Mount Washington is one of the more regular climbs in the US races including the Tour of America and usually can lead to big time gaps due to the combination of length and high slopes. No other very tough climbs on the day except for some easier, low slopes mid day and just before the final climb.
Penasa and Nerz were superior on the first mountain stage with first taking the win while later had the stronger team around him.
Then Abal, Kuss and Atapuma were the best of the rest with riders such as Duarte, Fraile, Raileanu, Brandt in the group of riders fighting for the top10 whereas Garby was the biggest rider missing out on a good result.
13,4km climbing in the end and lots of red means, it will be a tough final. Only the final 2.5km might look a bit easier, so the damage likely should be done by then.
8 riders in the break including some interesting names: Mannion and Krasnoperov are decent climbers and might slowly focus the KoM competiton? McNulty in the KoM jersey, though being 2nd behind Penasa only, surely wants to gain some more points as well but clearly missing the pure climbing strength yet.
Plucinski actually best placed as support rider for Raileanu in13th 5'06 down is as well in that group.
Lovik already at 12 points in the KoM ranking clearly having ambitions there.
The remaining trio are Chhetri, Clarke and Rojus.
Having won several stages yet doesn`t stop him to work for his leader as well. Haller in the lead early on. Maybe a chance for some other sprinters to beat him on future stages? Though, most of them work here and there on harder days as well. So not really a disadvantage for him.
The first climb goes to Mannion, who attacked with Cheetri and Plucinski behind him. Clarke and McNulty follow. Surprisingly neither Lovik nor Krasnoperov collecting points.
Meanwhile Glanbia`s Ford after 50km of chasing is again dropped at this point fighting solo against the time limit. Can he still win this fight on Mt.Washington?
The gap is down to 1'40 with still 30km to go and this makes the breakaway already starting to stop cooperation.
Plucinski followed by Krasnoperov with a first attack, not yet in KoM range, so this clearly is an attempt to go solo. After being caught again, same is attempted by Chhetri as well.
And this all leads to a further reduction of the time gap to 1'25 only with Glanbia setting up their sprint train of Bennett, Cruz, King working for....Brandt? Must be their only chance here but actually far from a big contender and despite him being in huge daily form, anything close to a top5 would be a bit surprising.
Maybe it`s his home training climb and he knows it better than others?
A trio has attacked towards the KoM and it`s again Mannion taking the points ahead of Lovik and Chhetri, which moves the Azteca climber into provisional 3rd, actually same points as Lovik as well now.
Rojus dropped already into the peloton and also Krasnoperov either being exhausted or no longer trying as he dropps back as well with the other three still trying.
The peloton reaches Mt.Washington just 45s behind the group of 6 riders again.
Kraftwerk`s Denz (9th actually in the GC) working alongside Bol for Nerz here while Lovik has attacked and is a bit ahead of the others.
One of the first struggling GC riders today is Geniez, 6th.
To be fair, he is mainly a support rider for Nerz, but still surprising as he was the strongest helper on the first mountain top finish and today he is about to be dropped without having taking a single turn at the front.
Ahead of him though the first Valio climbers are struggling as well though with Lehtinen and Bergstrom Frisk and same goes for former break rider Plucinski or the Nordica duo Moschella/Sortveit or Medvedev.
8,8km to go and on the left Denz has done his job dropping back but more of a surprise to see also Valio`s last support in Gebremedhin weakly placed as also Maillet for Kraftwerk.
Meanwhile Sortveit got the okay from his team moving up again letting Moschella alone in the later groups.
A single rider is responsible for the high pace now. It`s not the highest and neither with high acceleration but slowly more and more riders drop but can basically keep a consistent gap to avoid bigger time gaps.
It`s Kiserlovski at the front, as expected, today in the main support role for Nerz.
The just caught Mannion right behind him with Fraile also up front.
Lovik still 35s ahead though, also profiting of the steady pace behind without attacks yet.
As both Kraftwerk and Valio having lose basically most support riders, other teams are shining with lots of jerseys there.
Europcar with at least 4 riders left, Desigual with 3-4, Fablok with 2-3 and also Sauber with 3 riders.
It took until 7,5km to really drop some of the riders such as Denz, Gebremedhin or Sortveit.
Those have a gap now but also interesting to see some captains as well.
In especially Brandt after Glanbia`s work earlier. As said, not very surprising to not see him in the top group of 13 but still the team`s expectations might have been higher with the sprinters chasing.
Also and probably more surprising Duarte is dropped. At least still having Mannion with him.
3,3km and as you see, the gaps behind are not huge yet and Duarte actually is almost still there. Just like Brandt!
Kiserlovski is finally done after a long turn with Lovik still 20s in the lead.
Desigual taking over now with Jones chasing for Abal and Fraile.
But it`s actually Kuss highering the pace now with an attack which sees Lovik being caught.
Abal immediately reacts in the fight for the podium and so is Penasa and Nerz, who was so far always in one of the later positions but seems to be alright.
Also Garby up there, clearly better legs today.
Kiserlovski and Raileanu the only other riders close to that group with Jones and Shapira a bit behind as helpers.
This means 2-3 bigger names are dropped. Atapuma easily the biggest, who looked to be a top5 rider so far. Duarte, Fraile, Sortveit, Liphongyu or Brandt are other riders to be there.
Similar picture as on the first mountain stage. The two top riders alongside Abal and Kuss. Only Atapuma missing here.
Instead Garby was the 5th rider, who now is though gapped a bit with Raileanu with him. Still 2.4km to go.
A full picture. Kiserlovski also left in that Garby group making a GC jump today.
Behind a very strong duo with Shapira and Lovik while the group Atapuma is already a bit behind. At least Mannion working in there trying to reduce the time loss.
With 1km to go Abal is losing contact but same can be said about Kuss as well, so the 1-2 seems again decided with the podium/top5 fight still open.
Big gaps now as the slopes became lower and the first riders going faster.
Again Penasa vs. Nerz for the stage win. Behind Abal/Kuss not giving each other any second.
Then long time no see! The gap to Garby is over 1min already!
Penasa accelerated and again Nerz struggling to follow.
And it`s stage win no.2 for the Valio leader, who justifies his GC position.
He even is credited a 8s time gap to Nerz, who remains first or actually only real GC competition.
Kuss outsprints Abal on the line. They lost quite some time in the end. 1'13 shows the watch but still gained a lot more on their actual rivals.
Strong performance by Kiserlovski today. Basically leading almost 10km in the climb and still finishing 5th of the day. 3'11 though the gap!
Garby still improves as he comes over the line in 6th ahead of Raileanu, who surely must be happy to have outclimbed some stronger climbers today.
Liphongyu as well with a good performance in 7th at 3'47 followed by Lovik and Jones.
Group Duarte, Atapuma, Fraile, Moschella, Sortveit at 4'13. That`s 3min in the podium fight.
Brandt another minute later with Mannion, Gebremedhin and not far ahead of Denz and Geniez, who found his legs with a consistent ride up the climb. To be fair, the riders ahead of Brandth are mostly better climbers, still it`s weird to see Glanbia working for a rider capable of basically this 20th today. Will be interesting to see what they do tomorrow on the next difficult climb.
And btw. Ford reached the finish with 56min and allowed to go on. Just like Kelemen, Frame etc. a bit ahead. Lanterne Rouge still open.
