Tour of Alberta: Huffman wins stage 3, takes overall lead

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Rally Cycling's Evan Huffman slipped away on the finishing circuits in downtown Drayton Valley on Saturday to take the stage 3 win at the Tour of Alberta and gain enough time to seize the overall lead.

Huffman joined Holowesko-Citadel's Robin Carpenter off the front during first of three finishing circuits after the field reeled in the day's breakaway just as they entered town. The duo then built a workable gap before Huffman outsprinted Carpenter to take the win and the 10-second time bonus that went with it.

"It was a little bit impulsive, to be honest," Huffman said of his final jump for the line. "I felt really good and that was the hardest section of the loop, and I just decided to try an attack. I accelerated a little bit the lap before, and then I just decided to go even harder the next time, and it worked out."

Kris Dahl (Silber Pro Cycling) was the third rider across the line, four seconds back, followed by 2015 winner Bauke Mollema in fourth, five seconds down.

Huffman now leads Carpenter by two seconds in the overall, with previous leader Colin Joyce (Axeon Hagens Berman) dropping to third at 10 seconds. Cannondale-Drapac's is Alex Howes in fourth, 17 seconds down, with Mollema 19 seconds behind in fifth.

Huffman said he was thinking more about the race's yellow jersey than he was about the stage win when he launched the decisive attack.

"I was mostly thinking about the GC, and then once we got out there on the last lap, just the two of us, then I started to think about the stage a little bit," he said. "But it’s a tricky situation. You can’t mess around too much because then you get caught. So it was really just those last couple of corners where I tried to sprint. There wasn’t really time to back it off, play around and try to save energy for the sprint.

How it unfolded

The 181.2km third stage from Rocky Mountain House to Drayton Valley featured 7km of gravel near the start, two KOMs at 31km and 161km, and two intermediate sprints at 70km and 143km. The stage concluded with three laps of a 4km technical nine-corner finishing circuit.

Time bonuses at the sprints and at the finish animated much of the racing as GC contenders fought for the seconds available on the road. Multiple breakaway attempts went away in the early going, but they were brought back as the teams jockeyed to put their riders into position for the first sprint.

Cannondale was active on the front, along with Trek-Segafredo, Rally Cycling and Holowesko-Citadel. Huffman, who started the day in fourth place, 11 seconds off the lead, tried to get away before the first sprint and pick up the maximum three-second time bonus, but the field was having none of it and brought him back.

A group of nine finally managed to pull clear after the sprint at 70km, with Peter Stetina (Trek-Segafredo), Lawson Craddock (Cannondale-Drapac), Toms Skujins (Cannondale-Drapac), Chris Jones (UnitedHealthcare), Tyler Williams (Axeon Hagens Berman), Travis McCabe (Holowesko-Citadel), Andrei Krasilnikau (Holowesko-Citadel), Danny Pate (Rally Cycling) and William Elliot (Canada) rolling away from the peloton.

Williams was the best-placed rider from the breakaway at 2:09 down, so the composition pleased the bunch, and the escapees quickly started building their gap. Two riders, Antoine Duchesne (Canada) and Bryan Lewis (Lupus) jumped out of the peloton when the gap was still relatively close in an attempt to bridge, but the peloton was quickly three minutes behind with just over 50km remaining.

Although the course didn’t feature any major climbs, the long straight run north to Drayton Valley took riders over multiple long rollers on the two-lane highway, and Elliot popped out of the breakaway with about 40km remaining, while Duchesne and Lewis continued to chase without success.

Silber Pro Cycling took up the chase, hoping to set up sprinter Dahl for the stage win, while Jelly Belly-Maxxis also added to the chase as the gap hovered around three minutes.

After leaving the gap at the three-minute mark for nearly 30km, the chase started cutting into the leaders’ advantage, which was down to 2:25 with 40km remaining. The gap continued to come down as the race neared the finishing circuits, sinking to 1:35 with 30km remaining.

From there, the gap fell precipitously, and when Amore & Vita went to the front and drilled it to pull KOM leader Danilo Celano forward to try and collect some points at the KOM with 20km to go, the fate was sealed for the group off the front.

Craddock popped out of the breakaway on the climb when the gap to the peloton was down to just 45 seconds. McCabe was the next breakaway rider to drop out of the group, possibly hoping to save a little energy for the finish. As the field closed in, Cannondale’s Phil Gaimon and UnitedHealthcare’s Matthew Busche jumped out of the group in a bridge attempt. McCabe was able to latch onto their wheel, and his day out front continued.

As the lead group dangled in front of the field, attacks flew from the breakaway, which broke into several groups while Jelly Belly-Maxxis and Trek-Segafredo led the bunch into town. The impetus among the lead group stalled, however, as none of the riders appeared to want to power the move.

Gaimon finally took the initiative, as Williams, Busche, Pate and McCabe latched on. But it was all for naught as the group made the catch just before the race entered the first of three finishing laps.

Rally’s Huffman jumped away on the first loop with Holowesko’s Robin Carpenter and Jelly Belly’s Angus Morton, who soon dropped out of the group.

"We came into town and came across the line and saw three to go," Carpenter said when explaining how he and Huffman got away. "Then on the next lap on the uphill crosswind section – it was uphill and full-on crosswind from the left – Evan kind of accelerated there on the previous lap, and he went again and I basically hadn’t let him out of my sight in the last 30km, so I went with him."

Huffman and Carpenter continued on and built their gap on the circuit, giving Huffman a real possibility of a podium finish and a time bonus that would significantly boost his chances in the overall.

The lead duo had 24 seconds with two laps remaining and Axeon on the front of the peloton leading the chase. But it was too little too late as the duo approached the line together, setting up Huffman’s win and ascent into yellow. Carpenter said a moment's inattention cost him in the finale.

"With two turns to go I was asleep at the wheel a little bit," Carpenter said. "Evan played it right. I looked right and he went left. He had a couple of bike lengths on me before the last turn, and that was pretty much it. It was well-played."

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