And so we finally reach the end of our epic journey around the United States. Today’s stage takes in the area around San Francisco before finally ending inside the city itself, taking in several landmarks. The first half of the race is rather bumpy though without too many difficulties except for Hicks Mount and Golden Gate Hill, not to be confused with the bridge. Once the race enters the city proper it takes in four circuits of Lombard Street, which is a 300 metre climb which averages almost 20% the entire way up. After that the race heads out to Mount Davidson before descending for three laps of a flat 8.3km long course where the race will finish.
Any notion that today is going to be a nice and easy procession are dispelled as we get two attackers from the start. They are Seledkov and Viennet.
Seledkov starts the day in 13th place overall after a terrifically gutsy ride yesterday where he held on to the pack after being in the break all day to move well up the rankings. He is still over an hour down, however. Viennet is now in his fifth break of the entire race.
The gap starts to go up to the duo and there is a bit of a slowing in the pace. This seems like the perfect opportunity for Txurruka to try something. He is in 12th so might be worried by Seledkov, though he has an 8 minute advantage over him.
Ochoa Quintero doesn’t like the idea of him getting away so he increases the pace just enough to bring him back. Not to be deterred Txurruka tries to get away again.
Through the first sprint point of the day Viennet leads Seledkov over. 2 minutes later comes Txurruka, but he has only 11 seconds on the front of the peloton. He is caught soon after.
The first climb is the fairly short Hicks Mount climb, which is 1.7km with a gradient of 6.5%. Nothing much occurs as the peloton and the break both take it easy. Seledkov leads over the top with Viennet in second and the gap to the peloton, lead over by Ochoa Quintero, at 2’50”.
The gap starts to grow out beyond the 3 minute mark for the first time.
WWE now start to provide a bit of help for Hollister. Both of them are working for their sprinters. Greipel hasn’t had a win so far in this race and Serebriakov is looking for yet another one.
We reach the biggest climb of the day – the Golden Gate Hill. It is a decent 3.3km long and is 6.4% on average, with a steady gradient most of the way up.
Viennet leads the duo over. Their gap has now grown to an impressive 5’10”, with Txurruka having settled down and leading the peloton over the top. Neither of the two riders are anywhere close to the mountain jersey so there is no need for them to fight these points out.
Finally we start to ride around the streets of San Francisco and the excitement in the crowd is palpable. The riders make their way over to Lombard Street. As said before it is 300 metres of climbing at almost 20%. The gap has started to come down but the two leaders easily arrive beforehand to give us our first look at this climb.
Seledkov does the work here being the better climber. Strangely, the organisers have made the circuit under 1km in length and so the break get mixed up in the peloton as they come through a lap later.
The final climb has some mountain points on offer and, though it is almost impossible to tell, the race officials rule that Seledkov is first over the line with Viennet second. The peloton are now only 3’14” behind as Szmyd finishes the final lap.
The four sharp climbs in a row has clearly taken its toll on the peloton and things split apart with a 21 man front group forming!
The make-up of the group is as follows:
Kiserlovski, Ochoa Quintero, Szmyd, Serebriakov, Monsalve Greipel, Txurruka, Hoste, Polito Sicard, Morizot, R. Feillu, Elissonde Kip, Shatskikh Manan, Sano Jorgensen, Le Bon De Fauw Teruel
Only three riders from the top 10 are here – Kiserlovski, Sicard and Sano. Is this Sicard’s chance to take over second place? He is only about 1’30” behind Anton, who is caught out in the second group.
Now we hit the final climb of this Tour – Mount Davidson. It is 2.4km long and only 5.4% in gradient. Under ordinary circumstances this would not be a crucial climb, but these are far from ordinary circumstances. The second peloton is 56” behind at the base of the second climb. Cerne are doing most of the work here but they are getting some help from CSC and WWE.
Seledkov leads over the top with Viennet in second. There are now 32km remaining.
Everyone is more interested in the fight between the two packs behind, however.
Things have still not come together and the first peloton are 2’43” behind the leaders. There is a 1 minute gap exactly between the two groups, which means that the gap has remained roughly steady. This is not good news for the second bunch.
The leaders reach the start of the finishing circuit for the race. It is 8.3km long and almost entirely flat. The riders will do three laps here.
The gap between the break and the first peloton remains steady while the gap between the second peloton and the first is down to 52”, but time is running out as we only have 25km remaining.
About half way through the first lap Viennet cracks on the flat. Seledkov is now on his own but he can take heart from the memory of Ziegler’s win on stage 9, which had a similar finishing circuit to this and he won solo.
As the second lap start we get another chance for some time checks.
1’48”
40”
46”
Seledkov
--->
Viennet
--->
Peloton 1
--->
Peloton 2
The gaps are remaining fairly stable all around. Things are looking decidedly grim for the second peloton who can almost reach the tail of the first peloton but are always just out of reach. The twists in the circuit are not helping at all.
With 14.6km to go, however, Nicacio himself forces both groups back together, much to the relief of a number of nervous managers.
Viennet is caught moments later, meaning that it is Seledkov against almost everyone else (except Armstrong, who was dropped earlier). Seledkov has nothing to worry about. As he starts the final lap, his gap is still at 2’27” and he can just enjoy his victory lap. No one should catch him now.
Back in the peloton the sprint train has formed. Though the win is out of the grasp of everyone else the minor places are still on offer and this is a chance to sort out some of the lower points classification positions.
The order is: Ochoa Quintero Martinez Monsalve Kip Serebriakov Greipel De Fauw Manan Feillu Jorgensen Teruel
Clearly there has been some horrible mix-up as Serebriakov is muscled out of the way by the diminutive Kip.
One man who is unconcerned, however, is Ivan Seledkov, who becomes the fourth rider from Emu Export to win a stage in this race.
There is confusion on the front of the peloton as Hollister realise Serebriakov isn’t where he is supposed to be. They pull off and leave Kip exposed to the wind.
With 1.2km to go, Kip sits up and realises that he can’t sprint now. No trains are present at the front so some other riders open up.
Jorgensen hits the front with Teruel in his wheel. Serebriakov and Greipel are coming up. Manan is just a little bit further back.
With 400 metres to go, Serebriakov goes past, and Greipel is coming up to him.
And Greipel takes second place. He will be incredibly annoyed that the break stayed away and stole his chance for a sprint win.
Serebriakov is third and Manan’s burst of speed earns him a fourth. Jorgensen will probably be content with a fifth. Teruel once again showed well with a sixth. Kessiakoff comes past the confused sprinters for seventh, Kiserlovski is in eighth, Sano takes ninth and R. Feillu rounds out our top ten.
Looking at our final jerseys Kiserlovski wins... pretty much everything. The overall, the points and the mountain jersey rightfully go to the man who has worn the leader’s jersey since stage 5. Greipel moved himself up to fourth in the points classification and Serebriakov took back second place. The top three riders in the mountain classification are all from Hollister. Sicard was always going to win the young rider classification and will also be content with a third place overall. Finally the team classification saw a ding-dong battle for second place behind Hollister and it was only thanks to today’s breakaway win that Emu export moved into second place in that competition.
And with that our race is finished! Hollister obviously come away from this race immensely well off, but most teams will have at least something to show for it. CSC may well be disappointed by only one stage win and second overall and Aker may have expected more from their mountain goats than Agudelo’s 9th. Proximus are the only other team left without much to cheer for here, with no stage win to their name despite all the work on flat stages which they did. Regardless, I think that all teams will agree it was a brilliant race which was much improved by the increased attendance.
