Tour of Utah: Bookwalter wins at Snowbasin

Brent Bookwalter (BMC Racing) claimed the first summit finish of the 2017 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah, patiently waiting until the very final metres to launch into top gear and sprint to victory over Sepp Kuss (Rally Cycling) and late attacker James Piccoli (Elevate-KHS).

With his second place finish, Kuss rode into the yellow jersey ahead of Bookwalter on the same time, as overnight race leader Ty Magner (Holowesko-Citadel) was dropped before the final climb.

The long, gradual ascent to Snowbasin Resort saw a number of riders attack the ever-shrinking peloton. Rally's Adam De Vos was the first to go after the day's breakaway was reeled in, and although he was briefly joined by Jhonatan Narváez (Axeon), the Canadian spent most of the climb dangling just off the front of the bunch before finally being pulled in by a surge from Axeon just outside one kilometre to go.

Piccoli countered and looked set to stage a huge upset victory until Bookwalter's burst of speed put paid to those ambitions. Bookwalter said a reconnaissance ride last week paid off on Tuesday.

"I knew it was kind of steep coming through that last corner," Bookwalter said of the final kilometre. "The gate [to the ski resort, ed.] was closed when we rode it, so it was hard to get a feel of exactly how much speed you'd be carrying. Robin Carpenter did a real big dig, and Robin's got awesome like one-minute, two-minute power, so I figured if I could just hold is wheel and come off it and push to the line, I've been a close second in a lot of races the past 12 to 24 months, so I really wanted it once I launched my sprint."

There were no time bonuses for the summit finish, and so with the top riders tied on time, the overall lead was decided by stage finishes. Kuss finished 22nd on stage 1, while backwater was further back in 30th, putting Kuss in yellow at Snowbasin.

"I didn't necessarily envision [being in yellow after stage 2], but it was always a hope," Kuss said. "I trained super hard for this race, and I think when you prepare for a race you can kind of envision it, but I didn't expect to be in this position today."

Although Kuss said in the post-stage press conference that he believes teammate Rob Britton is still Rally's best hope for the final overall, he didn't hesitate when a reporter asked if he though he's still be in yellow following Wednesday's 9km uphill time trial. 

A firm "yes" was his one-word response.

How it unfolded

The 151.1km second stage started with an immediate climb out of Brigham City, with the first classified climb of the day coming just 11 kilometres into the race. A large group of riders broke away on the opening climb, where BMC's Joey Rosskopf took the maximum points ahead of Holowesko's Ruben Campanioni and mountains leader Jacob Rathe (Jelly Belly-Maxxis).

The group was quickly back together after the KOM and then screamed down the descent to the first intermediate sprint of the day in Wellsville at kilometre 24, where Chris Lawless crossed the line first.

From there, multiple groups attacked and built small gaps, but like the day before, the peloton was initially feeling stingy and brought everything back until Rosskopf slipped away with Marco Canola (Nippo-Vini Fantini) and Oscar Clark (Holowesko-Citadel).

The trio slowly built a gap of 55 seconds before the field sat up, allowing the leaders' advantage to grow jump quickly to 3:45, then ultimately 5:10 at the feed zone 75 kilometres in.

Rally Cycling, Caja Rural-Seguros RGA and Axeon were apparently not happy with the size of the gap, and immediately went to the front to power the chase. By the time the leaders reached the second intermediate sprint back in Brigham City 83 kilometres in, the gap was down to just two minutes. It would never go above that for the rest of the race.

The breakaway finally came apart on the second categorised climb of the day up North Ogden Divide, where first Clark came dislodged and then Canola. Rosskopf soloed over the summit and collected maximum KOM points, but he was soon back in the fold, too, after the descent, setting up a general classification battle on the final climb to Snowbasin Resort.

De Vos launched his move early in the two-step climb, initially joined by Narváez who faded back after a kilometre, and used a short descent before the final four-kilometre pitch to open up a 10-second gap. The chasing peloton never gave him much breathing room, and they slowly inched toward him, coming close with two kilometres to go. Axeon's Neilson Powless finally put the Rally rider out of his misery with one good surge, but Piccoli launched a surprise counter-attack.

Bookwalter stayed calm, using his experience to patiently wait and time his effort to perfection. He blasted clear, followed only by Kuss, overhauling Piccoli with 50 metres to go to take the win.

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