The mercury was still north of 30°C even as the sun began to dip on Sunday evening, a contrast with Ryan Mullen's choice of metaphor as he reflected on his Bora-Hansgrohe teammate Sam Bennett's sprint victory on stage 1 of the Vuelta a San Juan.
"The plan is that by the end of the season, we'll have this massive, giant snowball that keeps on growing," Mullen told Cyclingnews after he had taken a seat beyond the finish line.
"Right now, we've got a normal-sized snowball, maybe a golf ball, but we've got to keep it rolling into something bigger. Maybe it'll be a tennis ball by the end of this week…"
Bennett endured a largely trying 2022 season, which saw him return to Bora-Hansgrohe after two years at QuickStep, but he ended his campaign on a positive note with a pair of wins on the Vuelta a España and a game, attacking display at Paris-Tours.
For Bennett and his lead-out train, the aim was to carry that momentum through the winter and into the new campaign. Victory at their first attempt in Argentina augurs well for the year ahead.
"I'd be lying if I didn't say I was nervous and excited," Bennett said when he took a seat in the press room in San Juan's Estadio Aldo Cantoni afterwards.
"But you could really feel that in the peloton: everybody's nervous, everybody's trying to find their flow and rhythm. The first one is always the most dangerous, but it all comes back to you in the moment."
The Vuelta a San Juan may not be a WorldTour race, but its sprint field has a depth worthy of a top-flight event, with Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep), Peter Sagan (TotalEnergies) and Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) among Bennett's rivals here.
For sprinters and their lead-out trains, the first outing of the new year is rarely without its teething troubles, and Jakobsen's hopes unravelled when Remco Evenepoel led the Soudal-QuickStep the long way around a traffic island in the run-in.
The world champion complained afterwards that spectators had been crossing the road on the approach to the final kilometre. "It was hectic and dangerous. I almost hit a woman, I think," he said. "It was perhaps an unacceptable final kilometre."
Bennett and his Bora-Hansgrohe squad, by contrast, enjoyed a clear run.
"We haven't raced for four months and when you get that taste of blood in the back of your throat you think, 'Now I've got to make decisions that affect people's lives behind me – erm, how do you do this again?'" Mullen said.
"But everyone nailed their job perfectly. When it came to me, I just dropped some watts and tried to hang in there."
Neo-professional Florian Lipowitz and Jonas Koch performed the early lifting before Mullen took over with a searing effort to tee up Bennet's last man, Danny van Poppel.
"We could lead into the last corner and control it from there, which was fantastic," said Bennett, who unrolled a smooth sprint to see off Michael Mørkøv – filling in for his leader Jakobsen – and Giacomo Nizzolo. "I just focused on myself. I didn't want my speed to peak too soon and die off in the final."
Bennett's victory was the 60th of his professional career, a running tally matched by only nine other active riders. The Carrick-on-Suir man has designs on notching up a double-digit haul of wins in 2023 alone, a feat he last achieved in 2019, when, coincidentally, he got off the mark with success in San Juan. Sprinters are called upon to win often across the season, and it never hurts their cause to win early.
"It's fantastic to start the year this way," Bennett said. "I wasn't exactly happy with my season last year, but I worked really hard this off-season. It's good to start the year on a positive note."
