Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) won the second of three successive summit finishes in the Vuelta a Espana. In so doing he regained the leader’s red jersey from Jesus Herrada (Cofidis) who was dropped long before the final climb and lost nine minutes.
The 171km mountain stage from Cistierna to Les Praeres featured a steep uncategorised climb early on and former race leader Michal Kwiatkowski (Sky) – now five minutes back in the general classification – made use of it to surge clear.
He was joined in the day’s break by five other riders, including Michael Woods, Nicolas Roche and Thomas de Gendt.
Their advantage topped out at about four minutes before a strong turn by Vincenzo Nibali, working for Bahrain-Merida team-mate Ion Izagirre, brought it down. Kwiatkowski was the last man caught near the foot of the 4km 12.5% final climb.
It was a nasty finish which would have been steep enough even if the road surface hadn’t been a combination of concrete and gravel.
Various overall contenders tried their luck on the slope, including Nairo Quintana and Steven Kruijswijk, but Yates’ attack inside the final kilometre proved the most meaningful.
“I chose my moment really well there in the final,” he said. “I didn’t look back until it flattened off a little bit. I had a bit of a gap so just gave it everything to the line.”
Yates finished two seconds ahead of Miguel Angel Lopez and Alejandro Valverde and leads the latter by 20s overall with the Spaniard’s Movistar team-mate Quintana five seconds further back in third.
Or pedestrians. Chris Froome killed a man earlier in his career when he crashed into the man as he crossed the road, when Chris was riding back...
Schrödinger's Epiphany: he gets it without getting it....
Apart from the fact that there was no opposing traffic in the Street View image in the article, it's right that nothing implicitly prevents...
"Taxi DRIVERS doing what they want where they want when they want: unusual..." Unless the vehicles were self-driving/autonomous... http://rc-rg.com
Whilst your own sneer-klaxon is still in full working order I see. Have you automated it or do you really really enjoy the anticipation of...
I have a Nightrider and it's all reflective from the hips down at the back. Yes the Phantom is black from below the shoulder blades but the arms...
Calls for Oxfordshire transport chief to resign blocked...
That one was completely different though, it was a driver not a car as in the other 3. So 1 in 4 of the stories manage to follow reporting guidelines.
Absolutely they could have. Tarmac is a petroleum-based product and its surface can be very oily when it's newly laid. This is particularly the...
I'm glad the article went into more detail and cleared things up, the headline had me worried that some autonomous building had run rampant and...