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After the first five stages of relatively flat bunch sprints, the next two days are where the race will be won or lost. Stage 6 of the 2015 Tour of Utah sees the riders travel from Salt Lake City to the top of the infamous Snowbird summit after 178 kilometres of racing.
Today’s Queen stage will see the riders complete four classified climbs, and they start very early on the stage.
Immediately from the commencement of the race, there is a difficult rise for the first 30 kilometres, which comprises the first two King of the Mountain sprints of the day.
The fourth category climb of Little Mountain is summitted after only 18 kilometres of racing. The climb itself is over 12 kilometres at an average gradient of 3.1 per cent, however, it steepens to around 5 per cent for the last two kilometres.
Only 12 kilometres later the riders will face Big Mountain, which is a category three climb of six kilometres at 7 per cent average gradient.
The top five riders in the King of the Mountains jersey will need to be in the break today.
Only 10 kilometres after the second King of the Mountains point is the first intermediate sprint at East Canyon.
We then have another 80 kilometres of racing between the sprint in East Canyon, and the second and final intermediate sprint of the day in Park City, which will be the end of tomorrow’s final stage.
As the riders pass through the intermediate sprint point, they will be minutes away from starting the first major summit of the tour, Guardsmans Pass, which summits 45 kilometres to the finish, and at over 3000 metres in altitude.
The first category climb of Guardsmans Pass is a brute, averaging 8.3 per cent for around 11 kilometres, with sections over 20 per cent. You would expect the group to be whittled down to under 20 riders by the summit.
After the penultimate King of the Mountains climb, the riders then descend for 25 kilometres along reasonably technical roads (mostly in the first four kilometres of the descent), and will reach the foot of the climb on the outskirts of the town called Granite.
From there, the riders will then face the hors category test of Snowbird. On this stage last season, it was Cadel Evans who took the win in a sprint, beating Wilco Kelderman and Winner Anacona. Interestingly, in fourth place was Chris Horner.
With the loss of former Tour of Utah winner, American Tom Danielson to a doping violation, Chris Horner will be the genuine favourite, but he has not had a overly successful year so far.
Both Brent Bookwalter (BMC) and Nathanel Berhane have riden with attacking flair so far this tour, and are both coming of solid performances at the Tour of Austria last month, finishing fourth and fifth respectively.
Another talented American to look out for is Cannondale Garmin’s Joe Dombrowski, who has had a solid season thus far, finishing second at the American National Championships in the road race, while finishing fourth at the Amgen Tour of California, infront of the likes of Robert Gesink.
Other riders to look out for include Lachlan Norris (Drapac), Frank Schleck (Trek Factory Racing), Janez Brajkovic (UnitedHealthcare), Enrico Barbin and Franceso Bongiorno (Bardiani-CSF), Chris Butler (Team Smartstop) and Lachlan Morton (Jelly Belly).
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