Tour of California: Remi Cavagna wins stage 3

Rémi Cavagna (Deceuninck-QuickStep) won stage 3 of the Tour of California in Morgan Hill on Tuesday, striking out from a two-man break to ride solo for 75km to the finish. Ben King (Dimension Data) and Simon Geschke (CCC Team), who both attacked 22km out, took second and third, 7:11 back.

Cavagna quickly built a lead of a minute over his former companion – Alex Hoehn of the USA National Team – and with no impetus to chase in the peloton, the stage result became clear some way before the end. In the final 20km, Hoehn, who now leads the mountains classification, hit the wall, and was eventually caught by the attacking duo of Geschke and King with 3.5km to go.

Cavagna calmly soloed the final kilometres to take the second victory of his career, leaving King to beat Geschke in the sprint for second place.

"It was really hard. Not on the climb, but on the downhill I was a little bit scared because it was really tricky, although I tried not to take too many risks, and I did it," a delighted Cavagna told reporters at the finish.

"I'm really happy because it's my first victory this year, and my first victory on the WorldTour, so it's really nice for me," he said.

Race leader Tejay van Garderen (EF Education First) came home with the peloton, just under eight minutes behind the stage winner, and retained his six-second lead over Team Ineos' Gianni Moscon, with the winner of stage 2, Cavagna's Deceuninck teammate Kasper Asgreen, in third, a further second back.

How it unfolded

It was another big climbing day at the Tour of California, adding a sting to the legs after the previous day's stage 2 climb to South Lake Tahoe. Stage 3 was another long one – 208km from Stockton to Morgan Hill, with six climbs: the category 2 Patterson Pass Rd (53.5km), category 3 Mines Rd (77km), category 3 San Antonio Valley Rd summit 1 (120.5km) and summit 2 (131km), the hors-categorie Mt. Hamilton (139.5km) and then the category 2 Quimby Rd (159.5km).

A group of 19 riders set off in the fast and furious opening kilometres of the race, but with Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida) among them, the move was never going to last. As the highest placed rider of the bunch at only 42 seconds down, the peloton, led by EF Education First, weren't willing to let Dennis get too far up the road, and it all came back together before the first KOM.

Just ahead of Patterson Pass Road, which was 5.2km long at an average of 6.1 per cent, the day's main breakaway set off with only two riders: Cavagna and Hoehn. The pair quickly gained two minutes, but that ballooned out to over six minutes by the top of the climb.

Neither was a threat to van Garderen's overall lead, as Hoehn was 8:13 down and Cavagna was 17:52 back. Hoehn took the points at the top of the climb and, once they gained nine minutes, he became the virtual race leader. He, again, took full points on the second KOM over Mines Rd, and over both climbs up San Antonio Valley Rd.

Mid-stage, Paweł Bernas (CCC Team) decided to liven up the proceedings by going on the attack 100km out. He had no chance of catching the lead duo, and hung midway between them and the peloton for 35km before being caught on Mt. Hamilton.

Cavagna decided to strike out at the bottom of that climb, some 75km from the line. It was the day's toughest climb at 7.2km long, with an average gradient of 8.4 per cent, and Hoehn was quickly distanced. Cavagna collected the full points at the top of the hors-categorie climb but it wasn't enough to surpass the points lead that Hoehn had built up on the earlier climbs.

Mountains classification leader Davide Ballerini (Astana Pro Team) had jumped from the peloton to nab points on several of the day's earlier climbs, keen to try to preserve his lead in that classification. It wasn't enough, though – the jersey would be handed over at the end of the stage.

Cavagna pushed over the top, and even though he struggled through the corners on the descent of Highway 130 and onto the final climb of Quimby Rd., he led Hoehn by almost a minute. The climb was 2.1km long, with an average of 8.8 per cent, and topped out 49km from the finish line at Morgan Hill. Cavagna duly took the points, and Hoehn crested in second place and secured a total of 31 points to edge into the lead of the mountain classification.

On the descent off Quimby Rd., Cavagna struggled once more, but held his 2:30 lead over Hoehn. Back in the peloton there was no impetus to even try to reel in the two leaders – EF were happy with the race situation.

Once Cavagna was down on flatter roads heading towards San Jose and Morgan Hill, his lead held strong, and he was joking with the team car with 40km to race. Further back, the peloton knocked the pace down a touch as the gap grew to over eight minutes.

Heading into the final 30km, Hoehn started to struggle, calling for gels and drinks from the team car. He shedded time to Cavagna, but ploughed on, with four minutes of time either side of him.

It was then that Geschke set off in pursuit of Hoehn, 22km from the line, and was followed by King.

Descending from the final intermediate sprint, which was cruelly placed at the top of a hill, Cavagna once again had a tough time of it. The Frenchman ran off the road and into the dirt verge, but stayed upright, cursing himself as he got going again.

A flat run-in posed no such challenges for Cavagna, though, and he was free to enjoy his victory. Over seven minutes later, King won the sprint for second ahead of Geschke, wth the pair having caught and passed Hoehn 3.5km from the finish.

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