Howard has impressed on these hills and has obviously made good progress since leaving the track earlier in the year and returning to road racing full time. After a stint at Tour of California and some pretty reasonable results against Sagan, he has mainly been doing lead outs for Kroupis with some success. So great to see him get some freedom to contest for the GC. With Hepburn and Bobridge very strong riders but lacking the longer road endurance since the Olympics and Kroupis who has been sick, his work is going to be cut out for him. Lancaster withdrawing (11 stitches in his knee after his crash) means it will mainly be up to Howard to hang on as best he can. Kroupis could be the key if his health is improving and he can handle the hills to come. There are intermediate points available as well as the finish points. Here are Howard's thoughts;
“There was nothing I could have done to go harder up the climb when Tiernan-Locke attacked,” said Howard. “He’s a better climber than pretty much everyone at the race, and his attack was expected. All I could do once he made his move was go as hard I could and limit my losses.”
“After what I was able to do today, I’m certainly going to try and get back into the jersey before the end of the race,” Howard said. “It’s going to be a tough ask, but I need to try. The finish of tomorrow’s stage is similar to today although it’s hard to tell by the profile exactly how hard the climbs in the final will be. If I could pick up bonus seconds at the intermediate sprints and on the finish line, it’s certainly possible to regain the jersey.”