Ben Hermans displayed his impressive early season form with a victory Tuesday in the Trofeo Inca. This was the first serious climbing test of the Mallorca challenge, and probably the entire young season.A race like this is not only a test of form, but also tactics and Hermans was all over the place.
He nearly made a costly mistake when he chose to make a "pit stop" just a few kms from the base of the first major climb of the day, the cat 2 Soller. He found himself back in the cars well behind the field that was chugging its way to the summit, and if he would surely have been buried if he did not get in good position before the second climb, the even tougher cat 1 PuigMajor.
He buried himself for what he described as a "6 km uphill sprint" and managed to get up near the front. And he made up for that bad decision with a brilliant attack on the final climb.
He saw Movistar team up front setting up Xavier Tondo for an attack and thought he'd beat them to the punch. Hermans kicked at 1 km from the summit followed by Tondo and Geox's Arkaitz Duran.
The three took the rapidly reducing field by surprise, and they were just unable to organize and type of chase due to a lack of manpower up front and tired legs from the climbs.
After they had a substantial lead, the in-fighting between the 3 man breakaway began.Everybody was tired by the time the sprint came around, and it was Hermans just edging Duran to the line.
It was the first win of the season for Radioshack, after both Hermans and McEwen came so close to stages in the Tour Down Under but just fell short.
As for Hermans, he is establishing himself as a solid climber and has a shot at the Tour team this year if he keeps riding like this.
Not much to report back in the peloton. Lot's of guys (like Schleck) are nowhere near their form yet (and they shouldn't be) so they finished quite a ways down the classification. There were quite a few riders that finished Hors Delais also, so you can just tell it was a tough one today.
Final Podium1. Ben Hermans
2. Arkaitz Duran
3. Xavier Tondo
other notables
5. Sebastien Langeveld -45
6. Ryder Hesjedal
7. Danilo Di Luca
9. Gorka Izagirre
10. Tony Gallopin
16. Jakob Fuglsang
18. Tejay Van Garderen
20. Tony Martin
21. Rafael Valls
27. Sylvain Chavanel
32. Luis Leon Sanchez
36. Denis Menchov
38. Alexandr Kolobnev
39. Christian Vandevelde
53. Philippe Gilbert -5:47
88. Andy Schleck -15:58
119. Joaquin Rodriguez
Trofeo Deia
That climb in the beginning is going to hurt and then of course it gets really interesting. With three significant climbs in the final 50, there are numerous tactics that can be employed. If I were a rider, I'd wait until the Bleda but I'm sure someone will try on the PuigMajor again.
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