June 18/06 5:24 am - Tour de Beauce: Stage 6 Report & Results

Posted by Editoress on 06/18/06
 

Andrew Pinfold (Symmetrics) scored what he terms "the biggest win of my career" in the final stage of the Tour de Beauce on Sunday when he outsprinted breakaway companion Will Frischkorn (TIAA-CREF) after 132 kilometres of racing. Valeriy Kobzarenko (Navigators) easily hung onto the Yellow Jersey after finishing with the main peloton 58 seconds behind Pinfold.

In the final stage riders faced 12 laps of an 11 kilometre circuit through the host town of St Georges. In addition to a steep 2.8 kilometre climb each lap, riders had to contend with 30 degree (Celcius) temperatures and humidity which pushed the Humidex reading to 38 degrees. That didn't stop a group of four from immediately attacking, led by Canadian road champion Francois Parisien and his TIAA-CREF team mate Ian Macgregor. Also in the break were Jacob Erker (Symmetrics) and Timo Honstein (Sparkasse).

Chase groups formed over the next few laps as the break dangled two minutes in front of the Navigators controlled peloton, and by the fifth lap there were eight riders at the front: Parisien, Honstein, Erker, Cameron Jennings (DFL-Cyclingnews-Litespeed), Pinfold, Bruno Langlois (Team Canada), Rodolfo Lopez (Tecos Trek)and Jairo Salas Atehortua (Colombia Es Pasion). Jennings was the highest on GC, and he was over ten minutes back, so Navigators was content to let it go.

"As the break was getting established, it seemed like a good opportunity to have me up there" explained Pinfold. "Svein (Tuft) took me up to one of the chase groups, and we were able to make contact with the front group. Jacob rode like a selfless hero, so I got to sit on; until the last couple of laps I had a free ride."

At the front Erker and Parisien were doing most of the work, and the gap had stablized at around two and a half minutes, which is where it stayed until the leaders began to flag on the ninth lap and the gap dropped to just over a minute, making it look like the break's days were numbered. A pair of TIAA-CREF riders - Frischkorn and Bryan Smith - attacked the peloton at this point and quickly bridged up, bringing some fresh legs to the group and revitalizing it.

A lap later, with less than 20 kilometres remaining, the gap was still hovering at just over a minute, and Pinfold decided it was time to go. "I knew I wasn't going to win a bunch sprint - I saw that yesterday (when he finished fourth), so I attacked and Will was the only one able to go with me."

The pair quickly opened up a minute on the remnants of the break (Parisien and Erker dropped off, their work done), and two minutes on the peloton by the start of the last lap, ensuring that the race was now down to the two of them. Watchers kept waiting for the attacks to happen on the last climb, or through the twists and turns along the upper half of the course, but the duo rode side by side on the climb, and stayed together until the final sprint.

"I had the legs today, I think I could have attacked on the hill. I did a couple of accelerations and knew that I had him" said Pinfold "but we said let's just work together until the end, and go 'mano a mano'. So we just lined up 200 metres from the finish and I went as hard as I could."

Race Notes

- Mark Walters' (Navigators) bad luck Tour continued (after his incident with a car the day before), with a crash early in the race while he was at the front setting tempo. "I managed to catch a pedal - and with a Speedplay pedal that means you have to be way over - and it was enough to lift the back wheel and I slid out. I got back up, but just didn't have it in my legs to stay in the race."

- Kobzarenko was full of smiles and hugs after his win. "I am just so very happy that the team trusted me and worked so hard for me. The last two years (on Aqua Sapone) I was always working for someone else, so this is a special win for me."

Kobzarenko called Beauce "a really good race, really, really hard. It is not so much because of the hills, but that it is so technically difficult - always up and down, very windy, rough roads."

- This year, for the first time in memory, it did not rain once during racing. Interestingly, it is also the first time in memory that well-known Quebec cycling journalist Pierre Hamel did not attend ... is this maybe NOT a coincidence??? Everyone missed you Pierre.

- Andrew Pinfold was ecstatic crossing the finish line, calling his win "the biggest and best of my career. I was in the car (after a crash) following Svein when he won on a breakaway in 2001. It was the most motivating ride I've seen, and I was thinking about that today. I told some of the French journalists 'I could die now that I have won a stage at Beauce'. "