Carpenter wins Tour of Alberta overall

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Robin Carpenter nailed down the biggest win of his career Monday at the Tour of Alberta, hanging tough with his Holowesko-Citadel team and holding off 2015 champion Bauke Mollema to win the general classification by just one second over the Trek-Segafredo rider. Rally Cycling's Evan Huffman finished third overall, seven seconds back.

Cagey veteran Francisco Mancebo (Skydive Dubai) attacked a day-long breakaway in the final kilometres of the Edmonton circuit to take the solo stage win ahead of Cannondale-Drapac's Kristoffer Skjerping and Axeon Hagens Bermans Colin Joyce. The win marked Mancebo's first victory of the season.

"I tried with 1km to go, and I needed a little luck because the pack was so close on the last two laps," Mancebo said. "On the hard climb I looked behind me and I saw the jersey of the leader, and they were only about 10 seconds behind me, so I had a little bit of luck.

"For me it is the first win of the season, and it’s the first time in America for my team, so for us this is a very, very important victory."

The win was also important for Holowesko and Carpenter, who added a big general classification victory to go along with his stage wins at the 2014 USA Pro Challenge and last month at the Tour of Utah.

"We have big wins, but this is the biggest one I’ve had ever," he said in the post race press conference. "I’ve had a couple of solid stage wins, but winning the overall like this is pretty important for me. It’s confirmation of my abilities as a GC contender. I’m a good all-rounder; not great at anything but pretty good at everything. So, yeah, I’m pretty excited about the win. I can't really say more than that."

Carpenter actually did have a lot more to say about his team, which he credited with keeping him safe and fresh throughout a tough week of racing.

"The rest of the team rode out of their skin today," he said. "They believed in me more than I believed in myself, so I have to thank them a lot for the confidence boost and just riding as a team. It’s a team sport and people kind of forget that, but I owe everything this week to my team, for not only riding the front today, but helping me save energy all week. If there was a little bit of a crosswind or we were riding in the gutter, there was always somebody there to help me."

Although Mollema was absent from the post-stage press conference, his teammate, Ryder Hesjedal, went out of his way to applaud the effort of Carpenter's Holowesko squad.

"It was a great battle for Bauke and the team," Hesjedal said. "The Holowesko team road like any top WorldTour team today. They really controlled the race and got the job done,  so that was great to see." 

How it unfolded

The 124.1km final stage consisted of 11 laps of an 11.3km urban circuit in downtown Edmonton. Two short, punchy climbs on the route provided the day's challenges on the twisting, technical course through the city.

With the top of the general classification so tight, the day's time bonuses were a major target. The first came at the start/finish with seven laps remaining, and the second came with three laps to go. Bonuses of three, two and one second were on offer at the intermediate sprints, and 10, six and four seconds went to the top three on the stage.

The peloton didn't waste anytime setting off the fireworks, with attacks flying from the opening gun until a breakaway group formed on the opening loop. Trek-Segafredo placed Peter Stetina and Julian Arredondo in the move, while Holowesko had fastman Travis McCabe there to swallow up as many of the bonuses as possible.

Axeon Hagens Berman placed two riders in the breakaway, including Phil O'Donnell and Tyler Williams, who was the best-placed rider in the move at 2:25. Cannondale-Drapac's Toms Skujins was the next best placed rider at 2:57.

The rest of the group included KOM leader Danilo Celano (Amore & Vita), Matthew Busche (UnitedHealthcare), Matthieu Jeannes (Lupus), Matteo Dal-Cin (Silber), David Drouin (Silber), Mancebo and Ivan Santaromita (Skydive Dubai).

Several riders tried to bridge to the group over the intervening laps, but the leaders built their advantage to 2:25 by the fourth lap, and the bridgers were not able to succeed.

The gap started coming down from the maximum of 2:25, and with four laps remaining, Holowesko, riding on the front for Carpenter, had pulled the leaders' advantage down to just 1:40.

Celano won the first two of three KOMs on the day to seal his mountains jersey, and McCabe took the both intermediate sprints to keep Williams from getting the three-second time bonus.

With three laps to go, the gap to the field was down to one minute, while up front Drouin and Mancebo jumped away and set off on their own. The two riders remained in sight of their former breakaway companions, but there was hesitation among the rest of the breakaway as riders tried to bluff others into piking up the chase.

Rally Cycling came to the front of the field with two laps to go to drive up the pace, hoping to break up the field and launch Huffman up the road, but both Trek-Segafredo and Holowesko lined up behind Huffman's team.

At the head of the race, Skujns jumped across to the leaders to make a group of three ahead of the original break, which the peloton caught about halfway through the lap. Trek went to the front and started driving the pace, further putting the rivet to the field as riders started falling off the back in regular intervals.

When the peloton pulled the leaders' gap down to just 20 seconds, Team Canada's Antoine Duchesne, who started the day 53 seconds out of the overall lead, jumped away from the bunch with Axeon Hagens Berman's Chad Young.

Ryder Hesjedal (Trek-Segafredo) led the peloton through the start/finish to start the final lap, with Mollema in tow and Carpenter latched onto the Trek riders' wheels.

The field had the leaders in its sights with just 7km to go, but Mancebo and Skujins refused to surrender, dangling off the front as more riders tried to bridge. UnitedHealthcare's Danny Summerhill, Cannondale-Drapac's Lawson Craddock and Axeon Hagens Berman's Eddie Dunbar bridged up to the lead duo to form a group of five off the front.

The group lacked cooperation, however, seriously weakening the group’s chances of battling for the stage win. Skujins was the first to drop out of the lead quintet inside of 4km to go, while the gap to the peloton held at 15 seconds.

Mancebo then made his jump away from the leaders, and the cagey Spaniard opened up enough of a gap to spur his stage win ambitions. Mancebo held on by four seconds to take the stage win, while Carpenter finished ninth with the same time as the field to secure the overall. Mollema finished 18th on the stage.

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