A ride through the vineyards
Stage 5 route that skirts Lodi and Galt sees a wild finish
The Amgen Tour of California rolled through the outskirts of the Lodi/Galt area on Thursday, with Colombian rider Fernando Gaviria of Quick-Step Floors taking the stage victory at 4 hours, 4 minutes and 34 seconds.
With a couple of contenders falling back due to mechanical issues and a crash taking out others with just a few kilometers to go, Gaviria’s team started a leadout that ended with him in the lead at the finish line.
Australian Caleb Ewan of Michelton-Scott placed second, and Slovakian Peter Sagan placed third for additional time bonuses.
Gaviria, though, is still far down in the standings at 71st overall with a plus-25:45. American Tejay van Garderen ( BMC Racing), who won the fourth stage on Wednesday in Morgan Hill, is the overall leader at 16:55:29, followed by Colombian Egan Bernal (Team Sky) at plus-23 seconds, and another Colombian, Dani Martinez (EF Education First Drapac) in third at plus37 seconds.
A break of four riders pulled away in the first 50 kilometers, and growing to as much as a 3:35 gap. After leading for about two hours, the leaders ran into a headwind, and the gap began to close. Between 30 kilometers to go and 20 to go, the gap closed from 2:25 to less than a minute as the peloton gained steam.
With about 10 kilometers to go, who is second in the race records with 10 stage victories, pulled off with a mechanical issue, followed shortly by a tire puncture by Marcel Kittel to take him out of the running. Both riders rejoined the peloton by the end of the race.
The peloton caught the break with just over a kilometer to go, and the QuickStep team position itself at the front for a wild sprint fin-
ish.
A few events during the stage gave opportunities to extra points, starting with the Clements Road Sprint, which was won by Belgian Stijn Vandenbergh. The only climb of relatively flat stage came on Pardee Dam Summit Road, and was won by Cuban Ruben Companioni. Swiss rider Fabian Lienhard won the second sprint of the day, at the Hagood Sprint northeast of Wilton.
Thursday also marked the start of the women’s Tour of California, with the stage starting and ending in Elk Grove, with a dip down through Thornton in the meantime.
American Kendall Ryan (Team Tibco) won the stage at 3:07:08 after the peloton caught solo rider Whitney Allison, who built up a 40-second lead on her own at one point.
The women’s stage, an even flatter course meandering about the Delta, had one sprint near Clarksburg, with Italian rider Lisa Morzenti winning.