In a normal bike race, if a two-man breakaway has a minute with 30 kilometres to go, their chances of holding off the chasing peloton on flat roads without extreme weather conditions are slim. But the Colorado Classic is no normal bike race. Small teams, high altitude, cagey team tactics, communication difficulties and two strong riders all conspired to rip up the usual script. Stage 3 in Denver began with neo-pro TJ Eisenhart (Holowesko-Citadel) leading WorldTour rider Alex Howes (Cannondale-Drapac) by a single second. The stage was only 128km heading out from Denver and back, over one massive mountain pass. But with 50km from the last climb, and a long, fast descent, the attack of Manuel Senni (BMC) and Serghei Tvetcov (Jelly Belly-Maxxis) should have been easily reeled in. The problem was, there were only 22 guys left in the chasing `peloton`, and the escapees stayed clear with a 54-second advantage at the line. Senni claimed the blue leader`s jersey by 15 seconds over Tvetcov, while Howes, aching to win in his home race, has been pushed to third at 31 seconds. Eisenhart, caught behind a small split and losing another second to Howes at the second intermediate sprint bonus, trails in fourth at 33 seconds.ADVERTISEMENT How did it go so wrong for Cannondale-Drapac? They had high-calibre riders Rigoberto Uran and Hugh Carthy to pull back the leaders; it should have been no problem. Directeur sportif Ken Vanmarcke says they had no idea the gap had gotten as large as it had to the leaders until it was too late to bring them back. `On the descent, it went wrong. The last time gap we got was 15 seconds, maybe 20, on the small uphill climb. We could see them. It was no stress at all. The guys were keeping them in the 15-20 second (range). `Then it went down, and it started climbing, and it was one minute. There was no time gap given between, so it was suddenly one minute. We were already riding hard, but from then on, we went even harder. Some teams didn`t want ...
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