Vuelta continued - Stage 5 (Jarabacoa)

Stage 5 to Jarabacoa was the toughest stage in terms of elevation with 3 KOM's and a finish in the mountain city of Jarabacoa. Usually, this is where GC is made during this Tour and so was it today. I remember 10years ago we rode that thing in the pouring rain and the climbing wasn't too bad. Today, though it was sunshine and 90F so another hot day in the saddle. I figured I can't climb with the on-form South Americans and *maybe* get Top 30 if I really push it. So I decided to try to get in an early break and work on some Meta Volantes and try to make it as far as possible before the field catches us. The first 10-15minutes of the stage was an all-out effort as I tried to get into the right group. It took forever. I already gave up and started to fall back a bit when I decided to give it one more try and just slowly pushed the 53x11...nobody seemed to take me up on it so I ended up doing 65miles off the front by myself. At one point, I had 4minutes on the US-lead peloton but I knew it was just a matter of time before they caught me. At 120km, just before the first KOM I got caught and rode in the gruppetto with some US boys & Zach. Good day on the road and got myself 15 points for the MetaVolante jersey. The hotel in Jarabacoa was nice! a 5-star resort and a huge improvement to the bunkbeds we stayed in 10years ago on that stage.

my view for most of the day

Jarabacoa housing

Video recap from Stage 5:

Wes had his Garmin 500 for this stage and if you're interested in some geeky elevation, heart rate, and speed profiles then check out the file from Stage 5 here.