Stage 6 Tour of Britain

Thursday 17 September Frome to Bideford 183.7kms/114.2miles 

Photo: Splitsecondimages.co.uk. Number 4 win for Boasson Hagen on a stage where it was expected to split asunder but didn't.

Edvald Boasson Hagen is making a determined bid to out-do his remarkable 2008 Tour of Britain feats with an even more dominant performance in the 2009 edition of the race. A cracking break, with a good sprinkling of the best young Brits kept everyone on tenterhooks almost to the end, but when they were finally swept up in sight of the finish in Bideford, the question on everyone's lips was, could Boasson Hagen make it four in a row? And the answer was yes! He's simply in a class of his own in a sprint finish - much as team-mate Mark Cavendish was in the Tour de France - and for the other riders there's a horrible inevitability about his ability to sprint longer and harder than they can.

Results (full stage results including GC)

1 Boasson Hagen,Edvald Team Columbia-HTC 4h05'20"
2 Reimer,Martin Cervelo Test Team @ s/t
3 Downing,Russell Candi-TV-Marshalls Pasta @ s/t
4 Fernandez,Koldo Euskatel Euskadi @ s/t
5 De Negri,Pierpaolo ISD-Neri @ s/t
6 Merlo,Michele Barloworld @ s/t
7 Sutton,Chris Garmin-Slipstream @ s/t
8 Honig,Reinier Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team @ s/t
9 Marangoni,Alan CSF Navigare @ s/t
10 Appollonio,Davide Cervelo Test Team @ s/t

Without a doubt, the biggest crowds at the start and finish towns. Not so many along the route except in the big towns which were equally packed.

The sixth stage of the Tour of Britain took riders south to Devon and Somerset and a 183km run from Frome to Bideford. Initially rolling in profile, the stage really kicked up just before the half way point, with a solid block of almost 100km of climbing and descending, beginning withe the second category climb of Cothelstone Hill, just outside Bridgewater, followed by the third category Devil's Elbow, before the long, steep haul up the first category Winsford Hill, which alone featured almost 1000 feet of climbing. A sharp descent into Barnstaple came before a flattish final 15km into the finish. Once again the SW continued its reputation for big crowds, with both start and finish towns heaving with masses of spectators.

Cervelo Test Team's Belgian rider Serge Pauwels got the action underway with an early attack and he was soon being chased and joined by the hero of the first three stages, Topsport's Thomas De Gendt, presumably rested after a couple of days out of the limelight, plus home favourites Ben Swift, Geraint Thomas and Ian Stannard. The peloton chased them for a time, but then sat up a little and let them go, the gap going out to over two minutes quite quickly as the race looped past Shepton Mallet and Wells.

First attack of the day by Agritubel

The first climbs of the day slowed the lead group a little, but despite Columbia HTC coming to the front of the main field, the gap was holding steady at about one minute 45 seconds as they approached the big Winsford Hill climb, which took the race up onto the plateau of Exmoor. Some hard driving on the climb by Geraint Thomas kept the gap steady and the five leaders went over the top of the climb at almost 2 minutes clear.

The descent into Barstaple saw the leaders losing most of their advantage, with the gap dropping to as little as 30 seconds at one point, but they began to increase it again coming into the town - which saw some of the biggest crowds of the week to date - and were timed at 54 seconds ahead at the sprint in the centre. Behind them, Columbia HTC were having to shoulder most of the workload at the front of the main pack.

Surprisingly, Ben Swift was dropped by the leaders on a short climb as they exited Barnstaple and he dropped back to the main field quite rapidly. His inability to stay in touch was perhaps more a reflection of the speed and determination of his co-escapees than of his fatigue and the break began to look like it might stay away. The sight of the sea reminded the riders that they were well within the last 10km of the stage and about to head inland along the Torridge estuary, to the finish at Bideford and all four kept working hard. The gap was, at this point, hovering around the 40 second mark, a useful margin you might have thought.

However, the Columbia boys timed it just right again, helped a lot by the Cervelo Test Team, pulling back the leaders' advantage with about a mile to go: in the end, the Columbia team had nothing left to put into a lead-out for the increasingly invincible Boasson Hagen, but the Norwegian got in behind the Cervelo riders and came through to finish the job with customary aplomb. He extended his overall lead in the process and unless someone can unseat him in tomorrow's penultimate stage he is likely to hold on to it to the finish in London on Saturday.

Yellow jersey for another day, Edvald Boasson Hagen who looks like being a real star of the Team Sky pro team.

Edvald Boasson Hagen:
“It is never boring to win stages so I am very happy to win again. The team was working really hard today with a strong group in front. I was confident the whole stage we would catch them except for the last 10 kilometres. We had help from some other riders and we brought them back.”

“Thomas did an amazing last two k to help me.” During the race, the break saw the following cars pulled out as the gap had come down but the gap then opened up again. Edvald said of this “We didn’t want to totally close it and wanted to keep them at a distance and then they got a little bit too much gap!”

“After Thomas did a big turn for me, I jumped onto the wheels of the Rabobank and finally on the last corner, Cervelo came through and I had a nice lead out from them. In the sprint I didn’t not thing about where the wind was, I just went full gas!”

On why other teams are not attacking him, he said, “we had our team on the front the whole day and I don’t think they want to disturb us when we are riding. I am glad there were not attacks. Maybe they do not see the point of attacking when they know we will close the gap anyway.”

“I have already had four stage wins now, and I am satisfied with that but I have never won the yellow jersey so we shall see when we have the meeting.”

Thomas de Gendt
The team leader said it would be useful if had some more points for the Mountains jersey and in the race we figured out if I had the first two KOM’s, then no-one would catch me anymore. That was the meaning for me at the start of the race. I knew it would hard and when they give up when we have a minute, that was fine for us.”

“The group was very strong and everyone did their work and so I had the right guys with me.” When he was congratulated by Richard Moore for clinching the king of the mountains, the rider who has been in more breaks than anyone and shown himself to be a strong young rider, he replied “I still have to finish tomorrow and may be I have bad legs tomorrow and fall behind at the beginning of the race and get eliminated!”

“There will be no attacks tomorrow! I think I have enough kilometres of attacking.”  

Thomas De Gendt leads the break over the climb and gets some more points to make sure he will get to keep the Climbers jersey.

Geraint Thomas:
One of the British riders in the break today was the Olympic champion in the team pursuit, Welshman Geraint Thomas. “I saw the group going and jumped across. I saw also that Swifty and Stannard were in there, and there were four or five guys so I thought it was worth going with. We just wanted to put Columbia under a bit of pressure. We wanted to get them to ride all day and if I was there, I knew they would have to keep us in check so to speak.”

Geraint Thomas was very strong on the climbs today.

“They are all going to be a bit tired now and so will I but we have Steven (Cummings) and Froome (Chris) who had a decent ride today and they will be attacking like fury tomorrow. We are not going to give them an easy ride and they are going to have to work for that jersey.”

“I didn’t think our break was going to succeed until 4k to go. We gave it a good shot and I gambled a bit as I didn’t pull flat out and wanted to bluff it bit – that’s bike racing. I have been feeling good on the climbs and wanted to keep the pressure on.” Then smiling, he said “Swifty and Stannard they can go a bit soft so you have to keep the pressure on. Let them know what’s going to happen!”

“Me, Stannard and Serge Pauwels are already confirmed for team Sky so it was a good group. We all pulled our weight well including Swifty and that Belgium dude, hats off to him, fourth day out there and he was still pretty strong.”

“I feel strong pre Worlds. The only up side to my season is when I’ve been getting up off the floor to be honest and I couldn’t even do that at one point. It has been one of those years but it is all behind me. Now I’m going well and getting stuck in and making the most of it. I felt good all day today.”

Ian Stannard leads the break doing what he does best.

Team Rapha Condor Post Race Reactions (thanks to Paul Rowlands)
Immediately after the stage I asked Kristian House what had happened out there on the stage: "Exactly the same as every other day, groups go in the right combination and then that’s it, they let it go... they chase it down, bring it back in the last couple of km, then a bunch kick”

I then asked if there was anything left in the race at all for anyone else? “Maybe something’ll happen tomorrow, it’s a harder day but all you can do is be there and try” As a rider from the South West region with friends and family out there on the route I asked Simon Richardson what the atmosphere had been like in the race today "I was hoping for a soft move to go and I’d be in it, but it was cool, a beautiful days racing. We rode through my grandparents village, so they were out along with my mum and then my dad and my brother were elsewhere, it was good. Regardless of whether people are shouting my name there were just thousands of people out. A fantastic stage, really really good."

I asked John Herety for an insight into the director sportif’s view on the dominance of Columbia and the rationale behind CSF joining them at the front to chase today “I think there’s a reluctance on his part to use all his riders up completely, to empty the tanks on them all the way so to speak. But I think the type of riders that they have there gives them strength in depth. I’m pretty sure they’ll continue in the same vein tomorrow”

And speakng about the contribution to the chase made by team CSF: “Sometimes allegiances are made out on the road over the course of a stage or even over the course of a season and I just felt that on a couple of the climbs the CSF riders just took over at the front a little bit. I don't think you want to read too much into that, that happens from time to time on races."

I asked if that meant that there were any chinks in the Columbia armour “I don’t think so, the type of riders they’ve got with the Tour de France in their legs, I couldn’t see any chinks in the armour, certainly didn’t today. They bossed that peloton just how they wanted it. Catching the breakaway at just the right moment. Textbook stuff and all credit to them, top team, top tactics”

With a flat stage in London to come after tomorrows penultimate stage I asked John if tomorrow represented the last throw of the dice for Rapha Condor in this years race? "No, we still have two days. We looked at both these stages and the finale of tomorrows stage is a bit more difficult than today. There’s a KoM just before the finish and there’s an uphill into the finish area itself. A possible springboard for somebody whether or not it’s one of our boys I don’t know. I’d like to think it will be but looking the way that Boassen Hagen won into Stoke on an uphill finish he’s going to be difficult to beat."

"Looking at tomorrow the only surprise I could see would be Boassen Hagen getting in a break to take the pressure off his own team, but even if it does we just have to go with the flow without an out and out sprinter. Then finally looking ahead to London "We’ll put on a show in London, its a flat stage, it’s something that we’re good at riding the criteriums as we’ve done this year. You’ll certainly see Rapha Condor riders off the front in London."

EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS
British Cycling is the only media with a photographer on a motorbike covering the whole race. Here are the exclusive photos of the sixth stage. Our thanks to NEG (Wales) pilot Graham Harper for his help in getting these photos.

SImon Holt of CandiTV/Marshalls Pasta gets a leg rub before the stage start by the team soigneur

Ireland's Nicholas Roche gives us a wave as he relaxed with a coffee only ten minutes before the start

Riders in the Tour of Britain climb up the steep hill out of the start town of Frome with the jersey's to the fore.

A race policeman gives the kids a lot to cheer about as he makes their day with a high five as the race approaches

Second move of the race led away by an AG2R rider

More riders try to get something going

A Cervelo rider tries to go it alone and a break forms from his effort.

The big break of the day led by Sprint and KOM leader Thomas de Gendt of Belgium

The chase for the break continued for a while with 'local' Simon Richardson to the fore but the peloton was soon controlled by Columbia.

Ben Swift after days of trying got into a break today.

The only time I saw Columbia sit up was at the feed zone.

Ben Swift reaches into his musette for a drink or food

Over the top of the climbs and into the exposed moors, many expected to see some action but as ever, Columbia controlled their rivals.

Another town and another big crowd

Into the final 15k and Ben Swift is distanced from the leading group with the peloton still a minute back

Thomas De Gendt drives the break along and behind riders are gritting their teeth to hold his wheel.

The catch -- the peloton are almost on the breakway with only two K to go... cruel luck for them for sure.

Coming into the final kilometre and Rabobank lead the bunch which is not at full gas it seems by the photos.

The countryside for this stage was very picturesque and well worth a holiday if the weather is as great as it was today!

Another big group of children cheer the race on with Ian Stannard leading them through

Chaos at the start with a big crowd, teams arriving late and a group of local riders up front of the race for the climb out of the town.

With Thomas de Gendt having multiple jerseys along with Edvald Boasson Hagen, there are only two jerseys on the stage after the finish of stage 6