2015 tour of utah - stage 6

Saturday morning found H back in the office and me out doing a loop run from our house, but by 12:30 p.m. we were packed and heading up Little Cottonwood Canyon to watch Stage 6 of the Tour of Utah.  They weren't going to close the road until around 2:30 p.m., so we had plenty of time to get into place; traffic was steady; there were lots of Ultimate Challenge folks grinding up the hill; and Tanners Flats was starting to get their party on.  It was great to see all the spectators out there, clinging to the roadsides to cheer the riders on.

We nabbed a parking spot in one of the lower Snowbird lots and walked up to where the festivities were happening.  After doing a walk-through of the vendor tents, we again found a spot along the barricades across from a jumbotron.  It was 150 meters from the finish line but we would be able to see the approach and they were running the live streaming footage on the big screen so we could watch the race as it happened.

Crazy-hair up at the Bird

Stage 6 (8/8/15) SLC to Snowbird, 110 miles with 12,959 feet of elevation gain.  I love this stage.  It is such a monster - look how many feet they climbed!  The route was fairly similar to last year's: the start changed, heading out from right downtown SLC, then up and over Emigration Canyon and Big Mountain, through Morgan County to Park City, up through Deer Valley, over Guardsman Pass and down Big Cottonwood Canyon.  Then it was the heartbreak of that Wasatch Boulevard hill by the 7-Eleven, the slog up to the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon and then, to add insult to injury, the climb up to Snowbird.

A couple riders got out in front during the BCC descent, including Ben King who held his own until about a third of the way up Little Cottonwood Canyon.  Then, with other General Classification contenders trying to stake their claims, Joe Dombrowksi broke out of the group and flew up the hill, definitively winning the stage and moving into the yellow jersey for the GC, a full fifty seconds ahead of previous leader Michael Woods.  Joe scarcely seemed to be working hard.  Actually, many of the early finishers looked like they were doing pretty well - I think the cooler temperatures must have limited the suffer-fest somewhat.

Stage 6 jerseys

Stage podium:  Joe Dombrowski (USA/Cannondale-Garmin); Michael Woods; Natnael Berhane (Eritrea, MTN-Qhubeka).