Robin Carpenter had a bit of an axe to grind during stage 2 at the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah on Tuesday.
The Holowesko-Citadel rider made the two-man breakaway on a difficult day when the peloton was initially feeling very stingy, sticking it to the line with breakaway mate Ruben Campanioni (Team Jamis) and then winning the two-up sprint on his way to taking the overall race lead.
The stage win in Torrey is a far cry from Carpenter's previously biggest win at the 2014 USA Pro Challenge, where he soloed to the stage 2 victory in Crested Butte. On that day, a solo Carpenter and the chasing peloton were briefly neutralised on a wet and slippery dirt descent off Kebler Pass.
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"After I won that stage, I had a lot of friends congratulate me, but I also didn't have any of the validation from other teams or maybe other directors," Carpenter said in the post-stage press conference.
"I think they saw the neutralisation as a bit of caveat, and something that made the race less of a pure race, less of an actual victory," he said. "And today I maybe proved that that's not the case, that wasn't the case. Today I worked my ass off for it and blew everyone's expectations out of the water."
Carpenter and Campanioni escaped after 50km of blistering racing, with Cannondale-Drapac chasing down a lot of the day's early moves as the riders climbed the Hogsback and then headed for the second KOM on Boulder Mountain.
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