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Heras attacks for time, gets stage win and Vuelta lead
Roberto Heras insisted that a win on the slopes of Calar Alto wasn’t in his game plan for Thursday.
The defending Vuelta a España champion said after winning the 145km 12th stage from Almería to the Observatory complex at Calar Alto that he had simply hoped to “put a little time on some of my main rivals.”
Whatever his game plan, the Liberty Seguros team captain found himself putting time on all of his rivals, including Kelme’s Alejandro Valverde and the man who began the day in the leader’s jersey, Floyd Landis of U.S. Postal.
Landis finished 3:06 off Heras’s winning time, ending the Postals’ grip on the maillot de oro, which the team has had since day one of the Vuelta.
“It wasn’t my plan to take the jersey today,” said Heras after slipping away from a lead group of race favorites 7km from the top of Calar Alto. “It wasn’t my plan to win this stage even, but some days circumstances don’t come out the way you anticipate.”
At 145km, Stage 12 begged for an early break. Particularly after Dave Zabriskie’s long ride to victory on Tuesday, early attackers had renewed hope for snatching a win as the race favorites spent their time concentrating on their main competition.
After starting in Almería, Thursday’s stage wound its way to the north crossing through Europe’s only desert region at Tabernas. The area is most famous as the location of “The Magnificent Seven” and a host of spaghetti Westerns by the likes of Sergio Leone and other European directors.
But Thursday, the desert north of Almería wasn’t the location of the day’s most epic battle, just the initial forays, as individual riders and large groups tried their hand at making an early escape from the peloton.
After a series of attacks, one large 28-rider group emerged at the front of the field and build a small advantage at 39km, just as the course approached the lower slopes of the day’s first climb, the Category 1 Alto de Velefique, a 13km climb that averaged 7.5 percent, steepening to 11 percent at points.
The grade and the duration of the climb soon whittled the size of the lead group to just one rider - Francisco José Lara (Paternina-Costa de Almería). Lara, who began the day in 21st overall, at 8:04, forged ahead alone, certain that he would eventually be swept up by the finish.
“With a battle between Heras and Valverde ahead, I knew my chances weren’t good,” Lara remarked, “but here I had a chance to do well. I had to take it.”
Over the Velefique, through the day’s second intermediate sprint, Lara held a four-minute lead as he hit the top of the Calar Alto for the first of two trips to the observatory complex, which sits more than 2000 meters above sea level and 1600 over the desert floor below.
Lara maintained his lead on the descent and held a healthy advantage on the lower slopes of the Calar Alto for the second trip up … but Heras’s Liberty Seguros team had its own agenda, and that was to put the hurt on Valverde.
Valverde suffered a fall on Tuesday and, in honor of his top GC position, the peloton refrained from taking advantage that day. Of course, two days later, no such demands of etiquette apply, and Valverde and everyone else knew that this last climb – 21km at 6.4 percent – was going to take its toll on riders, healthy or not.
At the base of the climb, Heras’s team moved to the front and set a blistering tempo. The peloton, already trimmed by a few score riders who fell off the pace on the first trip up the climb, stretched out in single file.
Liberty’s tempo was relentless. Valverde moved up in the lead group and tried to put a brave face on what were painful injuries to his left hip, knee and wrist.
“We didn’t ride very long yesterday because it was too painful, but the rest day couldn’t have come at a better time,” Valverde said before the start Thursday. “If I can make it through today I should be okay. We’ll see.”
Next to him, Landis did his best to hold Nozal’s steady pace into the climb. But by 11km to go, the Postal rider realized he had hit his limit and eased back, riding his own tempo and almost visibly conceding the jersey.
Sitting just nine seconds out off of Landis’s time, Valverde made a big gamble for the overall lead – he stood on his pedals and accelerated hard. He got an immediate gap, but Nozal stayed at his post and powered his way up to Valverde, with Heras glued firmly to his wheel.
Nozal’s work complete, he finally faded back as Heras moved to the front to keep the tempo as high as possible. Valverde began to show signs of weakness. His earlier attack had clearly been a gamble and Heras began to sense that the 24-year-old from Murcia may have put too much into it. Within a kilometer Heras made his own attack.
Valverde could not respond and lost ground. Behind him only Francisco Mancebo (Illes Balears-Banesto) and Santiago Pérez (Phonak) even tried to keep the pace.
"It was war out there today and Liberty Seguros was killing everyone,” said Mancebo, who began the day in third at 29 seconds. “I tried my best to follow Heras, but he's the best climber in the world."
Heras quickly caught the faltering escapee Lara and then rode ahead, widening the gap between himself and the two chasers.
Valverde, Landis and others simply tried to ride at a pace they could maintain to the top.
"I hurt all over,” Valverde told VeloNews. “I've never hurt so much on the bike. My wounds opened up again and it was hard in the end.
"It was a very difficult pace that Liberty was setting. When Heras attacked I had nothing left. I tried to stay with Nozal when he came to me. This was such a hard stage for me." But Heras made it look easy. Charging through the final five kilometers, he extended his advantage, finishing half-a-minute ahead of Pérez, nearly a minute ahead of Mancebo and 1:27 ahead of Valverde.
Landis drifted across the line in 15th, 3:06 behind the winner and new race leader.
Asked how he felt after facing attacks from the likes of Valverde and Heras, an exhausted Landis grimaced and said, “Take a guess.”
Heras, meanwhile, said he was far from ready to declare himself the winner of his third Vuelta.
“It’s a long time until we reach Madrid,” he said. “I didn’t expect to be in the leader’s jersey today, and I know that there are many opportunities in the coming 12 days to take it away from me. I am especially worried about the final time trial into Madrid.”
Still, Heras said, he was more than pleased with his own performance and that of his team in this grand tour, especially after a disappointing outing at the Tour de France.
“I can’t explain why the Tour went so badly for me,” he said, “but the Vuelta is good for me. I am just enjoying the fact that this one is working out so well.”
VeloNews European correspondent Andrew Hood contributed to this report.
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