The opening day of the Ruta del Sol saw riders competing over 2 half stages. The morning road stage was a crash affected affair won by Pim Ligthart (Lotto-Soudal) ahead of Fabio Silvestre (Trek Factory Racing) and Grega Bole (CCC Sprandi Polkowice). The afternoon time trial was dominated by Javier Moreno (MOV) with Wilco Kelderman (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Jerome Coppel (IAM Cycling) completing the podium.

It was a day of mixed fortunes for Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung as they had 5 riders go down in the morning stage. Luckily all the riders got up relatively unscathed. Tyler Farrar and Steve Cummings got through the carnage to finish with the front runners. Farrar mixed it up in the sprint finish but found himself slightly boxed in and ended the stage in 5th.

With a tender group of riders, it was a matter of getting through the short and very technical time trial in one piece. All the riders got around safely with Cummings posting the fastest time to finish 28" off the winner in 32nd place. The riders will now look ahead to the coming stages in the hope of animating the race.

"The morning stage was really easy until about 25km to go when the crosswinds started to come into play," Jay Thomson said. "With no team really committed to making it split and everyone still having fresh legs, it was destined to be crazy in the final. Steve, Matt [Brammeier] and I were right in front to set up Tyler for the sprint but an AG2R rider touched wheels and took out 3 of us among the 30 odd other guys in the bunch. Tyler managed to get through with Steve and with no help still managed 5th. It is disappointing though because as a team we definitely had more in us for today but at least we all walk away with minor injuries."

"Today's morning stage was once again affected by crashes," sports director Alex Sans Vega said. "At 7km to go, 4 Alpecin and 2 Sky riders went down right at the front of the bunch because of the crosswinds and high speed. With 5km to go there was yet another big crash that split the bunch further. Matt, Jay, Songezo [Jim], Merhawi [Kudus] and Nic [Dougall] all hit the deck. Fortunately no one sustained any major injuries. After the crashes the race was so disorganised at the front but Tyler managed to get through the chaos and finish 5th."