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.
Read also
“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.
Read also
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- So he's got an attitude of egocentric proportions, typical Yorkshire guy then...
leedorney15-11-2024 - Might be bit isn't. The reason is actually that no one wants to work for free. But that's my point. Incur the costs for a year, make clear that ads are coming and see if it works. No one else has tried this in cycling.Renz15-11-2024
- Plus MVDP now having basically done 4 seasons in 2 years might warrant a slightly longer rest than usual, although even then his will STILL be shorter than 98% of all other pro cyclists in any field.Mistermaumau15-11-2024
- Yes, I’d say they’ve done their job in CX.Mistermaumau15-11-2024
- C’mon, they need this kind of gooey content in winter to stop readers switching off. Medias sowing seeds to provoke discussion and rumours that lead to a self-defined legitimacy to introduce undesired questions during rider interviews in order to boast delivery of “original” contentMistermaumau15-11-2024
- By definition an analogy is always GERMANE, tganjs for pointing out the obvious and revealing you don’t understand its purpose.Mistermaumau15-11-2024
- The reason you don’t see these type of websites often and certainly not in cycling might be that they die before you find them. But tell us about it when you’re done I’ll visit to check it out.Mistermaumau15-11-2024
- Someone should do this: create a cycling news site that is free with no ads. Watch the subscriptions like up. Then carefully and slowly introduce ads. I might do it myself. Sites like CUTD are poorly conceived and consequently a mess. Readers will leave as soon as there is a better alternative.Renz15-11-2024
- Wout still recovering from injuries? Might be more of a factor than any attempted middle finger to the UCI?mobk15-11-2024
- We ll talk about all of this in 10 years - but for now lets stop the bullshitChrisBe14-11-2024