Perfect weather, no winds: the Cauberg Classic is set to be kicked off for it's second edition. It's a prestigious CH2C-race and the top-favorites should be focussed on the win only.
Speaking of this victory, Mendes has to be considered the best bet, followed by riders such as Tiernan-Locke, Duggan, Wyss/Hollenstein or Godoy in particular!
A first wave of attacks has been pulled back quickly, but still early into the race, a group of 4 riders now seems to be allowed to go for the break of the day:
Howes, Vosekalns, Orbe and Safarzadeh
The group's lead peaks at 7 minutes, but just a few minutes later (as we now have about 105km remaining), the peloton starts pacing and narrowing this gap.
Azteca, Evonik, Vontobel and Bank of Ireland as those teams showing their colours at the front of the pack now. So Evonik still playing it's card Geschke, it seems!
55km to go and while the bunch looks in control so far (2'39" down on the breakaway), we see a first serious attack:
Bochman goes as first promising contender here!
He struggles to finally bridge across the early break though, but at least could open up a gap on the chasing peloton!
Hollenstein is next in line to launch his move with now 31km remaining and the situation being as follows:
Early break + 24" Bochman + 1'10" Hollenstein (and 113 riders in the peloton)
Those are two dangerous attacks and the peloton apparently is well aware of that: especially Hollenstein's attack led to the bunch pulling the strings even harder and about 20km before finish, both him and Bochman are swallowed by the 59-men-bunch again!
The early break though surprisingly holds on to a 1'20"-gap as we now see Hollenstein going for his second attempt to go clear!
Empty-handed, again! The peloton reels him in a few minutes later, but it's still 51" down on the early escapees with now just 10km to go!
36 riders remain in this first main group, by the way. Most notables names being dropped were Feillu, Fernandez, Toribio and Sarabia..
..more important question at this point though: will those four really maintain their lead?
Duggan clearly doesn't want this to happen and he launches his first move on the penultimate climb up the Cauberg! His move looks promising, but a few more riders try to jump behind..
Godoy and Bugge as the first two trying to join Duggan..
Passalacqua, Hollenstein, Tiernan-Locke and Chalapud further 13" behind, attacking as well!
7km remaining and there's a clear selection between those latest attackers and the 30-men-bunch now.. anyway, Duggan couldn't not yet catch up to the early breakaway, but he's close behind:
Leading Orbe Safarzadeh Howes Vosekalns
at 0.15 Duggan
at 0.59 Hollenstein Bugge Godoy Tiernan
at 1.07 Passalacqua
at 1.24 30 riders with Mendes Wyss Geschke Rosskopf
We also see a solo-attempt in the leading group now..
It's Orbe going for a late solo-move! 5.5km to go and he establishes a 28"-gap on his former breakaway companions, who are now joined by Duggan!
In the meantime, the chasing group with Tiernan-Locke/Godoy/Bugge couldn't hold off the chasing bunch, which is still about 37" in arrears to the early escapees and Duggan!
Orbe enters this final climb up the Cauberg with a 23"-advantage on Duggan, who easily drops Vosekalns, Safarzadeh and Howes.. 1.1km to climb..
The peloton down by 26" on the former breakaway group, so definitely out of reach for the victory!
And Duggan? He fights to bridge across Orbe with just a few hundred metres to go..
..and comes too late: Orbe celebrates a huge victory for Euskaltel, which clearly knows how to benefit from smart breakaway moves!
Duggan at least scoring points as runner-up, as he was by far the strongest of all top-favorites today!
+ 20" Safarzadeh, who completes the podium for another huge effort!
A strong kick by McConvey out of the bunch made him earn a good 4th ahead of Vosekalns and teammate Kelly! So at least a strong overall result for BOI with also Mendes (9th) scoring a Top-10 today.
Vontobol maybe the unluckiest team with just Wyss (7th) inside the Top-10 and Hollenstein (19th) paying for his earlier attempts. No huge disaster though, as also Kohler (15th) did well.
Parisien and Marents complete the final Top-10 spots ahead of Geschke, who wasn't much of a factor here.. also some tough luck for Godoy, who couldn't hang on in this finishing sprint to cross the line as 20th and best of his team. Tiernan-Locke (16th) and Bugge (14th) also couldn't score big time after their earlier attempt..
