Petr Vakoc (Etixx-QuickStep) again proved that aggression pays off in the Tour of Britain when he took an impressive solo victory on stage 2 of the race. Part of an 8-rider group that escaped after a very hectic phase, he attacked with 19km to go and managed to hold off a hard-chasing peloton to take both the stage win and the overall lead with an 11-second advantage over Juan Jose Lobato (Movistar) who won the sprint for second.

Going into the Tour of Britain, many had tipped a Czech from the Etixx-QuickStep to win the race overall. After all, the lumpy parcours is perfectly suited to Zdenek Stybar who has done nothing to hide his ambitions in the race.

However, the hierarchy in the Belgian team is likely to have tipped in favour of another Czech after Petr Vakoc took a very impressive solo win in today’s second stage of the race. With an overall victory in the recent Czech Cycling Tour, he had already proved to be in excellent condition and today he again put it on show in the most impressive way.

Vakoc had joined forces with Ruben Fernandez (Movistar), Wout Poels (Sky), Alex Peters (Great Britain), Serge Pauwels (MTN-Qhubeka), Danilo Wyss (BMC), Pim Ligthart (Lotto Soudal) and Alberto Bettiol (Cannondale-Garmin) to form an 8-rider group after the penultimate climb where the peloton had split in two. While the main group with Elia Viviani (Sky) sat up, the second group was chasing hard behind the front octet.

With 20km to go, the gap was down to 20 seconds and now it was a really organized chase in the big group behind. Chris Anker Sørensen (Tinkoff-Saxo), Bram Tankink (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Stef Clement (IAM) took some huge turns on the front while sprinters like Greipel and Cavendish saved energy as they had teammates in the front group.

With 19km to go, Vakoc made the first attack from the front group and only Bettiol could follow. The Italian soon cracked and fell back to Poels, Pauwels, Wyss and Fernandez who had combined forces further back. Peters and Ligthart were dropped.

With 16km to go, Vakoc had put 15 seconds into his five chasers while Peters and Ligthart were caught by the peloton which was still led by Clement and Sørensen. With 12km to go, they had brought the five chasers back.

Vakoc still had an advantage of 25 seconds and impressively he managed to extend it to 40 seconds as he entered the final 10km. This was the signal for Lotto Soudal to kick into action as they started to chase hard with Frederik Frison, lining out the entire team on the front.

Clement and Sørensen still worked with the Lotto Soudal riders but they were unable to get any closer to Vakoc who was still 30 seconds ahead with 6km to go. As Clement had blown up, Tinkoff-Saxo and Lotto Soudal added more firepower to the chase with Marcel Sieberg and Antwan Tolhoek.

With 4km to go, the gap was still 20 seconds and so André Greipel even started to take turns. However, Zdenek Stybar did a great job to protect his teammate who was digging extremely deep.

Greipel was the only rider doing the work as they entered the final 2km 15 seconds behind Vakoc. When he blew up, a Cannondale rider took a single turn but as he swung off, it was suddenly Etixx-QuickStep on the front.

As the pace went down, Küng took off in lone pursuit of Vakoc but there was no one stopping the Czech who pumped his fist in the air as he crossed the line. Behind, Küng was brought back before Juan Jose Lobato (Movistar) demolished the competition in the sprint for second, holding off Edvald Boasson Hagen (MTN-Qhubeka) and crossing the line 7 seconds too late. The rest of the peloton was 2 seconds further adrift.

With the win, Vakoc also takes the overall lead and now leads Lobato by 11 seconds. He will try to defend his position in stage 3 which is a typical Tour of Britain stage full of ups and downs. The first half is mainly flat but then the riders will tackle three category 2 climbs in quick succession, with the final summit coming 24.3km from the finish. The final part is downhill and flat.

A hilly stage

After yesterday’s sprint stage, the terrain was expected to be a bit harder in stage 2 which brought the riders over 159.3km from Clitheroe to Colne. They tackled a category 1 climb right from the start and then hit rolling terrain for a long time. In the second half, they tackled a category 1 and category 2 climb in quick succession, with the final summit coming 36km from the finish. From there it was again rolling, with the final 1400 being uphill at around 4%.

The sun was shining when the riders gathered for the start. One rider was absent as Moreno Hofland (LottoNL-Jumbo) was forced to retire from the race. Things got even worse for the Dutch team as Brian Bulgac crashed on the first descent and was forced to abandon too.

Williams takes off

The tough start made it suited to attacks and it was impossible to control anything. Rasmus Quaade (Cult), Sean De Bie (Lotto Soudal), Thomas Scully (Madison) and Alberto Bettiol (Cannondale-Garmin) formed the first move but they were brought back before the top of the first climb where Ian Bibby (NFTO) took maximum points ahead of Mark McNally (Madison), De Bie, Tao Geoghegan Hart (Great Britain) and Peter Kennaugh (Sky).

The attacking continued and things were still together when they got to the first intermediate sprint. Here Pim Ligthart (Lotto Soudal) beat Floris Gerts (BMC) and Fernando Gaviria (Etixx-QuickStep). Finally, Peter Williams (One) and Ruben Zepuntke (Cannodale-Garmin) managed to get clear and they had a two-minute advantage at the 28km mark.

Dowsett bridges the gap

Zepuntke decided to sit up while Williams pressed on alone, extending his advantage to 4.20 at the 38km mark. While Sky took control of the peloton with Ian Stannard and Andrew Fenn, an impressive Alex Dowsett (Movistar) bridged across to make it a duo with a 3.58 advantage with 100km to go.

Stannard and Fenn refused to give them much leeway though. With 85km to go, the gap was only 3.20 and 10km later it was 1.20. With 70km to go, Dowset decided to sit up and wait for the peloton.

Bouwman takes off

Williams won the second intermediate sprint while Ligthart narrowly beat Dylan van Baarle (Cannondale-Garmin) in the battle for second. Conor Dunne and Nick van der Lijke had alos been part of the action which had brought the gap down to 20 seconds and the latter briefly tried to get clear.

Koen Bouwman (LottoNL-Jumbo) exploited a calm moment after the sprint to take off in pursuit of the fading Williams who only had a 20-second advantage. He easily passed the lone leader as he hit the second climb where the action really started.

Lots of attacks

Danilo Wyss (BMC) was the first to launch an attack and he was joined by Peter Kennaugh (Sky), Petr Vakoc (Etixx-QuickStep) and Serge Pauwels (MTN-Qhubeka). This made the peloton explode completely as attacks kept flying on the front.

Ian Bibby (NFTO) had most success and he managed to crest the summit in first position while Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Vakoc were first from the peloton. However, the Brit was brought back as the attacks continued to fly as they went down the descent.

The decisive move is formed

Wyss, Kennaugh, Kruijswijk and Edvald Boasson Hagen (MTN-Qhubeka) briefly got clear before Stefan Küng (BMC) made an unsuccessful move. Kennaugh was the next to try but Matteo Trentin (Etixx-QuickStep) shut it down.

That’s when Wyss accelerated again and he was quickly joined by Vakoc and Alex Peters (Great Britain). Meanwhile, the peloton had split in two. Cult briefly tried to chase hard in the second group with Martin Mortensen but they quickly gave up. The main group now sat up and as Elia Viviani (Sky) had missed the selection, he was out of contention.

More riders bridge across

Wout Poels (Sky), Ligthart, Alberto Bettiol (Cannondale-Garmin), Ruben Fernandez (Movistar) and Pauwels attacked out of the chase group and they made it across to the front trio to make it an octet. As they entered the final 40km, they were already 2.20 ahead of the peloton.

The front group worked well together to put 40 seconds into their nearest chasers and more than 5 minutes into the peloton when Poels led Fernandez and Peters over the top of the final climb with 35km to go. Kruijswijk was leading the chasers but they were not organized.

The gap had gone out to 45 seconds when Lighart won the final intermediate sprint ahead of Pauwels and Poels to pick up important bonus seconds. However, they now started to lose ground and their advantage was down to 25 seconds with 23km to go.