Australian neo-pro Ruby Roseman-Gannon (BikeExchange-Jayco) had mixed feelings after stage 6 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, pleased to have been in the day’s breakaway but with a hint of disappointment at how the race played out.
Roseman-Gannon ticked off the team’s first goal by making it into the hotly-contested 14-rider break that formed at the 80km to go mark and stayed away for most of the day, but could not take the race to the line in Rosheim despite feeling good.
“It would have been great for it to stay away,” Roseman-Gannon told Cyclingnews at the finish. “I think I rode pretty well, I just missed that final three that got away. I was pretty cooked, but I think if I had just positioned myself a little further up I might have been able to hold on, but it was a good race.
“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t and you’ve just got to put yourself out there. It was cool to be a part of the race."
With almost all the major teams represented in the break, there was not necessarily a reason for the bunch to chase them down, the GC interests and a lack of cooperation spelled the end for the escapees.
“The break wasn’t working probably as well as it needed to stay away, and the attacks started a little early,” she said. “Jumbo and FDJ didn’t want their riders to work, and Canyon, so we had three riders sitting on, so you don’t really want to work too hard when it’s not evenly distributed. And then Trek started at 30km to go. I think we needed some commitment from everyone for that to stick, but we gave it a good go.”
As the closest rider on the overall classification at just 3 minutes, 15 seconds down on Vos, Roseman-Gannon herself was the biggest threat on GC, but did not think that contributed to the short leash the break were given.
“I think all the teams know that the next two stages will probably sort that out,” she said. “I’m not a bad climber, but on the longer climbs I don’t think I’m going to be very competitive, so I don’t think they were too concerned about that.”
Going into the final weekend of the Tour de France, BikeExchange-Jayco have limited GC hopes after Kristen Faulkner lost time earlier in the week, but are still backing the Giro stage winner for a victory in the Vosges.
“We’ll probably be supporting [Faulkner] into the next two days,” she said. “We’ve seen before that if she gets a big gap, it’s pretty hard to bring her back, so I think if we can set that up, that would be pretty cool.”
