Rally's Dal-Cin wins stage 1 at Tour of the Gila

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The altered finish for the opening Mogollon Road Race stage at the Tour of the Gila proved difficult enough to keep the sprinters at bay on Wednesday, as Rally Cycling’s Matteo Dal-Cin outpowered UnitedHealthcare’s Daniel Jaramillo to the finish at Whitewater Mesa to take his first win for his new team. Rally’s Colin Joyce was third.

“I felt really good today,” Dal-Cin said. "I was sitting close to the front, and when a move that Sepp covered came back, I still felt good and took a flyer. We had four or five guys right up there so when I went and they sat up and I got a pretty healthy gap straight away. I took a look back and could see our guys all over the front of the peloton so I just went for it."

The traditional Tour of the Gila stage 1 finish atop the Mogollon climb was scrapped this year due to poor road conditions, and although organisers anticipated a bunch finish when they added time bonuses and sprint points to the stage top three, the short, steep climb leading to the finish at Whitewater Mesa proved enough of a challenge to give the climbers their day.

The day started with a brief neutral lap around host town Silver City as the riders loosened their legs for the 143km stage ahead.

Teams launched multiple moves in the early going, but none was able to stick until Conor O’Brien from H&R Block found a little bit of room ahead of the first intermediate sprint at 30km. The field quickly had O’Brien back in the fold before lining things out for the sprint, where Elevate-KHS’s Alex Hoehn took the three-second bonus and top sprint points ahead of O’Brien and Elevate’s Alfredo Rodriguez.

Marc-Antoine Nadon (H&R Block)  took advantage of a lull after the intermediate sprint to launch an attack, and he was quickly joined by Canyon Bicycles' Michael Burleigh and Chad Beyer up the road to form the three-rider move that would be the carrot for the chase over the remainder of the day.

The peloton was happy with the make-up of the breakaway, and the trio quickly started adding time to their advantage, which eventually topped out around six minutes.

Nadon took the top bonus at the second intermediate sprint ahead of Beyer and Burleigh, but the effort may have cost him as he was dropped from the group soon after.

Burleigh and Beyer kept on, but the with the chase picking up in earnest back in the peloton, their time off the front was numbered as the advantage started to come down steadily. The gap was down to just 2:35 with 50km remaining, and when Burleigh dropped out of the group Beyer was left to soldier on alone.

Beyer had a 1:30 gap with about 20km to go, but with Rally and UnitedHealthcare looking toward the finale, his time out front was soon over. With 10km to go things were back together and teams were starting to jockey for position on the front.

Rally, UnitedHealthcare, Jelly Belly-Maxxis, Axeon Hagens Berman, Silber and Movistar-Team Ecuador all massed near the front in anticipation of the final climb with about 5km to go. From there it was a mad dash to be the first up the 13 percent grade and have the pole position for the win.

Dal-Cin, winner of the Redlands Bicycle Classic last year while riding for Silber Pro Cycling, emerged from the fray to take the opening victory and the first leader's jersey of the week.

“The guys rode incredible all day,” said Rally director Pat McCarty. “I don't think it could have gone much better for the team. Matteo was an absolute beast and attacked over the top of the climb with two kilometers to go. We had several guys at the front of the peloton to mark any moves and in the end, we put six guys in the top 10. There are still four tough stages ahead, but it's nice to start off with a strong showing.”

Despite being at th wrong end of numerical advantage in the top 10, UHC director Seba Alexandre was happy with his team's effort an optimistic about the stages ahead.

"The team rode well today," Alexandre said. "With the change in the finish we focused on getting everyone in at the same time. Clarke and Henderson worked hard to bring everyone into the last 5km together. All the teams have GC contenders in the same time, and so we are looking forward to an exciting stage tomorrow."

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