Perfect teamwork in @VoltaCatalunya leads to our sixth victory of the season, the second for @kaden_groves this week. Well done everyone! 🏆🙌 📷 Photonews
"Maybe I should just sprint with a pretty flat tire" - Kaden Groves details how he sprinted to Volta a Catalunya win on teammate's bike
CyclingSaturday, 25 March 2023 at 17:48
Kaden Groves started the Volta a Catalunya with no results to show for. Now, following stage six, he's won a third of all stages. He's won the sprint on stage 6 of the race, and did it in the bike of a teammate after he suffered a late mechanical.
“I was hoping to win here. I knew the form was right. The last few days I didn't feel very well, but today I felt very strong. With a good team around me, that could bring me to the line, I managed to finish it," Groves said in a post-race interview. Alpecin-Deceuninck struggled to keep the race under control but had an alliance with other teams following the attacks of Marc Soler and Remco Evenepoel.
Luckily for him, the GC riders cancelled each other out. A bunch sprint was then likely, and the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider survived the tough day to make it in the peloton. However not all was bright: “At seven or eight kilometers from the finish I felt I had an idler. I was in doubt whether to stop or not," he continued. "I thought maybe I should just sprint with a pretty flat tire, but eventually one of my team leaders told me to do a bike change with Xandro [Meurisse].”
“With about five kilometers to go, we switched bikes. Xandro gave me his bicycle. Then I had to come back with the help of Nicola [Conci]To be able to sprint," he detailed. Groves had the luck that the sprinters had very reduced support, and the pace was gentle for the following kilometers. The bike fit his size and he managed to reposition himself in time for the final sprint.
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“I was very lucky to have the guys with me. We didn't have the time to do a full leadout, we had to sacrifice one person. Fortunately there was some headwind and the peloton had thinned out a bit, so the pace was not too high," he concluded.
What followed was a powerful sprinter. where he directly beat Bryan Coquard once again. Following the path of his teammates Jasper Philipsen and Mathieu van der Poel, Groves has begun winning big.
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