spare cycles

Photo by Ken Conley

Tour de Georgia Stage 7 Photo Gallery (in progress)

The final stage in Atlanta was a rugged urban stage with plenty of potholes to send riders off the back in search of new wheels. The field let a break of 12 get away, including Tom Danielson and Rhys Pollock, but High Road, with Big George Hincapie at the front, kept the lead manageable throughout the ten laps. Rock Racing, despite having already lost a couple of riders on the course, worked to bring back the break going into the final laps, but the day was meant to be all High Road: Greg Henderson beat out JJ Haedo on the uphill sprint as High Road successfully defended its overall and sprint jersey. Jason McCartney's KOM jersey was already sewn up for CSC yesterday, and the sprint finish meant that Trent Lowe's lead in the young rider competition was never threatened. Astana had to settle for the Best Team award, which is a great accomplishment, but probably much less than they had hoped for. The Overall Most Aggressive Rider went to Rory Sutherland, the big Health Net rider who showed off climbing legs as well as a daring attack on Stage 3.

Tour de Georgia Stage 7 Photo Gallery (in progress)

Photo by Ken Conley

Tour de Georgia 2007 Stage 6 Photo Gallery

Kanstantin Siutsou shocked all the Tour de Georgia pundits by winning Brasstown Bald and moving into the Tour de Georgia lead. While everyone's GC eyes were focused on the battle between Trent Lowe and Levi Leipheimer just behind, Siutsou managed to put 10 seconds on the two. With the GC separated by very few seconds due to the close TTT finishing times, this was just enough to put High Road into the yellow jersey. Siutsou came so far out of nowhere that reporters had to ask Bob Stapleton afterwards how to pronounce his name.

High Road's Tour de Georgia has now gone from good to excellent, with both the overall and sprint lead, as well as two stage victories. They will be focused on a defending both tomorrow along Atlanta's circuit.

Stage 6 was full of surprises. No one predicted that Trent Lowe would be duking it out it Levi for the overall, nor did they predict that Lowe would actually beat Levi. Who would have though that Astana would be shutout at an American Tour without even a stage win, after having won all Tour of California/Georgia/Missouris since Landis took the 2006 Tour de Georgia. There's still hope for tomorrow, but they'll have to play a perfect hand to take 14 seconds.

Big things were expected of Tom Danielson, but he finished nearly 12 minutes back, smiling as he climbed. Photos show him and Zabriskie doing work at the front of the peloton to reel in the break, so I guess Slipstream put all their hopes on Lowe -- and he would have delivered, if anyone had known anything about Siutsou.

Then there's Team Type 1, which finished two riders in the top ten up Brasstown -- as many as any other team. Jittery Joe's found success with Neil Shirley, who hung with a break of Svein Tuft, Jason McCartney, and Andrey Mizurov to take the Most Aggressive Award.

Tour de Georgia 2007 Stage 6 Photo Gallery

Photo by Ken Conley

Tour de Georgia Stage 3 Photo Gallery

High Road took control of the peloton as it arrived in Gainesville and kept that control until the end. Andre Greipel lead Greg Henderson out at the start of the downhill and no one could challenge as the peloton reached blistering 50+mph speeds. Greipel was able to coast into second as Henderson managed a very quick arms raised salute before having to regain control of his bike. George Hincapie raised his arms in salute as well, having protected Henderson though the finishing circuit.

With the exception of the KOM jersey, which is firmly in the hands of Frank Pipp until the peloton sees another climb, there was a major reshuffling of the jerseys. Greg Henderson jumped into the top spot after Ivan Dominguez had major trouble staying attached to the peloton. I'm not sure what happened, but there were a lot of Toyota United riders off the back. Greg Henderson also got take the sprinter jersey that had been on loan from Ivan Dominguez. Tyler Farrar's third-place sprint broke the tie in the best young rider competition. He also moved into second place in the sprint classification.

It was breakaway central on the undulating circuit as Rory Sutherland was first to get separation on the peloton. His daring effort earned him the Most Aggressive Jersey award. Oscar Sevilla also repeated his breakaway attempt from yesterday and managed to jump past Sutherland, but was unable to hold off the lineup for the sprint.

An earlier, four-man breakaway of Scott Zwizanski, Frank Pipp, Rhys Pollock and Moises Aldape was able to get separation on the field after a crash in the peloton took out Slipstream's Tim Duggan. Frank Pipp used the break to gather up two of the three intermediate sprints while Pollock flew his Most Aggressive jersey.

Tour de Georgia Stage 3 Photo Gallery

Photo by Ken Conley

Tour de Georgia Stage 2 Photo Gallery

JJ Haedo sprinted right through the middle of the pack to take a close, close victory of High Road's Greg Henderson. A bandaged hand from a recent break seemed to be no impediment to Haedo, who is a familiar rider atop the podium at the Tour de Georgia. Ivan Dominguez put in a good effort to take third and protect his leader's jersey. Despite talking about how heavy the yellow jersey is, his Toyota United team has done a good job of holding onto it. Justin England spent a lot of time off the front in a breakaway that kept the other teams working and Toyota United rested. In a bit of a surprise, England didn't get the Most Aggressive Award, and instead it went to Marco Polo rider Pollock, who bridged up to England.

Slipstream put in a lot of work for young rider Tyler Farrar. Farrar took the first intermediate sprint to make up for his stage 1 deficit (due to a flat), but Haedo, Henderson, and Dominguez controlled the sprint today.

The best move of the day probably goes to Health Net's Frank Pipp. With no KOMs tomorrow, or Stage 4's TTT, Health Net gets to fly the KOM jersey for three straight stages -- all for a puny Cat 4 on the South Carolina side of the river.

Tour de Georgia Stage 2 Photo Gallery

Photo by Ken Conley

Photo by Ken Conley

Stage 1 Photos

With his baby due any moment, Ivan Dominguez must have decided that getting a stage win early was important. Dominique Rollin set him up well for the sprint and Dominguez's jump was well-timed -- despite not being able to see the finish line until 100m to go. Dominguez now has the overall lead at the Tour de Georgia, but he noted that "it's heavy" and that he'd prefer one in green. His teammate Stevic was already out on the road today trying to sweep up as many sprint points as he could to protect Dominguez.

In an odd break during the day, Danielson, Julich, and Horner jumped off the front. Julich and Horner are easy to understand as they haven't been tapped as team leaders, but Danielson's jump either means his lieutenants failed to cover or that that he isn't their leader... or maybe he was just having fun. Either way, the break didn't hold and Nydam, Meier, Van Ulden,and Pipp had the honor of being the last break on the road. Nydam's effort put him in the familiar position of donning the Most Aggressive Rider jersey at the end of the day.

Today's stage was beautiful, brief, and flat. Chris Baldwin joked with a CSC rider before the stage that the route was a criterium. The KOM jersey won't be donned until tomorrow after riders are sent over a small climb on the finishing 5 mile circuit.

Stage 1 Photos

Tour de Georgia 2006: Landis dominates the US scene and holds off Danielson

Tour de Georgia 2007: A long break gets Brajkovic the overall

Tour de Georgia 2008