Saturday 21 February 2015

Ruta Del Sol Stage 5

The final stage of the Ruta Del Sol has a profile which should keep a lot of riders interested.


The peloton should be pretty knackered from two big cold mountain stages which went to Contador and Froome. This is an up and down stage without any big climbs but the relentless up and down nature will tire the riders, the finish is set just after a characteristic spanish wall, the final climb is about 1.1k at 7% average, this consists of 600m at 3% then 300m at upto 20% and then a flat final 200m.

Obviously a break could make this as Sky will have little interest in taking the stage win, all they will care about is making sure Contador does not nick a couple of seconds. However a break will need some serious firepower as I think Movistar and Giant will want to set this up for Lobato and Degenkolb, the run in to that last 1.1km will also be extremely rapid as all the teams with GC riders will be fighting for position.

The teams will need to fully back their punchy sprinters and have enough numbers to control late attacks. I can see Sky setting a harsh pace up that 300m to prevent a Bertie attack, then Movistar will shepherd Lobato up the climb as they have a really strong team to do that and then he will have the most team mates to get the win. I've backed him at 9/2 with 1pt.

I've also backed Grega Bole at 40/1 0.5pt ew at BV, he is fast enough to podium and should cope with the climb no problem, the climb is a bit like that at Hatta Dam a few weeks ago when Degenkolb won. I would back Degenkolb but I'm worried that he will be isolated and swamped as Giant have had a hard week with crashes and Geschke has been in breaks the last two days and I would of thought he'd need a fresh Geschke to keep him in place.


A couple of other small interests are Ligthart who is in great form and I'm struggling to understand why he is in three figures here. 0.25pt ew at 150s and also Silvestre at 150s for similar reasons, both Bet365


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