Stage 5: La Seu d'Urgell - Torredembarra

Today's stage from La Seu d'Urgell to Torredembarra is the longest of the Volta at 201.3 km (map and profile). The race started at 670 m and finished at 15 m with no categorized climbs along the way, so a bunch finish was expected, and that is what happened.

Milram's goal for the day was to work for Gerald Ciolek. In the initial kilometers, four riders broke free: Cozza (Garmin - Slipstream), Sapa (Lampre), Serrano (Contentpolis) and Ramirez (Andalusia), and had gained 4:25, 100 km into the race. Alejandro Valverde's team, Caisse d'Epargne, set the pace from the beginning, and at about 60 km into the race Cervelo Test Team and Columbia - High Road took over the chase. Early in the race Dom was feeling tired, but he felt better as the kilometers clicked by. At 125 km Dom and Markus Eichler (Team Milram) started contributing to the chase. In the closing 25 km Saxo Bank and Euskaltel - Euskadi also contributed to the chase. The last rider of the original 4 man break, Cozza (Garmin - Slipstream) was finally caught with about 4 km to go. After this, the peloton became disorganized and Team Milram was scattered throughout. Despite the chaos, Gerald Ciolek was positioned well in 5th place about 2 km to go. Unfortunately, about 2 km to go the road was wide, there was a headwind and no team was setting a high tempo so riders came up both sides and Gerald Ciolek lost his good position the second corner before the finish. Nikolai Trussov (Katusha) launched about 500 m to go into the win. No change in GC.

Tomorrow's stage (map and profile) is 150.5 km in length and features a category 2 climb followed by two category 3 climbs. Dom hopes to feel strong and get into a breakaway.

Danny

Volta a Catalunya: Stage 4

Today’s stage covered 175.7 km, consisting of two category 1 climbs followed by a category 2 climb, and finishing with a mountain top finish that is beyond classification (map and profile). Dominik is starting to feel stronger on the climbs with every completed stage. Today, Dom was conserving as much energy as is possible during a mountainous stage for tomorrow, in which team Milram is looking to set up Gerald Ciolek in what will be likely a bunch sprint.

Julian Sanchez (Contentpolis-AMPO) won the stage over Daniel Martin (Garmin – Slipstream) and current race leader Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne). Daniel Martin (Garmin – Slipstream) holds second place in the GC, with Haimar Zubeldia (Astana) in third.

Dominik says this years edition of the Volta a Catalunya is much harder than last year.

Danny

Race Update

Dom is currently racing the 89th edition of the Volta a Catalunya (ESP). Today was the opening stage, which was a 3.6 km individual time trial (map and profile) and Dominik placed 122nd, 20 seconds down from winner Thor Hushovd (Cervelo Test Team), with teammate Niki Terpstra (Team Milram) placing 8th, 4 seconds down. Martin Velits (Team Milram) will be riding for overall classification for the team and finished 8 seconds down in 33rd place today. Dom was still feeling some fatigue from this past Saturday's hard race in the Netherlands, the 24th Dutch Food Valley Classic (cyclingnews.com results), in which Dominik averaged 332 watts for the entire race (ouch). Wim Stroetinga (Team Milram) placed 8th in his homeland race.

Tomorrow's 163.1 km, mountainous stage from Girona to Roses has three climbs (map and profile):

Alt De El Angels: 10.5 km category 1, starts 57 km into race, 3% avg. grade, 7% max grade.
Alt De Cadaques: 4.9 km category 2, starts 120.7 km into race, 5% avg. grade, 7% max grade
Alt De Dant Pere De Rodes: 7.7 km climb category 1, starts 137.9 km, 6.7% avg. grade, 14% max grade

The final climb will likely decide who will be descending into a win.

Team Milram lineup for the race:
Gerald Ciolek (GER/Ermatingen,SUI), Markus Eichler (GER/Mönchengladbach), Servais Knaven (NED/Meerle,BEL), Christian Kux (GER/Chemnitz), Dominik Roels (GER/Köln), Niki Terpstra (NED/Haarlem), Martin Velits (SVK/Riemst,BEL), Paul Voß (GER/Bielefeld)

Danny

Tour de Romandie

Well the first stage was kind of easy... The organizators had pitty with us and didn’t let us go over a pass whree it would have been snowing. So we started late at 3 PM it stopped raining just when we started (was only still wet on the road) And even the sun came out, the first climb started after a couple of Ks and I felt OK and after the climb I actually went with one or two attacks. But generally it was said by the director that we could let groups of 3 or 4 riders go. So we didn’t worry about the 3 guys in front. Well they made it to the end...thats how it goes.
25 K to go there was a short but very steep climp and I was just way to far in the back heading into is as most of my teammates. Well that wasn’t so good, I think we have to function better as a team in those situations.
Well I guess today is atacing time, and I’ll try to be part of the game.

So hard stage is over now. I’m sitting in the car back from the race. The bus left was already on the way when I was ready peing- I had to go to the Anti-doping-controle-.
Well I was in about the first attac, but as I mentioned this morning lots of guys wanted to go in the break so we were caught quickly. And right than a pretty nasty climb started and I had also some breathingproblems.So I found myself dropped together with McEwen. But with the cars we could make it back to the peloton. And shortly after I got back two French(-team) guys took of. Well I tryed to help my friend and our Leader Thomas Rohregger but on the last long climb I couldn’t stay in the bunch and rode in in the Grupetto together with Cav, Cancellara and McEwen again.
Now I’m looking foreward to the Team TT tomaorrow and hope we will do good. We won’t have a chance against the Columbia guyes but we should hopefully be able to be in the best 8 Teams or so...
Later more
Take Care Y’all and enjoy riding and reading my Blog ;))