers caps off a good day for Emu with 4th place. Kessiakoff is 5th and Vital 6th. Anton, after attacking strongly throughout the day, will have to be content with 7th. Sano will be pleased with an 8th. Sicard’s shots at the green jersey are looking slim as he can only manage 9th. Our yellow jersey Kiserlovski rounds out the top ten.
The peloton containing most of the other riders comes in 3’07” later and no one is eliminated today. With tomorrow’s climbs being even harder, however, it may be hard work for some in the peloton to avoid the time limit.
Looking now at the jerseys, the GC didn’t get hugely shaken up as most of the top riders were in this front group of 13. Hollister maintain the top 3 places with Martinez and Soler being the two biggest time losers today, both dropping out of the top ten. Our points jersey looks much the same as yesterday and Karagobek holds on to the mountain jersey for another day, though tomorrow’s epic stage may see the end of that run. Hollister extend their lead in the team competition and of course Sicard does so as well in the young rider competition.
