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Schulze wins long sprint at Qinghai, Davis adds to lead
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Opening up the throttle 200 meters from the line in Bird Island, Weisenhof's Andri Schulze chose to sprint long and hard towards the finish of the second stage of the Tour of Qinghai Lake, and his result surprised everyone but himself.
Immediately gapping the peloton right behind him, the German's bold move and strong legs combined in perfect unison to deliver the 32-year-old his second season victory and his second at Qinghai Lake, out-sprinting race leader Allan Davis (Discovery Channel) and Selle Italia's Alberto Loddo.
"The team worked the last 10 kilometers for me, and in the last 200 meters before the finish, I hit the front and [went] full gas. I'm really happy to get this [win] - but those last 200 meters, there was a lot of lactate in the legs!" exclaimed Schulze, who took his first Qinghai Lake stage win in 2004.
Asked about the moment he chose to sprint - some way out and up at 3222 meters above the sea - the German said: "It was the perfect moment for me, I had a free [line] down the left-hand side. But it doesn't matter," Schulze laughed, saying, "if the legs are good, then it doesn't matter."
Davis' second place on the stage extended his overall lead over Intel-Action's Denys Kostyuk to 10 seconds, with Denmark's Casper Jorgensen a further 12 seconds behind the yellow jersey. While Schulze timed his effort to perfection, the Australian said his misjudged his sprint on the slightly uphill finish: "I sort of got jumped and ended up second - I waited just a bit too much," said Davis.
Admitting he's no pure climber, Davis and his Chinese team-mate Fuyu Li have nevertheless become protected men on Discovery Channel - particularly after leader Janez Brajkovic lost more than three minutes the day before - and despite some serious climbs in the days to come, the long downhills should work in their favor.
"I wasn't here to ride GC because there's some big mountains here - I'm not a mountain rider at all - but the way it's turned out," Davis said. "For the respect of what the boys are doing now, I'll have a crack at it; there's also Fuyu [Li], but it's pretty much a race between the 18 from yesterday.
"There's big downhills and big open roads, too. We've got a few non-climbers here, but if we can get of them over the top [of the climbs] on on a couple of stages, that'll help."
Sunny start
Under sunny skies, 139 riders began the second stage in Qinghai Lake at 10am Sunday morning, who were without three riders after yesterday's opener. The undulating, 121 kilometer leg would take the peloton clockwise around the massive inland saltwater pool before finishing at Bird Island, at the northwestern perimeter of the lake.
It took almost an hour's racing before a 14-man group firmly broke free of the bunch, but escapees Rhys Pollock from DFL-Cyclingnews and Jelly Belly's Nick Reistad thought it too large to be a success, countering the move and taking Russia's Mikhail Timochine with them.
After 50 kilometers, the trio were 50 seconds ahead of a chase group of two, China's Jin Long and Ukraine's Sergiy Matveyev in pursuit, and 1:02 clear of the peloton. By midday, some 40 clicks later, the situation remained largely unchanged apart from the second group's capture, the bunch unwilling to give much more than a minute to the three out front.
To their credit, the break still had a minute at the crest of the Category 3 rise some 17 kilometers from the finish, but that's when the sprinters' teams ganged up on them and beat the break's lead to a pulp, ensuring a mass sprint finish. As they roared into Bird Island, Schulze took his chances and jumped earlier than many expected, coming home a winner ahead of Davis and Loddo, the latter missing out on second by a whisker.
Jelly Belly report
Conceding missing the move yesterday was a big mistake, Jelly Belly team manager Danny Van Hout chose not to pelt his boys with beans for punishment, but instead, focus on what is still a very open road ahead: "Yeah, that was a real big mistake by our four guys," he said to VeloNews.
"They know now; our team doesn't dwell on it, we don't shout at each other... we discuss it, they know they made a mistake, and that's it. Our best climber here is Andy Bajadali and has very good results in the States - the harder the climb, the better it is for him. Okay, it's three minutes, but as I told the guys yesterday, the race isn't over yet... he could definitely be in the top 10 by the end of next week."
Van Hout was far happier with the team's performance today, explaining that with the crosswinds and the headwinds as they are around the lake, regardless of success or failure, they needed representation - which is exactly what young Nick Reistad did.
"Today was a new day - I'm not really going for the overall, especially after yesterday - but I just look for the breaks all the time," said Reistad. "Rhys [Pollock] from DFL asked me if I wanted to attack, so we attacked that [first breakaway] group, and then the Russian guy bridged up.
"Towards the end when we had 10k to go, we had a time-check of about a minute, I kinda realized we had an outside possibility, and we definitely picked it up - we were riding a lot harder. If we would've had one or two more people, then maybe we could have stuck it till the end," he lamented.
"I just seem to have a knack for getting in breakaways, so you'll probably see me one or two more times in this tour."
