Pello Bilbao (Caja Rural) confirmed that he is in excellent condition at the moment by taking the biggest win of his career in the tough summit finish in Selcuk on stage 6 of the Tour of Turkey. The Basue bridged the gap to lone leader Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) near the top of the final climb before winning the uphill sprint while Davide Rebellin (CCC) cracked on the steep slopes and lost the overall lead to Kristijan Durasek (Lampre-Merida).

 

A few weeks ago Pello Bilbao won a stage and finished fourth overall in the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon to prove to his team that he had hit peak condition in time for the Tour of Turkey. Hence, the Spanish team went into the 8-day race hoping that their strong Basque could win the race overall.

 

However, it all came to nothing for the Spanish team in the queen stage to Elmali where Bilbao punctured at the bottom of the final climb and dropped out of GC contention. The bad luck continued for Caja Rural one day later when new captain Heinier Parra dropped out of the top 10 after he had a problem with a plastic bag on the final descent.

 

This left the team with only one option left: to go for stage wins. Yesterday they got close when Carlos Barbero finished second in the tough uphill sprint and today they saved their race when Bilbao took the third win of his short career in the tough summit finish in Selcuk.

 

After a long, slow ride in the headwind, it was a largely intact peloton that hit the bottom of the final 5km climb whose 7.5% gradient was expected to do a lot of damage. It was Sergey Grechyn (Torku) who led the bunch onto the steep slopes where he set the scene for an attack from one of his teammates.

 

The Torku rider got a nice little gap while Topsport Vlaanderen started to chase. Alessandro Bazzana (Unitedhealthcare) took a turn but it was Brice Feillu (Bretagne) who did the biggest damage after the lone attacker had been brought back.

 

Mario Costa (Lampre-Merida) gave him a short breather before the Frecnhman again hit the front of the splintering peloton. Moments later Natnael Berhane (MTN-Qhubeka) took over and with his captain Serge Pauwels on his wheel, he sent several riders out the back door.

 

Chris Jones (Unitedhealthcare) whittled the group down to 20 riders but as he swung off, the pace went down. This was the signal for Miguel Angel Lopez to attack and together with Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff-Saxo)  and Eduardo Sepulveda (Bretagne), he distanced the rest.

 

Sepulveda cracked while race leader Davide Rebellin started to chase. He reacted well when his key rival Kristijan Durasek launched a first attack and then it was Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) who took a massive turn on the front to almost bring the leaders back.

 

McCarthy was unable to keep up with Lopez and he fell back to the main group. When De Gendt swung off, Lopez again managed to increase his advantage to 15 seconds while McCarthy led the chase.

 

Caja Rural had several riders in the small group and so they hit the front with Fabricio Ferrari. When he swung off Lluis Mas took over and only Bilbao, Durasek, Parra and Alex Cano (Colomia) could keep up with him. Meanwhile, Rebellin found himself in a group further back.

 

Parra attacked from the chase group while De Gendt, Sepulveda and Ferrari worked hard to rejoin the Durasek group. Moments later, Bilbao made his move and he quickly passed his teammate Parra.

 

Passing the flamme rouge, Bilbao was still 10 seconds behind Lopez but he managed to catch the Colombian before the 500m to go mark. He made an immediate counterattack before he moved into second position behind Lopez who set a hard pace until the 100m to go mark. Here, Bilbao launched his great sprint and easily took the win. Parra held on to third 11 seconds later while De Gendt and Cano were 3 second further adrift.

 

Rebellin had even been distanced by his group in the finale and could only manage 19th on the stage. As Durasek took 6th with a time loss of just 18 seconds, the Croatian takes the overall lead with a 21-second advantage over Rebellin. He only faces one big test in tomorrow’s penultimate stage which includes an early category 2 climb before a long flat section leads to the bottom of the final category 1 climb. The summit is located 28km from the finish and then it is a fast descent and a short flat section to the finish.

 

A tough mountain stage

After two days for the sprinters, it was back into the hills for stage 6 which brought the riders over 184.9km from Denizli to a summit finish in Selcuk. After a completely flat first part, the riders got to the hilly finale where they would tackle two climbs in quick succession. First they went up a category 3 climb before the descended to the bottom of the final category 2 ascent whose 5km with an average gradient of around 8% was set to play a big part in determining the overall winner of the race.

 

There were two non-starters when the riders gathered in Denizli under a beautiful sunny sky. Colombia sprinter Sebastian Molano was suffering from a small injury and Marco Bandiera (Androni) also decided to leave the race.

 

A brutal start

The race got off to a brutally fast start with lots of attack and it took very long time for anyone to establish a bigger advantage. After 22km of racing, it was still together and the riders even got to the 35km mark without anyone getting a noticeable gap. CCC Polsat were riding attentively on the front, making sure that no one escaped.

 

At this point, the weather got worse and this prompted Etixx-QuickStep to try to attack in the crosswinds. However, they had no success and it was quickly back together.

 

The break is formed

Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida), Adam Hansen (Lotto Soudal), Boris Vallee (Lotto Soudal) and Ahmet Akdilek (Torku) tried to attack but like the previous attackers, they were quickly brought back. Moments later they passed the 50km to go mark with an intact bunch after less than an hour of racing.

 

The riders covered 52km in the first hour and moments later the first promising move was established when Malcolm Rudolph (Drapac), Jarl Salomein (Topsport), Roy Jans (Wanty) and Akdilek took off. They quickly got more than 30 seconds of advantage and now the peloton finally slowed down. After 62km of racing, the escapees were already 4.10 ahead while Genki Yamamoto (Nippo) had taken off in pursuit and was trailing at 47 seconds.

 

Yamamoto sits up

The peloton again accelerated and at the 81km mark, the gap had only grown to 4.30. Meanehile, Yamamoto was losing ground and he was now 1.50 behind.

 

Rudolph beat Salomein and Akdilek in the intermediate sprint while Yamamoto decided to sit up and wait for the peloton. Moments later Bardiani sprinter Nicola Ruffoni left the race.

 

A steady pace

After 88km of fast racing, the peloton had accelerated and brought the gap down to 3.20 as Tinkoff-Saxo and CCC had now started to chase and 4km later it was down to just 2.40. It was too early to catch the break though and so the peloton kept the gap stable for a while.

 

The riders were riding into a headwind and most riders were keen to have an easy ride after the tough start. Hence, it was left to Nikolay Trusov and Juraj Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) to ride on the front and for the next 40km they kept the gap stable at around 2.30.

 

A fight for position

The escapees sprinted for the points in the Turkish Beauty Sprint and after Salomein had tried to do a long sprint, it was Jans who took a comfortable win ahead of his compatriot and Rudolph. After the battle, they went back to work while Sagan and Trusov continued to ride on the front of the peloton.

 

With 40km to go, Sagan and Trusov had slightly accelerated and brought the gap down to 2.00 and now the riders were starting to position themselves near the front. With 30km to go, the fight for position got intense and the gap started to come down quickly. With 29km to go, it was 1.35.

 

Colli takes off

As they started to climb, Akdilek decided to sit up while the huge fight for position meant that several teams were lined out on the front of the peloton 55 seconds behind the escapees. Bretagne hit the front and it was Florian Guillou who rode hard to bring the gap down to less than 30 seconds.

 

This was the signal for Salomein to attack and he easily distanced Jans and Rudolph who were caught. Meanwhile, Daniele Colli (Nippo) attacked out of the peloton and after a Colombia rider had tried to join him, he passed the fading Salomein.

 

KOM points for Valencia

Colombia were now leading Juan Pablo Valencia out for the KOM sprint and the KOM leader did a very long sprint to pass Colli. However, he was pipped on the line by Kenny De Ketele (Topsport Vlaaderen) while Gang Xu (Lampre-Merida) took third ahead of Songezo Jim (MTN-Qhubeka).

 

Tinkoff-Saxo now took control of the peloton and as they sped down the descent, Pavel Brutt, Daniele Bennati and Evgeni Petrov worked hard. Meanwhile, there was a big fight for position behind the riders from the Russian team.

 

A big fight

With 13km to go, Topsport Vlaanderen hit the front before Bennati went back to work. Moments later Lampre-Merida took over with Sacha Modolo and after a single Bardiani rider had taken a turn, his teammate Maximilano Richeze took over.

 

Robert Förster (Unitedhealtcare) gave Richeze a small breather and again took over for a short while before Roberto Ferrari and Modolo lined things out for Lampre-Merida. Bardiani took over with Nicola Boem and Sonny Colbrelli but it was Grechyn who led the peloton onto the climb to start the finale.