Bike World News

Bike World News headquarters got waylaid by the remnants of Hurricane Ike yesterday afternoon, so there was no power, cable or phone. As a result, no race results.

Here’s the summary for Stage 14 (courtesy of CyclingNews.com): Spaniard Alberto Contador of Team Astana put a golden mark on this Vuelta a España with a counter-attack of Ezequiel Mosquera’s strong effort to arrive solo and win stage 14 atop the Puerto de San Isidro. He added further time into his overall classification lead with both Carlos Sastre and Alejandro Valverde dropped in the final four kilometres.

Contador’s teammate, Levi Leipheimer, jumped Mosquera to arrive second for the stage and solidify his second overall in the classification, at 1:17 back. Spaniards Sastre and Mosquera sit in third and fourth at 3:34 and 4:35, respectively.

Stage 15:

Today is the last mountain stage of the race. It travels 202km from Cudillero to Ponferreda and has three categorized climbs: the Puerto de Somiedo (cat 1) at km 80, then the Alto de la Mina (cat 2) at km 140.5 and a final cat 3 climb, the Alto de Orcero 40 kilometres before the finish.

Everyone was well behaved today until the approach to Puerto de Somiedo, when the first major breakaway of the day formed, encompassing 17 riders: Matti Breschel (CSC), José Luis Arrieta (AG2R), Olivier Bonnaire (Bouygues), David Arroyo and Xabier Zandio (Caisse d’Epargne), Sébastien Minard and Nick Nuyens (Cofidis), Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel), Philippe Gilbert (Francaise des Jeux), Paolo Tiralongo (Lampre), Heinrich Haussler (Gerolsteiner), Alessandro Vanotti (Liquigas), Juan Manuel Garate (Quick Step), Theo Eltink (Rabobank), David Garcia Dapena (Xacobeo-Galicia), Pieter Jacobs (Silence), Mikhail Ignatiev (Tinkoff).

As they crested over the Puerto de Somiedo, Garate took all the KOM points, followed by Minard, Arrieta, Tiralongo, Breschel, Garcia Dapena, Haussler, Ignatiev and Gilbert in that order.

By km 102, the escape group enjoyed a lead of 10 minutes.  

As the breakaway approached the base of Alto de la Mina, the advantage was over 11 minutes. David Arroyo must have thought that the pace was a little too casual, as he escaped the breakaway and pulled out to a 30 second advantage. Haussler and Eltink gave chase soon after, but Arroyo was still able to pull out to a 1′18 gap over them.  

On the descent, the break group all came back together, but Haussler and Eltink appeared to be worse for wear from chasing Arroyo. José Luis Arrieta (AG2R) is the next to make a move and he is able to create a gap of 40 seconds climbing the Alto de Ocero but gets caught with a little over 20 km to go. 

Theo Eltink (Rabobank) was caught somewhere in no man’s land, but the breakaway still enjoyed a 16′40 lead over the peloton. 

With about 12km to go and one final intense, but uncategorized, climb remaining, Juan Manuel Garate (Quick Step makes a move, only to be reeled back in on the 13 percent grade. Nuyens, Garate and Breschel sat at the front of the break group, but attacks on the climb were being quickly addressed.

Once the break had made it over the final obstacle, David Garcia Dapena (Xacobeo-Galicia) took off on the descent with Arroyo, Nuyens and Breschel. It’s just 10 km to the finish at this point and the gloves were definitely off. Astarloza and Tiralongo were chasing. 

Attacks were coming and going like crazy and the lead seemed to change by the minute. Tiralongo, Astarloza, Arroyo, Nuyens, Garcia Dapena and Garate were all going for it at this point. At the 3km mark, Darpena attacked with what looked like the race winning move. Nuyens, Arroyo and Garate were left looking at each other and trying to decide if they wanted to chase. Before they were able to get their act together, Darpena was long gone and it was down to a race for second place.

Dapena takes the stage, with Nuyens in second, Garate third, Tiralongo fourth and Astarloza fifth.

Bold move by this big group today. None of these guys were within striking distance of the overall, so expect very little change at the top of the general classification.