February 24/06 10:21 am - Tour of California: Stage 5 Report, Results & Photos

Posted by Editoress on 02/24/06
 

Tour of California

Reports made possible by the support of MAXXIS tires

Photos

George Hincapie (Discovery) has joined JJ Haedo (Toyota-United) as a double stage winner, and took the Sprinters Jersey back from the Argentine rider in Stage 5. Overall, Floyd Landis (Phonak) retains his lead, however, Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner) took over the lead in the Climber's competition from Austrian Bernhard Kohl (T Mobile).

The 169.4 kilometre stage took the riders south and east from San Luis Obispo through rolling wine and horse country, with one major climb shortly before the finish - a Category 1 ascent over San Marcos Pass.

Once again, the attacks began early, with the first break away 7 kilometres after the end of the neutral section. This group of 6 was brought back after six kilometres, but another launched at the 20 kilometre mark, containing 16 riders. They were caught almost immediately, but a counter attack saw 10 go clear - Lars Bak (CSC), Rene Haselbacher (Gerolsteiner), Michael Barry (Discovery), Michael Rogers (T Mobile), Ben Brooks (Navigators), Mike Jones (Health Net/Maxxis), Justin England (Toyota-United), Kyle Wamsley (Colavita), Dominique Perras (Kodakgallery.com-Sierra Nevada) and Caleb Manion (Jelly Belly).

By the 30 kilometre point the gap to this group was up to 55 seconds, and ten kilometres later they were maintaining it, despite an average speed of 50 kilometre an hour. Shortly afterwards the group started to disintegrate as riders began launching attacks off the front, and all but Bak and Haselbacher were back in the peloton by the 50 kilometre point. The lead two managed to stay away for another 10 kilometres (and were joined briefly by Mark McCormack (Colavita) ), but after 65 kilometres of racing the field was 'en groupe'.

This wasn't to last, with four riders breaking away five kilometres later. This group had some serious horsepower: Viatcheslav Ekimov (Discovery) and Jens Voigt (CSC), who were joined by Sebastian Lang (Credit Agricole) and Nick Reistad (Jelly Belly). This group quickly went a minute and a half clear, then to 2:40 by the feed zone (80 kilometres). They yo-yoed between 2:45 and 3:15 over the next 40 kilometres until the gap finally began to drop at the 125 kilometre mark.

It went down quickly and, by the start of the KoM, it was down to 90 seconds. Reistad was dropped early on the climb, and the fate of the leaders was sealed when Leipheimer attacked with Ricardo Ricco (Prodir Duval). Phonak couldn't allow that, and upped the pace. Leipheimer and Ricco quickly bridged up to Ekimov, Voigt and Lang, and then dropped them to go over the top together. Hincapie made a brief attack just to test Landis, who was isolated in the group, but Landis shut that down immediately. Leipheimer took maximum points and the lead in the Climbers competition. A chase group containing all the top contenders crested the climb 22 seconds behind, and made contact on the descent.

Landis wasn't worried. "Any climb at the end of a race is difficult, but this one wasn't as hard as the one at the end of stage 2 (Sierra Road). Our plan was that if one or two guys went away (on the climb) then we would let them go and I would stay with the team for support. If it was a bigger group, then we knew we would have to chase. We knew one or two riders couldn't stay away, and we could see them up the road, so I wasn't too worried. The long section at the end made it almost impossible for one rider to stay away."

Hincapie was in good shape, with six teammates in the front group of 36 riders - Barry, Ekimov, Tom Danielson, Janez Brajkovic, Jason McCartney and Paolo Savoldelli. The team kept the pace up and roared into Santa Barbara at 65 kilometres an hour. Barry and Savoldelli took Hincapie to the final 300 metres, and then Big George went to the front and closed the door. Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner) and Chris Horner (Davitamon-Lotto) took the other two podium spots.

"The team did a great job" said Hincapie. "Paolo and Michael we saved for the last kilometre and they took me up to the final 300 metres. It was pretty far with the wind, but I was able to hold on. It was a long sprint, and the last 150 metres I was counting every metre.

I certainly didn't expect to have two wins this early in the season, but the wins last season (Tour, etc.) have given me increased confidence, and it's starting to show now. In situations like this, if I can make it over the climb, I know I'm in good shape for the win."

Race Notes

- Today the organizers reported the highest number of spectators for a point to point stage, with 100,000 on the road. It was certainly busy through the various small towns the race went through, and on the San Marcos Pass climb.

- Tomorrow is the last chance for anyone to realistically challenge Landis, since the final stage is a circuit race around Redondo Beach. The riders face 143.7 kilometres, heading east from Santa Barbara before dropping south down to Thousand Oaks,on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Thousand Oaks is the headquarters of the race title sponsor Amgen and, as you might expect, the stage will finish at Amgen.