Leipheimer tops on Brasstown Bald; Brajkovic leads in Georgia

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By Ben Delaney

Leipheimer does it again

Photo: Ben Ross

Lest any doubt remain about Discovery Channel’s Tour de Georgia dominance after the team took the stage win and the race lead on Thursday, the team repeated the feat Friday atop Brasstown Bald. Storming away from the peloton on the heels of an all-day breakaway, Levi Leipheimer and then Tom Danielson roared up the mountain to finish one-two.

And the mountain roared back.

Throngs of fans created a wall of sound up the steepest parts of the hors categorie climb to Georgia’s highest point, Brasstown Bald, at 4784 feet.

“I felt great,” Leipheimer said. “And Tom was gracious enough to let me win Brasstown this year.”

Vande Velde and Brajkovic stuck close to each other

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

Discovery’s young Slovenian rider Janez Brajkovic, who earned the race lead after time-trialing better than any of his stage 3 breakaway companions, retained his jersey by marking second-placed Christian Vande Velde (CSC) all the way up the steep climb.

“I just tried to focus on staying on his wheel,” Brajkovic said. “He attacked at least 20 times. There were times I was suffering, but I was able to stay with him until the end. And that’s all that matters.”

With two flat stages remaining and the race’s strongest team behind him, his overall win in Atlanta is all but assured.

The roll-out
The 107-mile queen stage to Brasstown Bald began in the small town of Dalton, just south of the Tennessee border. In true Southern-hospitality style, each team in the race was adopted by a business with a downtown location. Along the main drag, where the race started, multiple shops had painted their storefronts in their chosen team’s colors.

In addition to the typical call-up of top riders — such as Giro d’Italia winner Gilberto Simoni (Saunier Duval-Prodir), U.S. national champion George Hincapie and 2005 race winner Danielson (both Discovery Channel), race announcers also called up Crédit Agricole rider Saul Raisin. Raisin, a native of Georgia, has made a remarkable comeback from serious brain trauma and surgery following a crash at Circuit de la Sarthe last year. Raisin received the loudest applause of any rider, and preceded to lead the parade lap around downtown Dalton before the race headed out onto the road.

The parade didn’t last long, however.

As soon as riders hit the open road the cannons started firing. After stage 3’s breakaway finished with a gargantuan 29-minute gap on the field, riders starting Friday’s stage knew a break would be given a generous leash in the 100-mile lead-up to the hors categorie Brasstown Bald finishing climb. It was not a matter of if a break would go, only when.

After a flat 15-mile beginning, riders were in for a whole lot of climbing, beginning with the Cat. 2 Fort Mountain, which peaked at nearly 3000 feet, 23 miles into the race. The climb began at an elevation of 700 feet, and riders eager to get clear wasted no time in launching off the front. Multiple unsuccessful moves went clear. At one point, a small group was driven in grand-tour style with Simoni and Danielson swapping pulls.

Nearing the first King of the Mountains line atop Fort Mountain, a 16-man group came together with most teams represented. Big guns in the move included Danielson, stage 4’s time-trial winner Leipheimer, stage 4’s runner-up Dave Zabriskie (CSC) and teammate Michael Blaudzun, and Phil Zajicek (Navigators Insurance), who had been in nearly every previous move.

Padrnos keeps an eye on the race leader

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

With all the horsepower, that group quickly gained 30 seconds on the strung-out field, climbing up into pine and dogwood trees of the Fort Mountain State Park, with the flatlands visible to the west. At a kilometer shy of the top, the move had nearly a full minute.

Over the top, Zajicek took the KOM, followed by Colby, Ryder Hesjedal (Health Net-Maxxis) and Zajicek’s teammate Ben Day (Navigators). Soon, that quarter was clear and bombing down the descent, 30 seconds ahead of the now 14-man group, and 90 seconds ahead of the field. Soon, another four went clear of what was now a 10-man group — Blaudzun, Danny Pate (Slipstream-Chipotle), Chris Baldwin (Toyota-United) and Alexandre Moos (BMC).

Soon, the two quartets joined up. After a quick look around to take inventory, the group got back down to the business of prying open the gap. At 50km into the race, the eight had 2:25 on the field.

Behind, the second group of eight pedaled along halfheartedly, and was soon absorbed.

With clear skies and no winds, it was a pleasantly warm day for the field. Hesjedal had his jersey completely unzipped and flapping in the wind. Throughout the day, small groups of people set up chairs by the side of the small mountain roads, or sat on top of their cars, to watch the race fly by.

At 37 miles, the gap was up to 5:35 for the lead group, which contained two Navigators riders, plus single-man representations by Health Net, CSC, BMC, Toyota, Slipstream and Colavita.

At 43 miles the descent from Fort Mountain had ended and the long 50-mile uphill slog to the Cat. 3 Wolfpen Gap KOM began. Riders started to shirk pulls, causing Baldwin at one point to flap his arm in frustration, motioning, “Come on!” to his breakaway companions.

After a little stretching, and taking on food and bottles from the team cars, the break got back down to business. Climbing up through the Chattahoochee National Forest, riders rode through thick strands of dogwood trees that had just begun to blossom.

Grajales guts it out

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

Back in the field, Jittery Joe’s kept the pressure on in hopes of setting up their wounded ace climber Cesar Grajales. Despite having separated his shoulder at the Redlands Bicycle Classic in March, Grajales entered the Tour de Georgia with a gritty determination to repeat his Brasstown Bald victory of 2004, which he took ahead of CSC’s Jens Voigt and U.S. Postal Service’s Lance Armstrong.

“I have a hard time, with my shoulder, standing up on the bike. I hope I will have the legs today,” Grajales said before the stage. He finished 38th, 5:15 down.

Tyler Hamilton’s Tinkoff squad, in the race with only six of the allotted eight riders, lent a hand in the chase effort. Discovery Channel, which had yellow jersey Brajkovic, Danielson and Leipheimer in the peloton, did not do much work at the front.

As the race wound along the Toccoa River, fishermen in their tan vests took a break to watch the race from down in the water.

Saunier Duval on the front

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

Back in the field, Saunier Duval moved up to help chase, and soon the break’s lead was down to 3:40 at 84 miles in. Over the day’s second KOM at the 3260-foot Wolfpen Gap, Baldwin dropped off the pace, but regained the group on the descent.

Baldwin and the others only had a brief respite on the descent to 2000 feet at mile 94 before the roads kicked up again. From there, it was nothing but up and more up to the 4500-foot top of Brasstown Bald.

At 15k to go, the gap was 2:30 and dwindling. As BMC’s Swiss star Moos gave it some gas, Baldwin, Day and Zajicek came off the group with 11km to go.

“Everyone rode strong in the break, tapping through all day. But when Moos attacked at the end I just didn’t have it,” Zajicek said. “It’s amazing how quickly you can go from being away all day and feeling amazing to just totally empty. Either you have it or you don’t. I gave it a go but I didn’t have the legs at the end.”

Although he only held five seconds over Colby, Pate, Blaudzun and Hesjedal, Moos kept at it, defying his chasers and gaining whenever the road steepened.

At 10km to go, empty cars lined the narrow road, foreshadowing the crowds waiting on Brasstown.

At 5k to go, riders dove left and under a sign that read, “Welcome to the WALL.” And welcomed they were, by hundreds of fans.

While the remnants of the breakaway struggled up the hill, Saunier Duval was driving hard into the climb. Time-trial specialist David Millar took Simoni up close to the wall, and then the former Giro winner took over. He moved clear of the field, but couldn’t shake Leipheimer or Danielson.

CSC’s Christian Vande Velde, second on general classification, was having similar problems with Brajkovic.

“I waited until the last few kilometers,” said Vande Velde of his efforts to shake Brajkovic and claw into the 12 seconds that separated them on general classification. “I was actually surprised, there weren’t very many people at the end at all. It was a hard day.”

Leipheimer guns it

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

Leipheimer made it harder.

“Simoni didn’t really attack, he just took over [from Millar], which I believe was the smart thing to do,” Leipheimer said. “He’s obviously a very experienced rider, a very smart rider. He knew Tom and I were on his wheel. I just waited until his rhythm slowed a bit.”

And then Leipheimer jumped out the saddle and buzzed past Simoni.

Danielson was torn — he wanted to win the stage, but he felt obligated to stay close to Brajkovic.

“Levi attacked right away,” Danielson said. “I wanted to make sure Jani was okay. I kept listening on the radio. I let Levi get 30 seconds or so, then I attacked Simoni at about 2.5k to go.”

It was at about that point where the roads kicked again, and dense, screaming crowds pushed in against the lead vehicles, ringing bells and yelling encouragement.

“I tried to get across to Levi but he was on his own mission,” Danielson said. “But it was perfect, you know. Jani wins the race and Levi wins the stage.”

The Tour de Georgia continues Saturday with a 114-mile stage from Lake Lanier Islands to Stone Mountain Park before Sunday’s concluding circuit race in Atlanta.

Race notes
Tyler Hamilton received plenty of cheers going up Brasstown, but a tooth infection had him bogged down.

“I have to get a root canal,” he said after the finish, explaining that he intended to finish the race. “My family is here, and it’s my only chance to race back in the United States, so I’m trying to suffer through it. But it’s hard. I feel [the tooth] more than my legs. My dad probably could have ridden up faster than me today. My team liked racing here. Hopefully we’ll come back next year with a full team.”

Before Danielson raced Brasstown Bald, he drank Brasstown Bald. Danielson has his own line of coffee [http://www.tomdanielson.com/pages/tdcoffee.htm], with varieties named after famous climbs he’s raced. The steeper the climb, the stronger the blend. “Brasstown is the strongest,” he said. “I definitely had some this morning. You should have some, and you’ll climb just like us.”

Former world U23 time-trial champion Danny Pate said Brasstown Bald was the hardest climb he’d ever done in a race in North America.

“We had to put special gears on,” Pate said. “I rode a 38-27, and some of the guys were on compact cranks. It’s just a really hard climb to do on day five.”

Georgia’s favorite Australian and state resident Nathan O’Neill scored an impressive fourth-place finish, passing the likes of Simoni on his way up.

“I had really good legs at the bottom,” O’Neill said. “At first I thought I was going to get dropped from the first 10 guys, but I decided to settle in and see what happened. Turns out they weren’t going away from me and I just started to push a little harder and I started getting closer. It was pretty amazing.”

O’Neill is still fighting a staph infection in his arm resulting from a car crash a month ago.

Tour de Georgia — Stage 5
Top 10
Stage
1. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Discovery Channel, 4:33:33
2. Thomas Danielson (USA), Discovery Channel, at 0:38
3. Anthony Colby (USA), Colavita Olive Oil-Sutter Home, at 1:00
4. Nathan O’Neill (Aus), Health Net-Maxxis, at 1:06
5. Gilberto Simoni (I), Saunier Duval-Prodir, at 1:19
6. Alexandre Moos (Swi), BMC, at 1:25
7. Ryder Hesjedal (Can), Health Net-Maxxis, at 1:29
8. John Devine (USA), U-23 National Team, at 1:30
9. Christian Vande Velde (USA), CSC, at 1:38
10. Janez Brajkovic (Slo), Discovery Channel, same time

Overall
1. Janez Brajkovic (Slo), Discovery Channel, 18:57:03
2. Christian Vande Velde (USA), CSC, at 0:12
3. David Canada Gracia (Sp), Saunier Duval-Prodir, at 3:04
4. Rubens Bertogliati (Swi), Saunier Duval-Prodir, at 3:06
5. Kevin Seeldraeyers (B), Quick Step-Innergetic, at 4:22
6. Scott Nydam (USA), BMC, at 5:35
7. Jeff Louder (USA), Health Net-Maxxis, at 6:00
8. Timothy Johnson (USA), Health Net-Maxxis, at 6:59
9. Lucas Euser (USA), Slipstream-Chipotle, at 10:08
10. Ivan Santaromita (Swi), Quick Step-Innergetic, at 12:15

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Tour de Georgia — Stage 5