The second of the two Canadian classics was raced in scorching temperatures, the pack may well be glad of the forested climb to Mont Royal. Mind you having to power up the 2 klick leg sapper 17 times may not be too cheery a thought!
Our big break of the day just had three riders.
Waeytens (Magna), Kennaugh (Vueling) and Salinas (Repsol).
Kennaugh has just come off a mixed bag of a Tour of Britain where he nabbed a stage win but didn't compete for the GC as some might have expected. Waeytens is on Loan from HTC, who are not here, certainly a decent prospect for the hilly stuff. Salinas is a good young prospect from Venezuela, his team certainly feeling in good spirits after the recent Tour of America triumph.
These three get a lead of up to 7 minutes before the game of catchee monky begins. The teams in the mood to chase are Rothaus, Tinkoff and ING.
All three are right in the promotion hunt and all three have as you'd expect good prospects here. Tinkoff have the swarm strategy with Kolobnev the nominal leader with a number of good Russian strongmen to back him up. Rothaus have two cards, Jonny Bellis (an utter disappointment in his home tour this year) and one of their revelations of the year Geschke. Meanwhil ING are very much all in for Roche, though he does have some good back up riders.
Vespa join in the act as we get to the business end, no Ginnani here or indeed to the worlds. Some mystery about that and indeed not sure they have a top favourite here so some surprise.
Two laps to go the break of three are doing a decent job with a lead still of 1.40 with 24km to go.
Towards the top of the penultimate Mont Royal climb and we get our first significant move and Vespa's ploy is realised as Cataldo puts in a big dig.
Instantly Kolobnev (Tinkoff), Roche (ING) and Barredo (AMEX) are in the wheels. These are big names and you can hear frantic calls from team cars.
Bellis seemingly has his ear piece in at this race and gets going, Ventoso (Prio) knows he needs to follow this with last years winner Ben Nasser (P Lasko).
It's looking fairly decisive here, Ben Nasser is usually a good choser of moves to follow and domestiques are clearly looking a little tired. A home favourite in Ryan Anderson (Alstom) decides to try and escape from the fading pack on the descent.
He is followed by Der (P Lasko) and Taborre (Cisco). More and more riders try to escape a pack that is disorganized, noone is looking to chase so now is the time to get out of there.
Rybakov (Tinkoff), Reimer (Vueling) and Dowsett (Jaguar) are the latest to get going responding to frantic calls from team managers.
We get a sort of fusion on the descent with our break of the day caught by some of the earlier attackers.
We have a front group of 11 with Roche, Bellis, Anderson, Kolobnev, Barredo, Ben Nasser, Cataldo, Ventoso joining Kennaugh, Salinas and Waeytens.
Behind this there are nine men chasing under a minute back.
These nine are Taborre, Reimer, Proni (Hollister), Gautier (Bpost), Dowsett, Mendes (Prio Porto), Rovny (Tinkoff), Der and Rybakov. Clearly some of these riders have team mates in the front group and are sitting on. Dowsett, Gautier, Proni, Reimer (Kennaugh clearly struggling up front) and Taborre have their work cut out.
Further back SRAM have missed the boat and need to now chase, has Wegmanns old legs finally given way?
Magna, WWE and Repsol are lending a bit of a hand here. But these teams could well have missed the boat in getting a leader forward. With one lap to go the lead 11 have 45 seconds on the nine chasers and 1.20 on the pack.
The pack are further hampered with a midfield crash which completely eliminates Possoni (Cisco) and delays Salerno (Cisco), De Greef (Bpost) and Canadian champion Dionne (Alstom).
Up onto the final Mont Royal climb, Dowsett looks desperate to up the pace of the chasing group and attacks clear of his companions.
He passes former teammate and countryman Kennaugh who is now dropped.
He also passes Waeytons and Salinas who are also dropped here but cannot quite make the now front eight and slips back to the second group again.
We come down the descent and the last Mont Royal climb with eight leaders.
Roche, Kolobnev, Anderson, Bellis, Barredo, Cataldo, Ben Nasser amd Ventoso.
However thanks perhaps to the efforts of Dowsett the gap is down to just over 30 seconds from the chasers.
Indeed all but the dropped Kennaugh and Salinas (but not Waeytens) manage to get up to the lead eight with 6km to go to make a large front group of 18.
Cataldo decides to up the pace though almost as soon as fusion happens not fancying his chances in a big sprint. One remembers it was he who launched the big move on the second to last Mont Royal ascent.
A couple try but fail to join Cataldo who gets a 15 or so second lead with 3km left, which he holds impressively well for the next kilometer. Now though the others behind are sprinting.
Anderson leads the charge, though Roche, Bellis and Barredo are dangerously poised.
Coming under the kite and poor Cataldo is about to be hit by a big arrow with Bellis at the head.
Notably Ventoso has come up to his side with Ben Nasser at the other. Kolobnev, Roche and Mendes are also there.
They round the final bend and Ventoso kicks on.
Bellis has given too much too soon and cannot respond. Ventoso takes the GP Montreal!
Ben Nasser outkicks Bellis for second with the Rothaus man finishing on the podium. Mendes makes 4th to make this a great race for the on fire Prio Porto squad (at least with this reporter!)
Roche pips Kolobnev for fifth, both riders following today with neither likely to win a sprint with the company they were keeping. Der made 7th with P Lasko recieving a welcome late season boost.
Anderson made the top ten with Rovny and surprisingly Cataldo had enough left to hold off the other eight breakaways. Waeytens finished at the back though still something for Magna whose leader Ilias finished highly in the reduced pack lead in by Cadbury's hilly sprinter Torckler.
