Lucinda Brand (Lidl-Trek) went on the assault on the fourth and ultimate stage of the Vuelta a Burgos Féminas, beginning the decisive climb of the Alto de Rozavientos a minute forward of the peloton and finally ending runner-up behind stage and GC winner Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime).
Organisers rewarded Brand with the combativity prize for her transfer, which can not have occurred with out Brand’s actions on stage 1. On the opening day, Brand stopped inside 150 metres of the road to verify her crashed teammate, Elisa Balsamo, was all proper.
Since Brand technically wasn’t immediately held up by the crash, she was given a three-minute time deficit. Without this time loss, the 34-year-old Dutchwoman would theoretically have completed on the GC podium – however Brand mentioned that issues had been extra sophisticated than that.
“Then I wouldn’t have gotten a one-minute benefit, to be sincere! I feel I nonetheless would have accomplished a superb climb, however not so good that I might out of the blue be on the GC podium, we have to be practical. Sometimes, this additionally provides you some profit in one other approach,” Brand advised Cyclingnews.
“I simply wished to attempt to get in a break at present as a result of I knew it might be a superb state of affairs for me with the descent within the ultimate. It had nothing to do with the primary day. I simply felt good the entire week, so I wished to make one thing good out of it.”
Brazilian champion Tota Magalhães had been solo on the entrance of the race for nearly 20km earlier than Brand joined her with 30km to go, bridging from a short-lived breakaway. As the stay footage was interrupted due to unhealthy climate, we requested Brand to recap the motion.
“There was a bit of break going, however there was no actual cooperation. I attacked from that, and no person was reacting, so I might experience to her. Then I attempted to inspire her to only hold doing her greatest, she was already struggling rather a lot which was regular along with her solo experience earlier than. We simply tried to maintain up the tempo as a lot as doable,” she defined.
Together, they elevated their benefit to a minute earlier than Brand continued on her personal on the Rozavientos climb.
“I nonetheless had round one minute, so I simply tried to discover a good tempo, have a superb rhythm. I knew that the second half was steeper, so I needed to hold one thing left for that,” she mentioned.
Passed by Vollering on the final a part of the climb, Brand nonetheless had an opportunity to possibly come again on the descent, however she was hampered by the lack of know-how on the hole to the GC chief. After the descent, Brand was solely 22 seconds behind with 5km to go however misplaced floor once more on the slight uphill to the road, ending 51 seconds down ultimately.
“She did a very good descent; it was additionally a bit sketchy due to loads of stuff from the timber and little stones on the street. Maybe there have been motorbikes behind me, however I noticed nothing in entrance,” Brand mentioned.
“At some moments, I did see a automotive, which I assumed was using behind Demi, however I actually didn’t know till we had been down. It was a straight street for a bit of bit, which was going up, in order that was in her benefit once more.”
