Tour of California: Sylvain Georges roars into Big Bear Lake

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Sylvain Georges (AG2R La Mondiale) soloed to an incredible win on stage 6 of the Amgen Tour of California, finishing alone at Big Bear Lake. Remarkably, the team had gone winless until earlier in the day Sebastian Hinault claimed the Circuit de Lorraine, but Georges doubled their tally through his heroic performance.

Georges was the last man into a seven man breakaway that went from the gun and then the last man standing at the final classified climb with 48km still to race.

The Frenchman held a five minute lead on the group of race leader David Zabriskie when he left his companions behind, and despite a concerted chase from Garmin-Barracuda, Liquigas-Cannondale and then Radioshack-Nissan and a long, hot and high road ahead, Georges still had plenty of time to celebrate the biggest victory of his career at Big Bear Lake by just 28 seconds.

Stage 1 through 4 winner Peter Sagan finished second with Peter Velits coming home in third and picking up four seconds in the fight for the overall. Race leader Dave Zabriskie retained his overall advantage.

"The most difficult thing about the final kilometers was in my head," Georges said. "I hurt everywhere, I was starting to go cross-eyed and getting cramps, but I was able to focus and fight through it. It was the hardest 15km of my life."

The team knew of Hinault's victory in the morning and the entire team and staff were extra motivated to do something special on the 1863km stage. "Sebastian Hinault is a leader of the team and I take advice from him often, so to win on the same day as him makes it extra special for me and the team."

Going solo wasn't exactly the plan for Georges, but on the approach to the final climb mountains classification leader Sebastian Salas told him that he didn't have the legs to continue, but the prospect of riding solo for more than an hour was not daunting to the 28-year-old.

"I had the legs, I knew I had the legs, and it was all or nothing until the finish."

Although he was on his own on the road, Georges said the encouragement from his team director along the way kept him going. "I wasn't alone, knowing my family is back home watching and knowing how badly AG2R needed this win, I kept this in my head and I was able to hold on and finish it off."

Zabriskie said the second half of the stage was the most difficult part, and even though the team went hard on the steepest part of the climb, Sagan survived and, thinking it might come down to a sprint, sent his team to the front to help chase. "The AG2R guy did an amazing ride," Zabriskie said. "He pulled that off, and Sagan didn't get the field sprint. It was kind of touch and go there, but when we came up to the lake a lot of teams came up and started to help, and we brought the gap down pretty decently.

"I think they kinda hesitated and were like 'aw, this isn't going to work'," Zabriskie said of Liquigas, "And then when all the other teams started to help they jumped back in, but it was too late. [Georges] did an amazing ride.

Garmin-Barracuda manager Jonathan Vaughters was pleased with his team's performance, but indicated that without race radios, relying on race marshals for information was not always reliable.

"There was a little lack of information out there, which was a little disconcerting at times, but, whatever, the guys made up for it with strength," Vaughters said. "The problem is the guys were not getting accurate information from the on chalkboards, which is a pity, but you know it's a symptom of the regulation that bans race radio communications. Obviously a silly regulation. We wouldn't have won. It's great that [Georges] won the stage."

Up, up and away

The Golden State again came through with stellar weather for the Amgen Tour of California, although gusty winds buffeted the riders at the start of stage 6 in Palmdale. Once they were into the hills of the Angeles National Forest, however, they were provided a little shelter from the breeze.

The attacks flew right from the gun, and immediately a seven-rider group was established: Mountains classification leader Sebastian Salas and his teammate Andrew Bajadali (Optum Pro Cycling p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) were sure to follow David Boily (Spidertech-C10) into the move along with Yukihiro Doi (Argos-Shimano) and Sylvain Georges (AG2R La Mondiale), whose teams have been shut out of the honours so far this Tour. Also in the break was Gregory Rast (RadioShack-Nissan) and the most aggressive rider of the Tour so far, Jeremy Vennell (Bissell Cycling).

At the first mountain sprint just 22km into the stage, Boily got the measure of Salas on the category 4 ascent, and then the seven leaders got straight to work building up a maximum advantage of eight minutes.

Along the route, four riders abandoned the race, with Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) being the least surprising withdrawal. The big German sprinter has struggled in the mountains and expressed his fear of today's massive climbs before the start. Also pulling out was Laurens Ten Dam (Rabobank), Pat McCarty (Spidertech powered by C10) and Juan Pablo Suarez (Colombia-Coldeportes).

The battle for the polka dot jersey heated up on the day's biggest climb, the category 1 ascent to Wrightwood, where Salas attacked and his teammate Bajadali was able to get in front of Boily for second place, allowing Salas more of a buffer in the classification.

The Garmin-Barracuda chase halved the leaders' gap by the time they reached the third climb and Bajadali gave up on the escape. A few kilometers later Doi and Vennell also dropped off the lead group, and by 1km to the top, Boily and Rast had also lost contact. Salas powered on ahead with only Georges as his companion.

Georges allowed Salas to claim the maximum points on the category 3 climb on CA 18, but soon after the crest the young Canadian decided to leave his French companion on his own and go back to the chasing group which included Rast, Doi and Vennell.

With 30km to go, Georges enjoyed a five minute lead on the peloton, while Doi and Salas were soon to return to the peloton as the long gradual ascent to Big Bear ground along. Rast and Vennell continued their chase, but an attack from Orica-GreenEdge's Pieter Weening sped up the peloton and ate into their advantage.

Georges pushed on ahead, undaunted by the quality of the chase and perhaps inspired by his teammate Sebastian Hinault, who scored the team's first win of the year in the Circuit de Lorraine today.

Behind, another attack came from the peloton from Wilco Kelderman (Rabobank) with 23km to go, and soon he, Vennell and Weening came together and put up a concerted chase to Georges, while Rast went back to the peloton to help his RadioShack-Nissan team.

The Weening-led counter attack was reeled in with less then 4 kilometers to go and while the diminished peloton had Georges in sight inside the final kilometer, the Frenchman had enough of a buffer to celebrate his solo victory in Big Bear Lake.

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