Matthias Brändle (IAM) took the biggest win of his career when he emerged as the strongest from a 4-rider breakaway on stage 5 of the Tour of Britain. The Austrian attacked on a climb in the finale and managed to hold off former companions Shane Archbold (An Post) and Maarten Wynants (Belkin) and the peloton to take a solo victory while Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) defended his lead.

IAM went into the Tour of Britain with the hope that Sylvain Chavanel could win the race overall. However, the Frenchman has been unable to follow the best on the climbs and instead it was Matthias Brändle who delivered success for the Swiss team.

Brändle attacked early in the stage and was joined by Maarten Wynants, Shane Archbold and Andreas Stauff (MTN-Qhubeka) to form a strong four-rider breakaway. Despite a fierce chase by Garmin-Sharp, the quartet managed to hit the final climb with 5km to go with an advantage of 35 seconds.

Here Brändle dropped his companions and even though the race favourites were attacking each other a little further back, with Nicolas Roche (Tinkoff-Saxo) riding very aggressively, he still had a solid advantage at the top.

From there, he made use of his TT skills to hold off the peloton on the downhill run to the line and crossed the line a few seconds ahead of Archbold who beat Wynants in the sprint for second. A disappointed Sonny Colbrelli (Bardiani) was fastest in the peloton’s sprint but had to settle for fourth.

After two hard stages, the Tour of Britain continued with another very hilly affair that brought the riders over 177.3km from Exmouth to Exeter. After a flat start, the riders went up the category 2 Mamhead and the category 1 Haytor climbs just before the halfway point and from there things got a bit easier. Rolling roads, a few uncategorized climbs and gradual descents brought them to the tricky finale where the short category 2 climb Stok Hill summited just 2km from the line and was followed by a downhill run to the finish.

Again the riders had beautiful sunny conditions when they took the start. There was one non-starter, Tinkoff-Saxo stagiaire Rasmus Guldhammer, leaving the Russian team with just 5 riders in the race.

As in the first stages, the start was pretty fast as lots of riders wanted to go on the attack. After a bit of aggression, four riders managed to get clear when Matthias Brändle (IAM), Maarten Wynants (Belkin), Shane Archbold (An Post) and Andreas Stauff (MTN-Qhubeka) started to build an advantage.

However, the peloton kept them firmly under control and when Wynants beat Brändle and Archbold in the first intermediate sprint, the gap was only 1.30. That’s how it stayed while the riders climbed the first climb where Archbold led Stauff, Brandle and Wynants across the line while his teammate KOM leader Marc McNally won the sprint from the peloton ahead of Mark Renshaw who had been leading the bunch for OPQS.

In the second intermediate sprint, Stauff beat Archbold and Wynants while OPQS continued to set the pace in the peloton. Renshaw and Niki Terpstra did the early work but as they started to climb up Haytor, they allowed the gap to widen to 3 minutes

Stauff crested the summit as the first rider ahead of Wynants, Archbold and Brändle while McNally beat Steve Lampier in the peloton’s sprint. Terpstra, Renshaw, Thomas Dekker (Garmin) and Bradley Wiggins (Sky) took the final points on offer.

Terpstra and Renshaw kept the gap stable at around 3 minutes before they started to accelerate a bit. With 80km to go, the escapees were only 2.20 ahead but OPQS were keen to take it easy on the climbs and so the escapees reopened their advantage to 2.55.

OPQS were content with the situation but with 62km to go, the dynamics changed. Garmin-Sharp decided that they wanted to win the stage and so put Dylan Grindlestone one the front.

The South African was joined by his teammate Lasse Norman and those two quickly brought the gap down to 1.30. To avoid an early catch, however, they loosed their grip and while the Garmin pair were still riding on the front, the gap had reached 2 minutes with 40km to go.

The gap reached 2.40 before Garmin again tightened the grip with 30km to go. Tyler Farrar now joined forces with Norman and Grindlestone but they had a hard time bringing the escapees back.

With 18km to go, Brändle led Wynants and Stauff across the line in the final intermediate sprint and at that point the gap was still 2.08. All the work was s till left to Garmin and now their riders were starting to blow up.

With 12km to go, Thomas Dekker was the only rider working for the America team but he now got assistance from Bardiani. A little later, the Italian team was left with the entire workload and with 10km to go, they were still 1.30 behind.

Tinkoff-Saxo now took control with Chirstopher Juul and Manuele Boaro and with 7km to go, they had brought the gap down to 1.15. The fight for position was fierce and as BMC hit the front with Sebastian Lander, OPQS with Terpstra and Sky with Bernhard Eisel, the escapees started to lose ground at a much quicker pace.

At the bottom of the final climb, the gap was 55 seconds. Dylan Van Baarle (Garmin) launched an immediate attack and he managed to get a small gap while Terpstra led the chase.

Brändle dropped his three companions while the favourites started to attack each other. Roche and Edoardo Zardini (Bardiani) made the first move and they quickly passed Van Baarle before being brought back by Chavanel.

Roche tried again and sprinted past Stauff but he failed to get clear. At the top, the peloton was down to just 25 seconds and with no domestiques near the front, Chavanel was allowed to lead them down the descent.

Finally, Bardiani organized a chase but it was all too late. Brändle took a beautiful solo win before Archbold beat Wynants in the sprint for second. Colbrelli held off Swift in the sprint from the peloton  but the win was not even good enough for a spot on the podium.