Tour of Britain: Rohan Dennis wins stage 7b in Bristol

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Rohan Dennis (BMC) won the penultimate stage of the Tour of Britain with a late attack in Bristol. Dennis, who finished second in the morning time trial, powered away in the final kilometres to take victory by just six seconds.

Maximiliano Richeze (Etixx-QuickStep) led the bunch across the line with Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) taking third.

With his stage victory, Dennis managed to close the gap to the race to 26 seconds but Stephen Cummings (Dimension Data) finished with the main group to keep hold of his yellow jersey with just one stage to go.

After a rainy morning time trial, the sun came out for the riders on Saturday afternoon for the second of two stages in Bristol. The peloton set off for six laps of the 15-kilometre course. Andre Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) set out his intentions early in the neutral zone, taking to the path to move up and ensure his place at the front of the peloton for the real racing to start.

Greipel then shot off the front as soon as the bunch hit kilometre zero but he was brought back into the fold. Several other riders tried their hand on the technical course, including Dan Martin (Etixx-QuickStep), but to no avail.

Greipel eventually got his wish of making it into a breakaway, racing off the front with Gorka Izagirre (Movistar), Boy van Poppel (Trek-Segafredo) and Diego Rubio (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) towards the end of the first lap. Karol Domagalski (ONE Pro Cycling) tried to bridge the gap but was eventually drawn back into the peloton.

The four leaders continued to push on, building a gap of 1:38 by the end of the second lap. The shortness of the stage meant that the peloton, led in turn by Team Sky and Dimension Data, were reluctant to give the escapees any more space and that was down to just over a minute at the halfway point.

Sensing an opportunity to join the four out front, Nicola Boem (Bardiani CSF) attacked from the peloton on the climb towards the finish line. It proved to be a fruitless move and the peloton quickly had him back in their ranks.

The final lap saw the breakaway attack each other with Greipel and Izagirre both having a go as the gap ticked down to just over 30 seconds. Team Sky continued their work to bring the leaders back, this time with the help of the Orica-BikeExchange team. The peloton closing in, the break decided to sit up and with four kilometres to go, they were eventually reeled in.

Third place in the general classification, Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) moved up towards the front with Dennis before the Australian attacked with two kilometres to go. Cummings led the charge behind, keeping Dennis at close quarters. It wasn't quite enough to bring them back and Dennis would go on to win the stage but Cummings cut his loses to keep hold of the yellow jersey going into the final stage.

The Tour of Britain will come to a close this Sunday with a final stage in London.

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