The legs and the mind were both willing but in the end Simon Yates was unable to hold onto his 19-second race lead during the final 18.3km time trial at the Tour de Romandie.
The Orica-Scott climber, who beat Richie Porte (BMC) to the line on a thrilling queen stage on Saturday, finished a creditable 12th but conceded 40 seconds to an unstoppable Porte. It meant Yates dropped to second overall on the final podium. Despite losing the yellow jersey Yates told Cyclingnews that there were plenty of positives from his week in Switzerland.
"I'm pleased with my ride. I gave the maximum and I didn't make any mistakes. I knew that it was going to be difficult to hold on from the start. I gave it everything and I have to be happy with that," he said.
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"I approached it in the same way that I approach every time trial. I was in yellow but I did the same warm up, the same recon in the morning and listened to the same music."
Until just a few weeks ago, Yates had the Giro d'Italia on his race programme was and not scheduled to ride the Tour de Romandie. However a knee injury to teammate Esteban Chaves saw Orica-Scott realign their Grand Tour ambitions.
Yates decided to shift focus and aim for the Tour de France, leaving him with a new programme that included Tour de Romandie, the Criterium du Dauphine and possibly the British national championships.
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