"Hopefully today's the day," was what Neilson Powless said at the start of stage 14 of the Tour de France on Saturday morning.
The EF Education-EasyPost man told Cyclingnews in Saint-Étienne that he was seeking another day in the breakaway after his outings at two of the most famous cycling sites in France – the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix and the Alpe d'Huez.
"I think over the whole Tour, this is probably the best profile for me and where it falls in the race," he said of the stage to Mende. "The first battle is going to be getting into the breakaway and if I'm there I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to have a really strong finish."
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The American, who finished fourth on stages 5 and 12, did get back out front on the road to Mende, too, along with two EF-EasyPost teammates in Rigoberto Urán and Alberto Bettiol.
The team, however, didn't score their second win of the race, with Bettiol having to settle for second behind Michael Matthews after a dramatic finish at the Montée Laurent Jalabert – as the short, steep Côte de la Croix Neuve is nicknamed.
"We were close," Powless reflected as he rode to his team bus four-and-a-half hours after setting off from Saint-Etienne.
"I think originally Bettiol didn't think he was feeling so good, so he was doing a bit more work early on. Once he realised how good his legs were then we had to shift focus to him. But yeah, he's such a selfless teammate that he was really helping Rigo and I out for a lot of the day and then it turns out he had the best legs out of anyone.
"I'm really gutted that he couldn't get the win, but I'm glad I was able to do something – it wasn't too much but a few kilometres of chasing to try close the gap at the bottom of the climb. At least it felt like I contributed a little bit."
The break of the day, which eventually contained 23 men, wouldn't settle until 40km of hard racing from the start, part of which saw second-placed Tadej Pogačar take the battle to Jonas Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma on the first climb of the day at over 180km from the finish.
It was a long and tough battle to get out in front, and even if the group were eventually let 14 minutes up the road, it's likely a fight Powless and other breakaway hopefuls will want to avoid for the remainder of the Tour. He and EF-EasyPost will be trying again, of course.
"I don't think many guys were anticipating that," Powless said. "But yeah, it made for a pretty exciting day of racing and never a dull day in the Tour.
"I hope so," he said when asked about future chances to break away. "We gave it a good try today but yeah, hopefully we have more opportunities coming up.
"I lost out on the GC earlier in the week, so it's allowed me some freedom from here on. I'd like to try again when we get to the Pyrenees. I think Jumbo-Visma will be letting breaks go so it's just opportunities up for grabs.
"By then, I'm hoping that Rigo will be firing on all cylinders again and he'll be the man there. But nevertheless, I'll be trying for the breakaway there as well."
Powless now lies third overall in the mountain classification, having taken 35 points on Alpe d'Huez. He grabbed another two on Saturday, while KOM leader Simon Geschke took three to bring his total to 43 points.
Having flirted with the yellow jersey earlier in the race (Powless was at one point just four seconds away as a result of his first-week breakaway), will he now be aiming for the polka dots in addition to more breakaway opportunities?
"I think there's a lot of guys that are within five points of each other," he said. "So yeah, it would be hard to set that as a goal right now because so many guys are going after it, most likely.
"It was such a privilege in such an awesome opportunity to be racing in the top 10 of the Tour de France and so close to the yellow jersey," he noted earlier in the day. "That was just giving me so much drive.
"But all good things come to an end at some point, so it inevitably ended when we hit the real high mountains but yeah that's just the way it goes sometimes and maybe in another year I'll be back fighting again, but this year it's just stages for me."
