With about 68 kilometers of categorized climbing (maxing at 18%!) in a 174 kilometer stage, I imagine that yesterday’s rest day was a distant memory when the peloton woke up this morning and looked at the route.
Standing near the summit of the 14k long Aprica climb, Andrea and I had no updates about the race so we entertained ourselves by making blind guesses about who would be in the break and what the gap would be. She predicted Ryder Hesjedal would be among those in the break and I guessed they’d have about 6 minutes. When the head-of-the-race car came by shortly after with an update for the crowd, we were tickled to learn that Hesjedal was among the 8 or so riders in the break with a 1:55 advantage. We eagerly waited for the break to round the corner and discovered that in the few minutes since the update, the Canadian had attacked the group and was now riding solo!
A strong chase group didn’t want to let Hesjedal get too far up the road.
Thus far in the Giro, Aru’s Astana has typically been at the front, chasing down breaks and protecting their leader, while Tinkoff has looked weaker and less organized as a team, though Contador has ridden strongly. Today, though, the neon yellow kits lead the chase up Aprica, on the first of two laps featuring the climb.
Aru was tucked in further back and with just a few teammates, rather than his usual full squad.
Our side of the climb was populated but not crowded. The other side of the street was, well, less populated.
The broom wagon shadowed Lampre’s Gang Xu. The Chinese rider would abandon the race before the stage’s end.
Most of the spectators cleared out after the first lap while we took the opportunity to properly hang up a couple of Canadians flags in case Hesjedal was still clear of his rivals on the second and final lap. We pieced together information overheard from the Italians behind us that Astana’s Mikel Landa, winner of stage 15, had gone clear and that Kruijswijk and Contador were together while Aru lagged behind. What we didn’t know was that when Contador had suffered a mechanical, Astana had attacked the maglia rosa, a very surprising move in a sport that prides itself on its sense of sportsmanship. Given that Contador literally rode up a mountain with a broken leg at the 2014 Tour de France, it suddenly seems obvious that of course Contador would be able to chase back to the leaders, which is precisely what he did.
When the motorcycles and helicopter approached for the final time, Landa was still solo and on his way to back-to-back stage wins.
Thirty eight seconds later, Kruijswijk gritted his teeth and crossed the finish line with a relaxed looking Contador.
Just over 2 minutes later, Andrey Amador and Yuri Trofimov finished. The Costa Rican slipped one spot in GC to 4th while the Russian climbed a spot to 5th.
Just behind the pair was Hesjedal, riding alone as he had for much of the afternoon. You can usually find Hesjedal riding towards the back of the bunch, just where he likes it, but as a result of his aggressive riding in the break aways over the last 2 weeks, he jumped from 13th to 10th on GC.
A struggling Aru, the man tipped to be Contador’s main rival for pink, not only finished the stage nearly 3 minutes down, he dropped on GC from 2nd to 3rd after his own teammate took the stage and moved up another place.
Leo Konig, the new Sky leader after Porte abandoned after a disastrous stage 15, led in a small group of riders. The Czech rider remains in the top 10.
Every couple of minutes, another handful of riders would round the corner and climb for a few hundred meters more towards the finish line.
The course soon hosted two-way traffic as riders staying in Aprica made the short descent to their hotels.
Another group rolled in.
Astana and Cannondale Garmin shepherded about 40 riders in over half an hour after Landa claimed victory.
Chad Haga, tossing a water bottle.
Sprinter Elia Viviani finished with Alan Marongoni and Alexander Porsev, maintaing the red jersey by 5 points over fellow Italian Giacomo Nizzolo. Benat Intxausti, however, finally handed over the KOM jersey after Kruijswijk’s continuous work in break after break earned the Dutch rider a 1 point lead over the Basque climber.
On Wednesday, the riders are treated to the shortest stage (excluding the TTT and TT) of the Giro’s 98th edition. As it’s relatively flat, the few surviving sprinters will be keen to grab the stage and justify suffering on today’s stage.