Rohan Dennis of the BMC Racing Team increased his overall lead at the USA Pro Challenge Friday with a dominating performance in the individual time trial.
The BMC Racing Team's winningest rider on the year powered his bike to a 27-second victory over Rob Britton (Team SmartStop). BMC Racing Team's Brent Bookwalter finished third, 31 seconds back, and sits firmly in second place, 44 seconds ahead of third-placed Britton.
"I might have won, but I really didn't feel all that good out there," Dennis said. "That was a harder effort than yesterday, but it was again amazing to ride through all those fans who came out to watch on the climb.
"I went into the climb today pretty well on the limit. Yesterday I wasn't close to my threshold for 10 minutes beforehand. So today definitely wasn't as fun. To be honest, I was expecting closer to 18:30.
"But when I went across the top it was just better than 14 minutes. So it was always going to be the same time from there to the bottom for pretty much everyone - around four minutes. So I thought I’d at least cut it by 20 seconds if I decided to go slow down the course."
Since finishing 38th on the race's opening stage that was won by teammate Taylor Phinney, Dennis has won the past two stages and was runner-up on Tuesday and Wednesday. He leads the overall classification, the sprints classification and the king of the mountain standings. Friday's victory was his fifth individual win of the season and the team's 29th, one shy of its team record, achieved in both the 2013 and 2014 seasons. The BMC Racing Team also leads the team classification.
Bookwalter said he tried to gauge his effort in the 13.5-kilometer race that featured the climb of Moonstone Road, where Dennis made the winning attack Thursday and hundreds of fans turned out to watch and cheer.
"I knew I couldn't be red-lined on the climb," Bookwalter said. "I tried to attack the climb and sort of went over my limit a few times. So I had to back off a bit on the flatter sections and then go harder on the steep parts. On the descent, I was trying to sporadically pedal to keep my speed up. But every three pedal strokes, I thought I was going to pass out. So I ended up having to coast for a lot of it."
Phinney finished sixth, 39 seconds back, and rode his first time trial since winning the 2014 U.S. national time trial championship days before a bad crash would sideline him for the next 62 weeks.
Two days remain in the race. Saturday's 164.5 km stage starts in Loveland and ends in Fort Collins. Sunday is a 109.7 km race that starts in Golden and finishes on a circuit in Denver.
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