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2014 Tour de Beauce: Skujins holds on to win atop Mont-Mégantic on race’s second stage

Lativian rider Tom Skujins of the Hincapie Sportswear Development team held off Mike Woods (Amore Vita – Selle SMP) to win the Tour de Beauce’s queen stage atop Mont-Mégantic. Coming across in third place was Carter Jones (Optum presented by Kelly Benefit Strategies). Rob Britton (Team SmartStop) placed fourth.

June 13, 2014
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MikeWoodsLativian rider Tom Skujins of the Hincapie Sportswear Development team held off Mike Woods (Amore Vita – Selle SMP) to win the Tour de Beauce’s queen stage atop Mont-Mégantic. Coming across in third place was Carter Jones (Optum presented by Kelly Benefit Strategies). Rob Britton (Team SmartStop) placed fourth.

Canadians really came to fore in Thursday’s stage where the weather, 10 C and rain, was the biggest factor of the day. Many riders from the peloton indicated that the 167 km romp was anything but easy if not one of the hardest days on the bike they have ever experienced. “Yes, I froze. I couldn’t eat or shift. My hands were so cold. Probably one of the toughest days I have had on the bike,” said Matteo Dal-Cin of Silber Pro Cycling. The infamous stage was not flat either with a parcours that was either uphill or downhill – the long downhill sections made the riders colder and colder. “With all the prolonged downhills, I caught a permanent chill about 20 km in and I thought I would be out of the race after 40 km,” said Jordan Cheyne (Ride with Rendall). There were also heavy cross winds that splintered the field – several riders were blown into a ditch. If that wasn’t hard enough, the final 6 km climb up Mont-Mégantic with an average gradient of 10 per cent certainly was a worthy final test. Many riders were forced to walk their bikes up the final climb citing an almost complete inability to ride and or shift gears due to frozen hands.

The stage’s winner, Tom Skujins, was a part of the early breakaway, which at its peak was five minutes ahead of the bunch. At the base of Mont-Mégantic the move had only three riders and it looked imminent that they’d all be caught before the top. They’d been up the road, exposed to the elements for 130 km. “[Skujins] only had 2 minutes at the bottom, so he basically held the gap,” said Garret McLeod (Team H&R Block).

Mike Woods had hoped to take the leader’s jersey from his teammate Luca Benedetti who won Stage 1. “My team was in yellow, however, we did not plan on protecting the jersey. Luca Benedetti has never seen his TT bike,” said Woods after the stage. “We knew that if I arrived at the bottom of the climb, at the front, with a limited gap to the break, I would have a good shot at winning.” Additionally, Woods had his fair share of adversity throughout the stage like much of the main field. “My crank fell off at about the 40-km mark. Since my team did not have a spare bike that fit me, I had to take a neutral bike. I have never used SRAM components before and I almost got dropped on the first climb as I did not know how to get out of the big ring,” said Woods. With the help of teammates James Piccoli and Antonio Di Batista, Woods launched early at the bottom of the Mont-Mégantic but was unable to really close the gap on a hard-charging Tom Skujins.