USA Pro Challenge: Dennis adds to BMC success in Breckenridge

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BMC Racing continued to dominate the USA Pro Challenge Thursday in Colorado with another one-two finish as Rohan Dennis soloed into Breckenridge for the stage 4 win ahead of teammate Brent Bookwalter. The BMC riders swapped places in the general classification, with Dennis taking yellow and Bookwalter slipping to second.

Following an attack by Robbie Squire (Hincapie) on the final decisive climb, Dennis came from behind just before the summit and overtook Squire, increasing his gap on the descent and cruising to the line. Bookwalter and Squire came in 19 seconds later, with the Hincapie rider moving into the final GC podium spot.

"Rohan caught me pretty quickly right in the crowd and came around me, but I tried to hold on over the top and on the descent, just pedalling as hard as I could," Squire said. "Brent came up to me, and unfortunately I was in the worst position I could be in because he can’t help me out chase down his teammate, so I just gave it everything I could to the finish."

Dennis said the solo win in the small mountain town was a special moment in his short-but-highly successful career so far.

"It doesn’t happen too often to be honest," Dennis said in the post-race press conference. "Most of the time I’ll either podium or win in the team time trial or the time trial, so to sort of get basically a hilltop with a small descent is pretty special. I was pretty excited. It’s just like Brent and Taylor [Phinney] said after their stage wins. To be honest, I was looking around at the crowds and it was huge. It was a special moment in my career, for sure."

Bookwalter, although disappointed to lose the yellow jersey, was nevertheless happy to keep the race lead within the team.

"The opportunities I have to wear a leader's jersey don't come along every race, but that said, I had a really great two days in the jersey," he said. "That position of having the lead was largely do to some great teamwork, especially Rohan on the finals of both stages that put me there, so, yeah, no hard feelings toward Rohan. I'm really happy for him and really excited for him."

How it unfolded

The peloton faced the longest stage of the race during stage 4’s 203km route from Aspen to Breckenridge. The day included three ascents: the category 1 climb over Independence Pass, the category 2 climb over Hoosier Pass and the category 3 climb up Moonstone Road, which then dropped to the finish line in Breckenridge.

Bookwalter started the day in yellow with a six-second advantage over Dennis and 10 seconds over Jonny Clarke (UnitedHealthcare).

It was an active start to the race as the field approached the first climb of the day over Independence Pass, with Cannondale-Garmin’s Janier Acevedo and Trek Factory Racing’s Laurent Didier attempting to gain time on their rivals. Sensing that this might be the move of the day, Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff-Saxo) launched himself up the road with Phil Gaimon (Optum Pro Cycling) in tow, and the pair successfully made contact with the leaders.

The group was later joined by Kyle Murphy (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Damiano Caruso (BMC), Oscar Clark (Hincapie Racing), Michael Torckler (Budget Forklifts) and Toms Skujins (Hincapie Racing) to form a breakaway group of nine.

As the chasing field was about to catch that initial group, Murphy made a strong attack over the top of the climb, picking up full mountain points before Kreuziger, Caruso, Gaimon and Clark re-joined him off the front.

The peloton split into several groups on the climb and even forced Ivan Rovny (Tinkoff-Saxo) to call it a day. He was seen climbing into the broom wagon.

Out front, the breakaway gained more than four minutes on the main field, which was led by Cannondale-Garmin. Gaimon took the full intermediate sprint points offered in Buena Vista at just over 100km to the race.

At one point the gap started to fall to under three minutes, but as the race continued on toward the second intermediate sprint in Fairplay, the five riders managed to push it back out to just over four minutes.

Cannondale-Garmin put in another dig on the front of the main field, causing it to splinter as strong crosswinds forced the riders to cling to the right-hand side of the road while large groups were caught off the back. The lime-green clad team cut the gap to the breakaway drastically, whittling it down to just 50 seconds.

As the race approached Hoosier Pass, the Jelly Belly and SmartStop teams came to the fore, and their efforts proved fruitful in bringing back all but one of the breakaway riders. Caruso made a solo effort to stay ahead of the field at the base of the climb, but his efforts were short-lived and eventually he too was reabsorbed into the field.

It was no surprise that BMC lined up their riders at the front for overall race leader Bookwalter. It was Michael Schär who took full mountain points at the top of Hoosier Pass, ahead of Dennis and Bookwalter.

At 3.5km to go, the final climb up Moonstone began with Taylor Phinney controlling the front for BMC. UnitedHealthcare was in tow, sitting comfortably behind the yellow jersey, along with Squire and others. The attacks opened not long after. Squire jumped away near the summit, trying to gain valuable seconds to improve fifth place on GC.

"Taylor Phinney and Mickey Schär gave us an incredible lead out into the climb," Taylor had me and Rohan both fully on the limit trying to hold the wheel," Boowalter said. "Then we hit the steeper slopes of the climb and Robbie put in a really, really hard acceleration, and that was when I had to say no can do. I had to back it off a little bit."

Squire had gained a four-second advantage as the field completely split apart heading up the steep ascent. Dennis, meanwhile, remained attentive and launched an attack right before the crest of the KOM to build a gap that only Bookwalter and Squire could follow on the descent.

The USA Pro Challenge continues Friday with stage 5, a 14km time trial in Breckenridge.

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