The Tour Down Under had looked to be all falling into place for Rohan Dennis (Jumbo-Visma) on stage 2 when he stepped into the ochre leaders jersey, but on the run toward the tough climb of Corkscrew Road on stage 3, his pursuit of a second overall victory at the Australian WorldTour race unravelled suddenly.
He was forced to make a bike change and that meant chasing back through the second last climb of the day, Checkers, so he could rejoin ahead of the Corkscrew – always slated as a game changer.
“The gears just stopped working. I was stuck in one gear and I thought that’s probably not smart for the last 40km,” Dennis told Cyclingnews just past the finish line.
While the 2015 winner had made it back to the field before the crucial final climb of Friday's race, the effort had clearly taken its toll.
He struggled to work his way through to the very front of the lead group at a point of the race where the road had turned up and climbing rivals like Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) and Simon Yates (Jayco AlUla) would inevitably pounce.
“I just had nothing,” Dennis said.
“I used my one bullet coming back from the bike change just before Checkers and they hit over that and it just killed me so I tried to stay calm and just recover in the bunch a little bit.
"In the end I said to Milan [Vader]: 'Look you go, you look after yourself and whatever happens to me happens to me and if my legs are good I’ll be there,' but in the end the legs said no and that’s just cycling.”
Dennis could only watch the ochre jersey and the podium spot he’d been targeting before the race as well slip away. He crossed the line in 47th place on the stage, losing 1:24 to the stage 3 winner Pello Bilbao on the line in Campbelltown.
He slipped to 33rd place on the overall, 1:25 back from new race leader Vine.
“The head wanted to go but the legs just said nup, we’re done. So it is what it is,” said Dennis with a shrug.
"I lost the jersey and it's a shame because the guys did everything possible today to really set me up but unfortunately I couldn’t finish it off for them.”
So what now for Dennis and Jumbo-Visma at the race? There are a 133.2km sprinters stage to Willunga township on Saturday and the 112.5km Mount Lofty finale on Sunday.
“Regroup,” said Dennis.
“Obviously GC is probably over for us. We still have two stages. We go for stages I guess.
"Tomorrow is going to be a sprint so maybe we try and help out Tim [Van Dijke] and Timo [Roosen] and if they wanted to have a cruisy day then we will all lose a bit of time and make it easier for us to get in the break on the Mount Lofty day.”
