CYCLING

Daily Diary: Bevin talks Tour Down Under - Stage 3

By Aaron S Lee

NZ Bike caught up with Cannondale’s Patrick Bevin to get his thoughts on the Corkscrew and teammate Michael Woods’ third-place finish.

ADELAIDE—At only 2.5 kilometres in length with an average gradient of 9.4 percent, the Corkscrew Road climb has built itself quite a reputation over the years, and it certainly lived up to the hype on stage 3 of the 2016 Santos Tour Down Under on Thursday, Jan. 21, in South Australia.

Belgian Laurens De Vreese (Astana) attacked from the very start and continued uncontested for the majority of the race building a 3-minute lead in the process.



After catching De Vreese, a small group of riders, including Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge), Richie Porte (BMC Racing), Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing), Domenico Pozzovivo (AG2R La Mondiale) and stage 2 winner Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff), ground its way up the hill in pursuit of Sergio Henao (Team Sky) and Michael Woods (Cannondale Pro), who were first to reach the summit.

The chase group ultimately caught the brief break on the descent at speeds of over 105km/h toward the 5.7-kilometre finish of the 139km race from Glenelg to Campbelltown.

In the end, it was three-time race winner Gerrans who edged out last year’s TDU winner Dennis and neo-pro Woods to lift the ochre leaders jersey off McCarthy, who finished fourth and is now second overall just four seconds behind after picking up bonus time on the intermediate sprints.

For the second day in a row, Cannondale’s youth movement continued to shine, as Woods was half a wheel from riding into the blue polka dot king of the mountain jersey and showed tremendous descending skills to not only finish third on the day, but also move up to fourth on general classification, just 11 seconds behind the new leader. Bevin falls to 14th overall at 37 seconds back behind Aussie teammate Simon Clarke in 11th (+28s).

“I watched so many of these guys on YouTube and on the TV while suffering on the trainer and to actually be racing with them and be ahead of them at some points on the bike was just a fantasy come true,” said Woods after the race. “A surreal moment for sure.”

A day before, fellow neo-pro and New Zealand time trial champion finished sixth on the day to move briefly into the top 10 overall.

NZ Bike caught up with Bevin after the stage to get his thoughts on the ‘Corkscrew’ and Woods’ third-place finish…

Bevin’s diary entry: Stage 3 – Glenelg – Campbelltown, 139km
From the start, we have set out a plan each day and it pretty much has come together, and if you can come together on a day like today, you can on any day, as it doesn’t come much tougher. That run in to the finish is downright scary.

On it’s own the Corkscrew Road climb is not terrible, but when you’ve been fighting for half an hour relentlessly leading in to the bottom, it’s at totally different climb. Although it’s only 2.5km long, it felt like it was 30 minutes to the top.

I got a bit swamped at the bottom, but made sure Mike Woods was in good position for the climb, which he was and he let it rip. We knew he was in good from, but it I am sure he surprised plenty of the others and that’s a great step forward for team and a great result for him.

I watched for the most part as we weren’t too terribly far behind and you could see what was going on and hear on the radio. I saw him trying to counter Richie Porte, and we knew if we could get him on the climb he’d be hard to pop.

I crossed the line in third in our chase group, which was a bit confusing. I knew there weren’t a lot of guys up the road, maybe 10 or so, and all of the sudden our group was sprinting full gas from the corner and I thought maybe there wasn’t that may up front after all and we were sprinting for fifth or sixth place, which was not the case.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad day for Cannondale with three guys in top 15 and now leading the teams classification. From here it’s just going to get better as we are coming together more and more every day. We’re not done yet that’s for sure.

Mike showed he’s going to be right up there as one of the strongest climbers here and we are going to look after him so he can have another go on Willunga Hill later this week.
Until next time, stay tuned…
-Patrick Bevin

Tomorrow’s entry: Stage 4 – Norwood – Victor Harbor, 138km

Stage 3 results (top 5)
1.    Simon Gerrans, AUS, Orica-GreenEdge                           3h37:34
2.    Rohan Dennis, AUS, BMC Racing                                            s.t.
3.    Michael Woods, CAN, Cannondale Pro                                    s.t.
4.    Jay McCarthy, AUS, Tinkoff                                                      s.t.
5.    Steve Morabito, SUI, FDJ                                                         s.t.
 

General classification (top 5)
1.    Simon Gerrans, AUS, Orica-GreenEdge                           10h28:12
2.    Jay McCarthy, AUS, Tinkoff                                                    +03
3.    Rohan Dennis, AUS, BMC Racing                                          +05
4.    Michael Woods, CAN, Cannondale Pro                                  +11
5.    Sergio Henao, COL, Team Sky                                              +15
 
Aaron S. Lee is a cycling and triathlon columnist for Eurosport and a guest contributor to NZ Bike Magazine.