The stage will be decisive for the GC so the favourites are the GC riders. But essentially every winner who’s not Lecuisinier would be a surprise.
Bonello was the first to attack, trying to continue the streak of micro-nations riders in the break. But the counter-attacks were ultimately shut down. After some more attacks a group makes it to the first KoM sprint where Roson takes maximum points in front of Sequera and Leemreize. But Lidl doesn’t seem content with this group and is still chasing.
After reeling in Mundle who lost contact to the rest of the break in the climb it seems like Lidl is finally content with the group in front. The 10 escapees are
Leemreize and M. Van Dijke Schir and Sequera Christensen De Vos Dzhus Natarov Roson Stancu
At the first intermediate sprint De Vos takes the points in front of Dzhus and Leemreize. None of them had any points before the stage. The lead to the pack is only about 1’35 and was never much bigger anyway.
At the second KoM sprint Leemreize takes the 6 points and has now 8 in total. Dzhus gets his first 4 points for second place while De Vos takes third. Further back Carcueva tries to bridge to the break.
The Filipino doesn’t make it to the front. As a result of the KoM sprint Natarov was dropped from the break and didn’t make it back.
We just missed the second intermediate sprint, but De Vos took the 6 points again and now has 12 in total. Leemreize takes 2nd place (now 6 points) in front of Christensen. The gap to the peloton maxed at about 2 minutes.
But the break doesn’t work together very well and is already brought back with 49 km to go. It’s still mostly Lidl doing the work in the peloton.
But it finally is Blums to lead the peloton into the climb (Bukit Kondo; 15.2 km with 8 %). We’re heading towards the decisive part of the race.
There’s not much happening for the first 9 km but then it’s Yates to attack first out of the favourites.
The Brit gets a gap but it still seems well in control. The peloton consists still of 41 riders, but some bigger names are already dropped. The biggest names are Schelling, Cort Nielsen and Fouche
The next one on the move is Lecuisinier himself! He gets to Yates without any problems and takes most of the favourites with him but also heavily reduces the first group as well. Among those dropped are Min and Taaramäe and others are struggling too. Ardila and Cras lose contact a bit later.
Choi wins the HC KoM sprint and gets 20 points. Behind him are Barguil and Wellens, but only the French could match his points tally with a stage win.
The group doesn’t decent very fast and allows some dropped riders to come back and now consists of 26 riders, including some domestiques. So Rodriguez takes the 6 seconds in the last intermediate sprint in front of his captain Wellens and Yates.
The final climb (Mount Rinjani viewpoint; 8.9 %) to the finish begins with 3.5 km to go and the group of 26 still together.
The leading group is still together under the red kite but now it’s Lecuisinier in the lead.
And as the Frenchman accelerates no one else is able to follow.
Lecuisinier takes the expected win!
Behind him Barguil finishes in 2nd with Yates in 3rd. Wellens gets 4th place in front of Bennett and Choi. Novak, Warchol and Tenorio finish in 7th to 9th place.
Figueiredo edges out Ranaweera for the final Top 10 spot. Karnulin, Monsalve, Beltran and Pomoshnikov complete the Top 15.
Congratulations to Lecuisinier for the stage win and of course also the GC lead!
Winning the HC KoM sprint is enough for Choi to take the polka dots jersey.
Bonifazio stays in green.
Primozic takes over the lead in the U25 classification.
[PTHC] Tour of East Java 
