FORT COLLINS — Tinkoff-Saxo’s Roman Kreuziger led a break of six men for most of the day and held on for a Stage 6 win Saturday in the USA Pro Challenge while Rohan Dennis (BMC) comfortably retained the yellow jersey going into Sunday’s final stage from Golden to Denver.
Dennis will have a 44-second advantage over teammate Brent Bookwalter.
“Obviously our team is strong,” Dennis said. “Roman went off the front, and it wasn’t worth going too deep to bring him back. (Sunday) is more of a sprint stage. (Saturday) was probably the last time where guys could realistically take time off us.”
PHOTOS:
Kreuziger was touted before the tour as a potential general classification winner. It didn’t work out that way — he is more than 14 minutes behind Dennis — but that made him motivated for a stage win.
“I came in with two goals and missed one,” said the Czech rider, who struggled with the high-altitude stages of the race. “I thought (Saturday) was a good day to try because I started already to feel better (Friday) during the time trial. I felt the condition was better than other days. So the plan was to try, and finally it worked. It was much, much better here, because on Independence Pass it was really not easy to breathe.”
The 102-mile stage began in Loveland and covered relatively flat terrain before climbing 2,600 feet over the next 14 miles to 8,000 feet. Then it descended 13 miles down Rist Canyon, and after that the men had a loop east of Horsetooth Reservoir that the women did not ride.
Kreuziger broke away early with Javier Leal Megias (Novo Nordisk), Leonardo Basso (Trek Factory), Dylan Girdlestone (Drapac), Tom Zirbel (Optum) and Nathan Brown (Cannondale-Garmin).
“The last kilometers you never know what is going to happen, because after the hot day and we came down from high altitudes to more normal,” Kreuziger said. “I had just to try, so four (kilometers) to go I tried with Brown and then (Megias) came back. I was surprised that he closed the gap, but in the end he pulled me nicely to the win.”
BMC didn’t worry about Kreuziger and those who rode with him. It focused on not letting the yellow jersey get away in the peloton.
“The first 33 kilometers there were two sprints and UnitedHealthcare, with Kiel Reijnen, was able to take that green (sprint) jersey off of me,” Dennis said. “We let them (UnitedHealthcare) control it and just sat behind them. The attacks came after that, but we just rode our own tempo and brought back anything that was dangerous.”
Dennis took the yellow jersey on Stage 4 from Aspen to Breckenridge after finishing second the two previous days. The Aussie won the Stage 5 time trial by 27 seconds and on Sunday can become the first non-American to win the tour.
“The general classification is getting pretty set here and we just had a few people to watch, plus there were a lot of other teams motivated to win the stage (Saturday),” BMC Racing Team Sport Director Jackson Stewart said. “We were happy to see other teams control it and go for the stage win and help us out.”
John Meyer: jmeyer@denverpost.com or
Sunday’s stages
MEN’S SEVENTH STAGE/WOMEN’S THIRD STAGE
Start: Golden
Finish: Men in Denver, women in Golden
Distance: 68.1 miles for men, one-hour timed race on a 1.4-mile loop for women.
Women’s start time: 10:30 a.m.
Men’s start time: 1:10 p.m.
Women’s finish time: 11:30 a.m.
Men’s estimated finish: 2:03 p.m.
Course descriptions: Golden is a hotbed for Front Range cyclists, and the women figure to put in a spectacular show there. They will be making circuit loops in downtown Golden and the Colorado School of Mines campus for an hour, making some tough climbs, steep descents and tight turns. The men will start in downtown Golden, make a loop around North Table Mountain, climb Lookout Mountain — which figures to attract massive crowds — then head east to Denver, where they will make four laps of the Civic Center area and City Park.
Some roads will close
To prepare for the race finale Sunday in , city officials closed some key downtown roads starting Saturday: Broadway from Colfax to 13th Avenue; 14th Avenue from Cherokee to Lincoln and Bannock from Colfax to 13th Avenue.
Riders are expected to enter the city limits at 29th and Sheridan about 2:30 p.m., according to Denver officials.
Until they enter the Denver circuit downtown, other road closures will be rolling, which should have limited impacts on motorists and residents, said Denver Public Works.
Riders are expected to finish at about 3:45 p.m.
