Vuelta a Burgos Feminas: Grace Brown wins stage 1

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Grace Brown (Team BikeExchange) won stage 1 of the Vuelta a Burgos Féminas, beating Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) and Niamh Fisher-Black (Team SD Worx) in a sprint of three.

The three riders had attacked from the peloton just before the top of the Alto de La Lora climb with six kilometres to go and held off the chasing peloton on the gently rising final kilometres before sprinting for the win. Five seconds later, Arlenis Sierra (A.R. Monex) led home a small peloton to take fourth place.

“We had a team plan where we wanted to first try to split the race in the crosswinds. Our team worked really well to do that, the peloton split there, and it put a lot of teams under pressure and hurt the legs a little bit before coming into the finale. Then my team did an awesome lead-out to the bottom of the climb. I just sat in on the climb and waited until we got near the top, and that’s where I launched my attack,” explained Brown after receiving the purple leader’s jersey.

“I had two girls come across with me, Elise Chabbey and Niamh Fisher-Black. Chabbey worked with me a little bit, and then it was a sprint in the end, thankfully, even though I led from the front in the sprint, I was able to stay ahead,” Brown said.

How it unfolded

The 100-kilometre stage 1 from Villadiego to Sargentes de La Lora in the Geoparque Las Loras included several unclassified climbs as well as two classified climbs, the second one cresting six kilometres from the line, those last kilometres continuing to climb at 2-4 per cent.

The peloton split in two groups in the crosswinds after just over 30 kilometres, and it took some time from the second group to get back on. In the meantime, a break with Mireia Benito (Massi-Tactic), Heidi Franz (Rally Cycling), and Vera Looser (Instafund Racing) had gotten away and took the points atop the first classified climb before being reeled in with 45km to go.

Amalie Dideriksen (Trek-Segafredo) was the next to attack, and when she was caught, her teammate Shirin van Anrooij countered and got away. Van Anrooij quickly built a gap that maxed out at over a minute with 18 kilometres to go, but she was caught just before the start of the Alto de La Lora climb.

The peloton, led mostly by Omer Shapira (Canyon-SRAM), got smaller and smaller on the climb, but there were no attacks until Brown went 300 metres before the mountain sprint, followed by Chabbey. Fisher-Black jumped after them and bridged to the front on a short downhill.

On the gentle uphill to the finish, the front trio was never more than 20 seconds behind what remained of the peloton, with Tayler Wiles (Trek-Segafredo) doing most of the chase work, but Brown and Chabbey worked well together to hold off the chasers.

Brown will start stage 2 wearing the purple leader’s jersey, Fisher-Black took the lead in the U23 classification and will wear the white jersey on stage 2.