Brent Bookwalter (BMC Racing) continued his rising form from last week's Tour of Utah, winning the second stage at USA Pro Challenge Tuesday after a dramatic finish at Arapahoe Basin.
In the final kilometre, Bookwalter’s teammate Rohan Dennis led a chase group to catch day-long escapee Nate Brown (Cannondale-Garmin) before Bookwalter launched a final punch to win the stage. Dennis finished second, with Hugh Carthy (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) in third. Bookwalter now leads the general classification by six seconds over Dennis. Carthy is third, 10 seconds back.
The result has been a longtime coming for Bookwalter, who finished fourth at the Tour of Austria in July and third at the Tour of Utah earlier this month, grabbing two second place stage finishes along the way.
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"I’ve had a run of good form and a good run of results, but that win has eluded me, and it’s eluded me in a lot of different ways: breakaways, sprints on climbs," he said in the post-stage press conference. "So to get it on a summit finish and to get it on the back of some awesome teamwork, I couldn’t imagine it being any better. Like Taylor [Phinney] said yesterday, it’s electric. It makes me feel alive and it makes me feel inspired. This is what makes all the tough times we fight through worth it."
Bookwalter, who said he wasn't sure he had won the stage when he crossed the finish line, had to fight through some tough times just to hold the wheel of Dennis, who was using the funnel of fans in the final kilometres to limit other riders ability to attack.
"The last time board we saw to Nate Brown was a minute, and that was with just over a kilometre to go, maybe a kilometre and a half," Bookwalter said. "Rohan had me cross-eyed just butting my head on the stem the whole time. I wasn’t really aware of when Nate came back or who had gone. I was just doing the best climb I could and holding Rohan’s wheel. Then about 500 metres to go I actually caught might breath and felt recovered, so I put it in the big ring and just gave it everything I had. Obviously I was going for seconds also, so there was no time to celebrate."
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