2015 Volta a Catalunya stage 3

No matter what the race, one of my goals is always to talk with all of the riders from Cannondale-Garmin (I might even stop referring to the team as Garmindale one of these days). I hit the jackpot today and shared a word or two (or more) with all eight members of the argyle armada. Below: Andre Cardoso.

With the sign on competed, 187 riders gathered in the start corral.

Carlos Betancour still hasn't quite hit his racing weight.

The peloton headed out for the neutral start.

Larry Warbasse, Janier Acevedo, and Danish national champion Michael Valgren.

Nick Roche.

Rigoberto Uran.

While the finish wasn't for another four or so hours, the peloton would in fact swing through town again after completing 95 of 156 kilometers. This gave me time to catch the last 20 minutes of my Spanish class, grab a sandwich, and walk the 400 meters from my apartment to the finish line where I got caught up talking with a friend I'd bumped into. As is always the case (at least that's how it feels to me when I'm at a race!), the break was upon us in no time. Tom Danielson led Rudy Molard and Leonardo Duque, though the trio of escapees didn't last too much longer.

Tinkoff and Movistar led the chasing peloton.

A well positioned Andrew Talansky looked good in the bunch.

There was a split in the peloton and the biggest group followed behind.

One final cluster of riders stuck together as best they could.

With some time on my hands, I headed to the buses to say hi to Biso, the bus driver for Garmindale. He was as kind as always and invited me into the bus to watch the race on TV!

As comfy as the bus and Biso's hospitality are, nothing can keep me from nabbing a good spot on the finish line so I joined up with a friend once more and we found a good view about five meters last the finish. My Spanish and Catalan both got a good workout as I followed the race commentary. The soigneurs, meanwhile, got to stand in the middle of the road and watch the race on a big screen that was unfortunately obscured to us.

With 15k to go, GC favorites like Froome, Contador, Talansky, Aru, Uran and others had gained 40 seconds on the peloton. Next thing I heard, Dan Martin had bridged across to this elite group. Contador set a high tempo and Froome got dropped. The group separated and merged over the next few kilometers until Domenico Pozzovivo attacked with 1.5k remaining. The Italian hung on and soloed to victory.

Three seconds later, Uran and Martin fought it out for second place. The Colombian threw his bike over the line and marginally bested the Irishman. The upside is that Martin's ride finally netted Garmindale their first World Tour points of the 2015 season, the last World Tour team to do so. The downside is that Martin probably feels even more disappointed than I do about him finishing third in the stage. Ooph, poor guy.

Fabio Aru finished fifth, one position behind Contador.

Winning the first stage on Monday after riding in the break all day and after finishing in the winning group the afternoon before in a soggy Milano-Sanremo, Maciej Paterski, who has had an impressive few days to say the least, suffered on the some of the climbs today and ultimately lost the leader's jersey to Pierre Rolland by 1:08. Below: Paterski in white.

Enrico Gasparotto craned his neck to see on the clock he had finished 1:34 down.

Pozzovivo is not on my generous list of favorite riders, so we skipped the podium ceremony and headed to the buses. Below: Martin and Talansky cooled down on the trainers.

Richie Porte.

I ran into a few people from my triathlon club wandering around the buses but I lost it laughing when I spotted the only two teenagers in our club with some of their friends dashing like mad from one team to the next trying to score water bottles!

A dozen moments had made my day long before the race ended but the icing on the cake was undeniable. We were casually walking away from the Volta as the finish line was already being dismantled when I turned around, hearing footsteps running towards us. A man out of breath asked, “Hablas español?” He introduced himself as a photographer and said he recognized me from the rain soaked mountain finish in Andorra in the 2013 Vuelta a España and from the 2014 Tour de France, explaining he had a couple of photographs with me in them and that he'd like to give them to me. We walked a couple of blocks back to his car where he proceeded to pull out a photo of me talking with Sebastian Langeveld (I clearly remember this conversation, too!) and one with me just behind Cyril Gautier from the Carcassone start at last year's Tour. It's incredible to think this Barcelona based photographer remembered me after all this time and then spotted me in the crowd not once but twice today (he saw me during sign on but didn't have a chance to talk to me, he explained). Even more incredible is the thoughtfulness and generosity I've continually experienced from everyone involved in the cycling community. Absolutely incredible. Thank you, Enrique.

Today's 45 autographs came from: 17 Mick Rogers, 21 Tejay Van Garderen, 22 Sammy Sanchez, 23 Pete Stetina, 24 Darwin Atapuma, 26 Amaël Moinard, 36 Jose Herrada, 38 Winner Anacona, 44 Richie Porte, 51 Dan Martin, 52 Ryder Hesjedal, 53 Janier Acevado, 54 Andre Cardoso, 55 Tom Danielson, 56 Joe Dombrowski, 57 Alex Howes, 58 Andrew Talansky, 61 Roman Bardet, 75 Dario Cataldo, 86 Gianluca Brambilla, 93 Alexandre Geniez, 97 Kevin Reza, 98 Lorenzo Manzin, 106 Simon Pellaud, 107 Larry Warbasse, 122 Bart De Clercq, 134 Esteban Chaves, 137 Cameron Meyer, 141 Luca Mezgec, 142 Warren Barguil, 143 Johannes Fröhlinger, 144 Lawson Craddock, 162 Fumiyuki Beppu, 171 David Arroyo, 174 Amets Txurruka, 192 Adrian Honkisz, 193 Maciej Paterski, 201 Daniel Navarro, 202 Luis Angel Mate, 204 Romain Hardy, 206 Julien Simon, 214 Leonardo Duque, 221 Pierre Rolland, 227 Cyril Gautier, and 238 Danilo Napolitano.

Yup. I love Girona, alright.