It was not until nearly the 70-kilometer mark of the 178-kilometer stage 13 of the Vuelta a España that 24 riders finally came together to form the principal breakaway group. It was a hard-fought battle to be in the escape in a stage where everyone knew a breakaway would likely ride to the end, and it made for a fast and furious start.

“It was a hell of a race. Almost the whole peloton knew that the breakaway could make it today, and then you have a lot of riders ready to go [in the breakaway] and it took forever – over 65 kilometers – for the break to go,” explained sport director Dirk Demol.

“In the beginning Popo [Yaroslav Popovych] tried, and I saw Fränk was in there a couple of times.  But it was really, really, really super fast and not easy to get in the move that went.”

Trek Factory Racing was not part of the 15 teams represented in the move, and as the race settled into a long pursuit with Team Astana controlling the pace in the peloton, the pinstripes welcomed the unassuming day, a little mental and physical relief ahead of three consecutive tough mountain stages ahead.

“I also did not want to put too much pressure on the team today to get in the break because we have three really, really tough stages in front of us,” Demol continued. “I told them they have the freedom to be there, but I didn’t want to push them too much."

"We have to point out our stages now, and today was something like, okay if your are there good, but if you’re not, I am not going to put too much stress on that."

Astana policed, keeping the break from gaining too much time with two riders in the large escape that were six and half minutes behind race leader Fabio Aru in the standings.

But there was no need to bring everything together for the Kazakh team; that was left to any sprint teams who may have had interest in another bunch finish. And Trek Factory Racing paid no heed: the next three days are better suited to expend its energies, ones where the team hopes to fight in the breakaways; today was a day where its limited resources needed conservation.

“If a small group had gone up the road, it would have been a different scenario today, and maybe our tactics would have changed, but honestly I was never thinking it could be a sprint today,” said Demol. “We had our chance yesterday and lucky we [won] it. But we have to mark our stages where we will try and the next three days will be more interesting for us if we can have a rider like Fränk [Schleck] or Haimar [Zubeldia] in a breakaway.”

When the gap to the 24 leaders grew to over five minutes, the lead had extended far enough that the breakaway knew it had the room needed to contest the stage win. 

Sniffing the chance for glory, one rider set off in a solo bid. Nelson Oliveira (Lampre-Merida) left his 23 breakaway companions behind and steadily gained time over the final 25 kilometers to take the win.

Trek Factory Racing pedaled behind amid the peloton, and although it was far from an easy day - the crosswinds at the end made a punishing ending after the brutally fast start - they were happy to have a relatively stress-free day to recharge mentally and physically.

“We realized that today that it would be very difficult to be in a breakaway and also with the flat finish it was not ideal for us to be in the game to win the stage, so really today we were thinking more to save ourselves a little bit for the next days.” summed up Demol.