Howes wins Colorado Classic stage 2 in Breckenridge

Image 1 of 29

Alex Howes (Cannondale-Drapac) timed his move perfectly Friday during stage 2 at the Colorado Classic, bridging to all-day breakaway rider TJ Eisenhart on the final climb and then out-sprinting the Holowesko-Citadel rider to take the stage victory in Breckenridge.

Trek-Segafredo's Peter Stetina bridged to Eisenhart with Howes and attacked relentlessly to avoid a sprint against his friend and nemesis Howes, but his efforts came to nought and unable to dislodge the quicker sprinters, he took no risks on the descent and finished third.

"I really wanted to win here today, because I knew whoever takes the win here has a great shot at winning the overall," Howes said, adding that this race has been on his list of targets since it was announced.

As a Colorado native, Howes noted the lack of a time trial, his personal weakness, and set his sights on the overall classification. But, he said, "you always have a plan, but they usually don't work out. So when they do, it's pretty special".

His last win came in Denver in 2014 at the USA Pro Challenge, where he out-sprinted his friend and rival Kiel Reijnen. In Breckenridge, it was Stetina, another close friend, who caused him the most pain.

"When Pete went I couldn't tell how many laps it was to go (3 - ed.). His Trek team was doing a turn and burn and Pete launched and I was thinking, 'what the hell are you doing? We have a long ways to go'. I knew I couldn't give him any space. So I hung on for dear life, and I did that every time going up - he put the hurt on pretty hard.

"I probably hit a higher heart rate than I have all year," Howes said. But, he said to himself, "there's no way you're dropping me. I'll throw up and have a heart attack before that happens."

Fortunately that didn't happen, and Howes made it through Stetina's last ditch attack on the final climb, and waited as Eisenhart predictably attacked on the descent. However, because of the sprint bonuses, Howes missed out on the race lead by a single second, with Stetina third at 11 seconds. The next best rider, Manuel Senni (BMC) is over 30 seconds back and likely out of contention for the GC which should be decided on intermediate and final sprint bonuses.

"It's a good thing I can sprint," Howes said menacingly. "I think TJ knows he can't rest on a one second advantage. It'll be aggressive but it's a four day race and we came to race for four days."

Eisenhart was thrilled to be in the race leader's jersey, though he would have rather come away with the stage victory. "This was the only day the team brought me for," adding that the team's usual GC man Robin Carpenter was out with injury.

"With the win from John Murphy yesterday, the team was on a good high. Going into today I knew I wanted to do something special. I tried and tried in Utah, and it wasn't meant to be. This wasn't the plan at all," he said of taking the race lead.

"I'm one second ahead of Alex and Cannondale's going to go berserk. I'm not too concerned about it. Maybe I'll worry about it tomorrow, but I'm just stoked to be here right now."

How it unfolded

The rain held off for most of the second stage of the Colorado Classic, with only a few sprinkles falling on the second and seventh laps. It was a welcome contrast from the deluge that punished the riders on the first stage in Colorado Springs. With only 103km on the menu, the attackers took no time to put in their digs, with Matteo Moschetti (Trek-Segafredo), Daniel Eaton (UnitedHealthcare), TJ Eisenhart (Holowesko-Citadel) and Logan Owen (Axeon Hagens Berman) opening up a gap before the first turn.

Moschetti dropped off the pace as the course turned uphill, and by the top Owen had been distanced, too, helping the breakaway’s chances as the Axeon rider was sitting third overall.

Nigel Ellsay (Silber) chased after the breakaway but was being followed by a larger group, which picked him up by the end of the first lap, making it 13 chasers, including Manuel Senni (BMC Racing), Julien Bernard and Kiel Reijnen (Trek-Segafredo), William Clarke (Cannondale-Drapac), Vegard Stake Laengen (UAE Team Emirates), Miguel Ángel Benito (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Luis Lemus (Israel Cycling Academy), Travis McCabe (UnitedHealthcare), Alexander Cowan and Ellsay (Silber ), Serghei Tvetcov and Taylor Shelden (Jelly Belly-Maxxis) and Didier Munyaneza (Team Rwanda Cycling).

Jhonatan Narvaez (Axeon Hagens Berman) attacked from the field on the second lap and bravely fought his way up to the first chasing group over the course of the next two laps.

The two leaders, Eaton and Eisenhart, persisted, holding a two minute lead over the chase of 14 and the peloton, which included race leader John Murphy (Holowesko-Citadel), best young rider Owen, and mountains leader Antonio Molina (Caja Rural).

On lap six, Eaton lost contact on the trip up the Moonstone Road climb and Eisenhart pushed on without him, coming in to the four laps to go sprint alone with 1:55 on the chasers and 3:30 on the bunch, which was being led by Rally Cycling.

Travis McCabe (UnitedHealthcare) made his intentions for the points classification known by taking third in the first sprint behind the two escapees, then second after Eaton was dropped, while Eisenhart won both of the category 3 ascents to overtake Molina for the red mountains jersey.

The seventh lap proved to be the breaking point for both ends of the peloton on Moonstone Road: In the first chase, Tvetcov and Senni attacked the chasing group and set off in pursuit of the solo Eisenhart, and the rest of the group gave little resistance to letting them go. They were soon joining the shattered peloton behind, as numerous riders fought to make the cut, which was ‘not lapped at the end of eight laps’.

Twenty riders hammered off in pursuit of the leaders coming into two laps to go. Up ahead, Eisenhart still led, and Tvetcov had been joined by Senni, while Rally’s Sepp Kuss and Pete Stetina (Trek-Segafredo) and Alex Howes (Cannondale-Drapac) were just a handful of seconds behind them.

The chasers came together, united in their task of chasing down Eisenhart on the penultimate climb, just a minute behind, while a larger chase led by BMC was disorganized but only 30 further seconds back. Hugh Carthy, Brent Bookwalter and McCabe attacked the second chasing group, and Uran quickly bridged across with a Caja Rural rider, while Tvetcov, Senni, Kuss, Stetina (Trek-Segafredo) and Alex Howes (Cannondale-Drapac) congealed into the first chase group.

Eisenhart, turquoise necklace matching his sunglasses, took the bell for the last lap with a 30-second gap with the chasers in hot pursuit.

In the chase behind, Stetina and Howes attacked the first chase and quickly had Eisenhart in sight at the bottom of the final trip up Moonstone. The duo caught Eisenhart at the top of the climb to form a new lead trio on the road. Stetina attacked the leaders multiple times on the false flat before the descent, but he was unable to shake Howes and Eisenhart.

"I'm not a sprinter, and I just know with a short punchy climb like this, it favors a guy like Alex. I had to make it more of an attrition race," Stetina said of his repeated attacks. "I had to hit them as early and often as possible. I threw everything at them and I couldn't quite shake them. He had enough of a sprint in his legs. I decided to give everything I had over the top because I'm not going to win a downhill sprint like this. That's racing.

"I did my homework for this race. I really wanted to take the win today and give it to my team for their confidence in selecting me for the Vuelta. But I was just lacking the super big mountain in this race."

Eisenhart attacked at the top of the descent, distancing Stetina as Howes trailed closely in pursuit. The lead duo screamed down the descent, swapping turns on the front as they continued to distance Stetina.

Howes led into the finishing straight, looking over his shoulder at Eisenhart. In the end, Howes easily won the sprint, with Eisenhart second and Stetina third.

Full Results