Lachlan Morton wins Mogollon stage at Tour of the Gila

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Lachlan Morton scored his first victory since his 2013 Tour of Utah stage win on the opening day of the 2016 Tour of the Gila. The Australian broke free with teammate Taylor Shelden on the lower slopes of the final climb, pulling defending champion Rob Britton (Rally Cycling) clear as well. Shelden dropped back, leaving two leaders to battle to the finish. Morton finally distanced Britton on the steep, narrow pitches with 3km to go to the line in Mogollon, and put almost 30 seconds into the Canadian.

Behind, Daniel Jaramillo (UnitedHealthcare) surged forward from the chasing groups to take third, with new best young rider Sepp Kuss (Gateway-Harley Davidson) just behind. US champion Matthew Busche was fifth.

Morton said it felt good to finally cross the line with his arms in the air after a three-year drought. "It's been a long time coming," he said, but was wary about declaring his prospects for holding the leader's jersey until Sunday. "It's always a tough week. It comes down to the final Gila Monster stage, which is always tough. I'm pretty confident, we have a good team here. Everyone's in good shape. Hopefully we can hold onto it, but we'll see what happens."

The team had a chance to demonstrate its strength throughout the stage, twice pulling Morton back into the peloton after incidents, he said. "20 kilometers in I broke my bike and nearly crashed, and my team brought me back, and then we got caught behind the crash just before the bottom of the climb and they brought me back again. I just had that feeling at the bottom of the climb that I would need to do it today. It means a lot to me, but mainly for the team. I've been looking to do this one for a while."

The race was fast and aggressive from the gun, but the peloton remained intact until the first of two loops around the towns of Cliff and Gila, thanks to a strong tailwind. Finally, seven riders escaped in the hunt for the points classification jersey at the second intermediate sprint. Travis McCabe (Holowesko-Citadel) claimed the jersey, and kept ticking along with Michael Sheehan (Jelly Belly), Cortlan Brown (Canyon-Shimano), Bryan Gomez (Gateway-Harley Davidson), Jules Goguely (Echolon-Storck), Thomas Jondall (Landis/Trek), and Bailey McKnight (H&R Block).

Unlike 2015, the breakaway was kept on a short leash, maxing out their advantage at around 2:35 before the gap began to steadily drop en route to the climb. The chase was disrupted outside of Glenwood by a dog who ran into the peloton, causing a mass crash at the back of the field.

With the tailwind persisting and a right turn ahead, Morton and his Jelly Belly team amassed at the front and put their strategy into action as they started to pick up the last of the early attackers.

"We figured there would be some wind - the climb goes in two stages and there's a flat mesa in the middle," Morton said. "We had a tailwind all day, and we turn right onto the climb, so we knew there would be a crosswind there. I had two of my teammates pull me up to the front and we sort of put it in the gutter and rode. It split down to just three, and we only had a small gap when we hit the last climb. I knew I was going well, and Rob Britton won it last year, so we figured if we just put the hammer down maybe we could stay away. When we started to pull away, I started to think about Britton. I just rode pretty much as hard as I could.

"It's better for me if the stage is harder, it was a bit of a tougher stage than in other years, a bit more aggressive, so it all played into our favour."

The defending champion Britton was alert enough to see Jelly Belly's plan unfold, and was the only rider to latch on as the bunch shattered in the crosswind aside from Morton's teammate Shelden. "I was right there. I kind of pegged Lachlan to be one of the stronger guys in the race, he's been going really well. We came over the top, and there's always the potential to split. This year with the way the winds were, there was a damn good chance, and sure enough it split. I didn't think it would go down to such a small group. They hit it really sharp - they did a great job I turned around and there were just three of us and we had a huge gap. Then with the tailwind on the climb, that was it," Britton said.

The pair remained together until the final 3km when Morton began to pull away. With 2km to go he had 10 seconds, with 1km to go he had 30, but Britton limited the gap as the top drew near.

"Lachlan had me on the absolute limit going up the first half of the climb there. It was incredible. As soon as we hit the last 2km, I came off and tried not to go in the red. I know what I can hold on that climb, and it has to be pretty damn close to the best I've done. Limiting it to 30 seconds, I'm satisfied with that. It looked like he came down a bit in the last k, and I was able to maintain the gap a little bit."

Last year Britton made most of his winning margin in the time trial, which comes on Friday in Tyrone, but he isn't sure how the race will play out this year considering the gaps between the top 10 are still small.

"We'll see. Lachlan is riding really well. Last year I think we were quite close in time trials, he knows how to ride a TT bike, but I've been doing a fair bit of work on it too. Sunday is a huge day, and it's a really strong field this year. Probably one of the deepest fields in a few years for sure. There are a lot of really good guys, so we'll see."

The UnitedHealthcare team is poised to create some havoc in the coming stages, considering they have Daniel Jaramillo, last year's best young rider and second place finisher overall behind Britton in their midst. Jaramillo was third on the stage, less than a minute behind Morton, having passed his teammate, US champion Matthew Busche on the climb. Janez Brajkovic was eighth on the stage, just over a minute back.

Jaramillo was disappointed to miss the chance for the stage win, but looked forward to the team's tactics in the coming stages. "The whole team worked today thinking of the victory on this stage," he said. "We have four for the GC, and we are four climbers, including Busche. I had the better legs, the important thing is that we are still in the race.”

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