USA Pro Challenge: BMC goes 1-2 on summit finish to Arapahoe Basin

Brent Bookwalter (BMC Racing) continued his rising form from last week's Tour of Utah, winning the second stage at USA Pro Challenge Tuesday after a dramatic finish at Arapahoe Basin.

In the final kilometre, Bookwalter’s teammate Rohan Dennis led a chase group to catch day-long escapee Nate Brown (Cannondale-Garmin) before Bookwalter launched a final punch to win the stage. Dennis finished second, with Hugh Carthy (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) in third. Bookwalter now leads the general classification by six seconds over Dennis. Carthy is third, 10 seconds back. 

The result has been a longtime coming for Bookwalter, who finished fourth at the Tour of Austria in July and third at the Tour of Utah earlier this month, grabbing two second place stage finishes along the way.

"I’ve had a run of good form and a good run of results, but that win has eluded me, and it’s eluded me in a lot of different ways: breakaways, sprints on climbs," he said in the post-stage press conference. "So to get it on a summit finish and to get it on the back of some awesome teamwork, I couldn’t imagine it being any better. Like Taylor [Phinney] said yesterday, it’s electric. It makes me feel alive and it makes me feel inspired. This is what makes all the tough times we fight through worth it."

Bookwalter, who said he wasn't sure he had won the stage when he crossed the finish line, had to fight through some tough times just to hold the wheel of Dennis, who was using the funnel of fans in the final kilometres to limit other riders ability to attack.

"The last time board we saw to Nate Brown was a minute, and that was with just over a kilometre to go, maybe a kilometre and a half," Bookwalter said. "Rohan had me cross-eyed just butting my head on the stem the whole time. I wasn’t really aware of when Nate came back or who had gone. I was just doing the best climb I could and holding Rohan’s wheel. Then about 500 metres to go I actually caught might breath and felt recovered, so I put it in the big ring and just gave it everything I had. Obviously I was going for seconds also, so there was no time to celebrate."

How it unfolded

Tuesday’s 185.5km stage from Steamboat Springs to the Arapahoe Basin Ski Area started at nearly 2133 metres and then threw three major climbs at the riders.

The category 2 climb of Rabbit Ears Pass started almost immediately and topped out less than 20km from the finish. The category 3 climb of Sierra Nevada, which took riders to nearly 3,000 metres, came with 50km to go, while the final 8km category 1 climb to the ski area topped out at 3,288 metres.

A breakaway of 10 riders formed on the ascent up Rabbit Ears Pass, with Nathan Brown (Cannondale-Garmin), Kyle Murphy (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Daniel Summerhill (UnitedHealthcare), Will Routley (Optum Pro Cycling), Robin Carpenter (Hincapie Racing), Eric Marcotte (Team SmartStop), Carson Miller (Jamis-Hagens Berman), Steve Fisher (Jelly Belly-Maxxis), Daniel Barry (Budget Forklifts) and Gregory Brenes (Jamis-Hagens Berman) rolling away from the bunch.

Gregory Daniel (Axeon) and Antonio Molina (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) jumped away from the peloton on the climb and joined the leaders to form a lead group of 12.

The dozen escapees built a gap of 2:40 as they approached the first KOM of the day, where Routley took top honours over Summerhill and Murphy. The field started closing quickly near the summit, however, and the leaders started the descent with a 1:30 advantage.

Marcotte attacked the breakaway on the descent, and the ensuing chase helped the leaders add to their advantage again as it reached 2:50 and then ballooned to 5:10. It seems the peloton apparently didn’t want to let out that much leash, and the advantage was just 3:10 about 15km from the first intermediate sprint 80km into the stage.

Hincapie’s Carpenter, who won a stage in Colorado last year, took maximum sprint points in Kremmling, followed by Barry and Molina.

As the leaders entered a 22km section of dirt road along Highway 9, which is in the midst of a construction project, the gap was down to just 2:25.

The breakaway started to come apart as riders came off the dirt section, with Barry and Marcotte dropping anchor and losing contact. Fisher and Brenes soon followed out the back of the escape group, leaving eight riders in the lead.

BMC lined up on the front for Phinney, the team’s rider in the yellow jersey, but also to keep the breakaway in check for general classification contenders Brent Bookwalter and Rohan Dennis.

Routley took maximum points at the top of Ute pass, taking a two point lead over Summerhill in the mountains classification and temporarily distancing the rest of the breakaway. But the escapees were soon back together, including Brenes, pressing the pace on the descent into Dillon and the final intermediate sprint.
The nine riders in the front expanded their lead back to three minutes with 40km to go, but a concerted chase in the field and a lack of cooperation up front brought the gap down to two minutes just 8km later.

Brown wasn’t happy with the breakaway’s progress, and the Cannondale-Garmin rider jumped away from the leaders with 20km to go. Axeon’s Daniel quickly bridged, and the new lead duo extended their lead to 2:40 as the rest of the breakaway dropped further back.

As the climb up to Arapahoe Basin started, Brown picked up the pace and Daniel lost contact. An elite chase group began to form on the upper slopes of the climb, with Dennis setting a pace that shed riders left and right, quickly whittling the group down to himself, Bookwalter, Rob Squire (Hincapie), Jonny Clarke (UnitedHealthcare) and Caja Rural-Seguros RGA's Carthy and Kyle Murphy.

"I think I was probably lucky that there was a big crowd," Dennis said. "It sort of stopped the attacks a little bit, just sort of aim for the crowd and they couldn't come around."

With Dennis drilling it on the front, the group pulled Brown back in the finale kilometre before Bookwalter launched his winning move to set up the team's one-two finish.

"When I saw 300 metres to go I started to basically attack from the front, and I saw on the TV screen that Brent was sort of next to me, so I tried to get on him, but he went straight past me and got into position to win. It's great we got one-two, and I sort of surprised myself. I rode pretty well from the bottom to the top, and I was expecting to blow at least 3km to go when people started attacking."

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