Ignacio de Jesús Prado (Canel’s Zerouno) claimed the bunch sprint at Fort Bayard on stage 2 of the 2023 Tour of the Gila, out-pacing Brayan Sanchez (Team Medellin) and Alex Hoehn (Above & Beyond Cancer p/b Bike World).
The race leadership changed to the hands of Torbjørn Røed (Above & Beyond Cancer) after stage 1 winner Miguel Angel López (Team Medellin) crashed out earlier in the stage.
The second stage started under the usual clear blue skies and riders were ready to race. Attacks came from the first kilometre, with four riders getting a nearly immediate gap with two bridging across.
Colby Lange (Project Echelon), Logan Phippen (Novo Nordisk), Connor Pulvidente (Primal-Audi Denver), Aden Wardrop (SoCal Cycling), Patton Sims (Kelly Benefits/LSV) and Sean Hollenbeck (Expeditors) made the move, but Phippen punctured and dropped back to the field.
Lange claimed the first intermediate sprint and, heading to the first KOM, the breakaway had just over a minute in hand. As the road tilted upward, Wardrop and Sims were dropped, leaving three in front to contest the mountain sprint. Pulvidente took the top spot in Piños Altos as a 10-man chasing group fought to join them.
In the chase group were Andrew Strohmeyer (Kelly Benefits/LSV), Will Cooper, Drake Deuel, Allan Schroeder, John Borstelmann (CS Velo), Will Hardin (Project Echelon), Oscar Sevilla (Team Medellin), and Lars Quadvlieg (Universe), who picked up Sims and Wardrop along the way.
A huge crash that took out most of the peloton including race leader Miguel Angel Lopez (Medellin) forced a 19-kilometre neutralization of the race that eliminated the second KOM, with organisers leading the remaining riders slowly down the descent before racing resumed.
With the gaps re-established, Hollenbeck, Lange and Pulvidente resumed with 40 seconds on the chasers and 1:50 on the peloton but with a bunch sprint on many minds, the chase caught the leaders and the peloton soon came along to bring the race together with 40km remaining.
Medellin tried to send Walter Vargas up the road with Tobias Klein (Aevolo) and Efren Santos (Canel’s Zerouno) but the move didn’t stick.
New race leader Røed claimed the final KOM before the run-in to Fort Bayard before Michael Bouwcamp (Primal-Audi Denver) made a solo attack that was brought back before the finish.
The sprint went to Ignacio de Jesús…
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