Believe it or not, the picture you see above is actually a different one from yesterday.But that's about the only thing that is...
Tyler Farrar won his second straight bunch finish in as many days to rack up another "Trofeo" to his collection. In much of the same pattern as yesterday, a hapless breakaway could do no damage to a peloton at full throttle and the race again fell into the hands of the fast men.
Not even Philippe Gilbert could make an escape.
Speaking of Gilbert, he got his wish today as the riders got the race underway without radios. They kind of had no choice, as UCI threatened to cancel the event if they did not comply.
There were a few climbs today, but not really anything compared to the rest of the week. Some of the big guys cruised in the peloton today as a tune up for the next 3 climbing stages.
Like these guys...
Andy Schleck made his Leopard-Trek debut along with his brother Frank (who raced yesterday at the Palma). I wonder if we'll see anything from them this week.But who we probably won't be hearing from are the sprinters, who had one final duel to settle today. Farrar actually won by a very close margin, and in fact they needed to go to the photo to determine that Tyler had done it again. He just inched his way past a pair of HTC-Columbia sprinters. (both completely underrated and essentially unknown because of the depth on that team.)
Final Podium1. Tyler Farrar
2. John Degenkolb
3. Leigh Howard
other notables
5. Francisco Ventoso
10. Jose Joaquin Rojas
13. Gerald Ciolek
17. Robbie McEwen
22. Oscar Freire
26. Philippe Gilbert -10
67. Luis Leon Sanchez
68. Ivan Gutierrez
85. Andreas Kloden
143. Tejay Van Garderen -30
144. Denis Menchov
155. Andy Schleck
158. Frank Schleck
179. Christian Vandevelde -50
Trofeo Inca
It gets tough tomorrow. Tough cat 2 climb directly followed by a brutal cat 1. For all intents and purposes, this is the first significant climbing stage of the 2011 pro-cycling season.
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