A very thrilling stage ahead as there are so many unknowns. Hilly rated but clearly not a pure hill stage, which can be seen by the favourite list but also by the length of the climbs. Plus end of 2nd week, which usually slowly goes towards GC riders more and more.
Raileanu combines a lot for todays stage and is the top favourites followed by the 1-2 Penasa-Nerz I guess.
Burke surprisingly high for the bookies. He is the U25 leader but basically one of 2 support riders for Abal/Fraile. Will he be allowed to go as kind of Raileanu light version?
And what about the pure climbers? Abal, Garby, Kuss, Duarte, Atapuma? Time loss or even attacking today?
No less than 17 riders in the group. Last time the size was as big, the break actually did win and the profile might have potential to be a valuable break opportunity. Couple teams with more than one rider, in bold when the "leader" is not chasing. Van Poucke Rojus Brunel Hulgaard McCutcheon McNulty Eisenhart Mannion Stetina Vink Mahdar Lovik Medvedev Chhetri Costa Clarke Delgerbayar
Young, Stepniak and Haller working behind. The sprinters not really saving themselves here but as long as they still perform.
Two of them won a stage previously, Stepniak still waiting and at least struggled yesterday.
They kept the gap under 3min and often around 2min only. Not ideal for the break and here at the first Cat.3, where Clarke surprisingly takes it ahead of Lovik, the peloton is not far behind!
Mannion over the line in 3rd moving up this way. 3rd now provisionally.
Next Cat.3 and this time Mannion takes it ahead of Vink and Chhedri. Lots of gaps now in between the former break.
McCutcheon joins them making a group of 4 in front with another 5 only behind with Lovik, Mahdar, Clarke, Van Pucke and Brunel. All others caught by the peloton, which is 1'43 behind group 1.
Riders dropped from the peloton mainly include helpers such as Dulanjana and Bergstrom Frisk for Valio and Maillett/Haller for Kraftwerk.
12km to go and the triple climb at the end just starts. 60 rider peloton with 40s to group 2 and another 20s to group 1, riders unchanged.
Fablok at the front now chasing for Raileanu. Shapira, Venturini, Rhim, Bol and Plucinski all in the first rows. 2 riders each for Kraftwerk and Valio helping at times.
First climb done and the start of the 2nd climb has the first attack. Surprisingly not by the top guys yet. More from helpers getting the okay to go for stage glory?
another one in Denz. The German with a very impressive race so far as not only he is able to attack today, he also is one of the few riders always working, no matter if for Haller or Nerz. He is always chasing a lot and still sitting in a nice GC position himself not getting dropped easily.
Not sure if Kraftwerk/Valio wanted to see this but maybe they don`t care given the big time gap. Raileanu goes next together with another support rider with a free role today in Burke. Bookies not being too wrong here it seems.
For a short moment King attacked on weird terrain but he quickly got caught again.
Meanwhile the rest of the break is caught by those attackers and it will once again be a no break stage.
The first attacker Gebremedhin is also the first to be dropped by them.
Denz in the lead now with Raileanu and Burke behind him. All break riders not only caught by passed.
In the peloton it`s now Sauber chasing with Berard/Jiang. Not sure yet, why exactly but they might plan something.
Fraile is the first GC rider to struggle. He might lose his top5 today and with no flat TT left, he might struggle to keep on a very good top5-7 as the mountains soon will take over.
Ahead of him Geniez and Kiserlovski other riders to lose contact and so is Mannion and Chhetri as former break riders.
16 riders only left in the favourite group. Moschella, Garby, Duarte all struggling to hold on at the very end.
Nerz must have noticed that also Penasa is sitting in the late positions and goes into the lead accelerating and catching Gebremedhin actually.
Kuss right next to him and also Brandt doing strong.
Abal, Atapuma and the Sauber guys around Liphongyu in the middle of the pack.
1,7km and Raileanu attacks. They have 45s over the favourite group.
And some action behind as well. Nerz`s high pace led to a gap and only Kuss able to follow. This is a bit of a surprise and he must have a good day clearly.
Abal the first to react and also Liphongyu and Brandt a bit behind then.
Penasa under pressure but moving up as well now.
Atapuma, Garby, Duarte all a bit behind with Zielinski and Gebremedhin still in between.
Flamme Rouge reached and it doesn`t look like anyone can beat Raileanu today to grab a first stage win in this Tour of America.
And so it is. Nice win for Fablok and gaining a bit of time on direct rivals for the top5 standings. In especially as the upcoming big mountains might suit others more.
Denz 2nd and Burke 3rd with great individual performances today.
Behind more gaps open up.
Nerz/Kuss still a bit ahead while Penasa follows with a strong Liphongyu and Abal still strong on unwanted terrain but actually gaining on other climbers.
49s for Nerz and Kuss but he won`t care the loss against Raileanu.
More important that behind him a clear gap is still there and we might have the GC lead change here.
The final push by Penasa might have helped a bit but the time stops at 1'02! Even without bonus seconds this is enough to turn things around. It`s now Nerz in the GC lead, just 6s ahead of Penasa! It keeps being super close and thrilling but the team to be beaten now is Kraftwerk around Nerz.
Not to forget the strong ride by Liphongyu here coming in with Penasa.
Abal next but he won`t gain time anymore. He is 26s behind Penasa but caught on the line by Jiang? Well, that`s an impressive ride by him today and never could have been expected. Sauber very strong today.
Also Atapuma, Garby, Brandt and Gebremedhin in this group avoiding a bigger time loss.
Duarte and Moschella though couldn`t. They are in ~40s later just like Koren and Berard.
Fraile losing the most today in a group of "sprinters" King and Kvist even! Those were strong though as it`s just 3'58 in total, a bit behind Mannion/Kiserlovski/Geniez.
GC wise this means next to the lead change that Kuss and Raileanu for now complete the top5, both having a bigger gap now to the front and back.
Duarte in 6th ahead of Brandh while Garby and Atapuma follow as stronger climbers.
Fraile down to 10th just ahead of Liphongyu and the Kraftwerk/Valio/Desigual helpers, which dominate in the 12-20 area ahead of Moschella and Mannion.
