A week removed from what was certainly an exciting and groundbreaking Monte Rosa Tour #6, we look back on the race, on its successes and its failures, and on the men who helped create an interesting story.
  
   The Favorites
  
   Heading into the tour, all eyes were on two riders: Erskine Pettis of trackstah07 and Fabrycy Pietrzyk of Emerge. Both of these veteran riders were heading into his third Monte Rosa Tour, Pettis looking to wipe clean a slate of poor performances and start anew and Pietrzyk looking to finally break through after podium finishes the past two years, continuing a streak of Polish success in the Swiss race. Pettis’s teammate Damin Iacob also came in as a favorite, as well as Eddie Ebersold of the American TheRhys and last year’s champion, True Ivansson of the Swedish squad Crescent DBS. Newcomers Heiko de Wortelaers of Rabo utrecht CT, Guido Mertens of Leukefans, and Sylvester Bai of Team ANZ Bank were considered ‘darkhorse’ favorites in the General Classification race.
  
   Bern Prologue
  
   The flat, fast race against the clock does not have much of an effect on the GC race, but it is a good exhibition for the sprinters and the time trial specialists who generally take a lot of pride in these sorts of things. Prologue specialist Jaakko Viren of Faustus took the win in this year’s Prologue, with Herberto Hoero taking second and Eddie Ebersold finishing a surprising third. A great result for the climbing specialist. Sylvester Bai (4th), Freek van der Werff (5th), Erskine Pettis (7th), and Fabrycy Pietrzyk (8th) had encouraging finishes that had to have their managers feeling good about their GC chances. Noted time trial specialist Cliff Parry of Cider Riders underwhelmed in 13th place, as did Damin Iacob (26th) and several other GC favorites.
  
   Bern – Lausanne
  
   Jerome Trail of Cider Riders took the hilly stage of the tour as the lone survivor of a breakaway from the 0 km mark. It may be too early to speculate- but we’ll do so anyway since it is what we media love to do- that this will be the biggest win of Jerome Trail’s career. Guido Mertens looked strong in second place, winning the sprint from the select peloton after crosswinds created a grupetto in the hills. Fortunately all of the team captains managed to stay with the first group on the road, with Heiko de Wortelaers (38th) and Wesley Meadows (39th) just barely hanging on. Normando Sanroma of Team Albatros took third place. Bai was 4th, Mertens’ teammate Casper Jill 5th, Iacob 6th, and Viren 7th to keep the leader’s jersey heading into the mountains.
  
   Lausanne – Monte Rosa
  
   The King Stage of the Monte Rosa Tour, finishing at the summit of Monte Rosa, finished in an unprecedented fashion. Damin Iacob and Erskine Pettis took turns attacking all of their competitors, methodically weeding out the other contenders one-by-one. Eventually only three men survived in the lead group: Iacob, Pettis, and Guido Mertens. The young man from Leukefans gave it his all, surely winning a lot of fans across his native Belgium and every other country in which the event was televised. But unfortunately the day was to belong to the trackstah07 boys. They dropped Mertens with 1 km to go. Mertens managed to hang onto third place while Iacob out-sprinted Pettis for the win as they tried to grab as much time as they could from the competition. Iacob would wear the leader’s jersey at the end of the day, with Mertens barely holding onto second in GC ahead of Pettis. Luis Prangsgaard had an impressive

fourth place finish for Peloton Pushers, beating out many of the favorites (de Wortelaers 5th, Ebersold 6th, Pietrzyk 8th, Ivansson 10th). Raoul Aristzabal (7th) and Burton Alexander (9th) also produced gutsy performances.
  
   Lugano – St. Moritz
  
   Stage 4 is a stage similar to the King Stage, ending in a summit finish much like its predecessor. The stage yielded similar results to the King Stage, with just a few exceptions. Ture Ivansson proved his mettle, rebounding from a lackluster performance from a day before. Ivansson beat Iacob on the sprint to the summit but failed to pick up the substantial time he’d need to compete for the leader’s jersey. The rest of the group must have felt disheartened watching Iacob take second place on the day they were supposed to take time back, but a few of the riders kept their eyes on the prize and finished the stage strong. A trio of Americans took spots 3-5, led by Wesley Meadows of Supernutz. Burton Alexander followed up on the previous day’s success, and Eddie Ebersold continued his consistent riding. Pettis, de Worterlaers, and Pietrzyk followed in a five-man group not far behind which also contained Raoul Aristzabal and Wit Pelgrims, of KK Perutnina Ptuj. A very tired Guido Mertens labored in, five seconds later. Mertens’ effort on the King Stage caught up with him on Stage 4, and as a result he lost second place overall to Pettis. Ivansson moved up into 4th place overall with the victory, with Ebersold, Alexander, Pietrzyk, de Wortelaers, and Aristzabal rounding out the top 9. Iacob’s lead of over one minute on the field heading into the final stage was considered insurmountable, barring a crash or an injury.
  
   Geneve – Geneve
  
   Leandro Lizarraga completed a solid tour for Dormilon by taking the sprint victory on Stage 5. Damin Iacob showed again why he’s been the man to beat in the tour, taking second place for the second consecutive day. Wit Pelgrims finished third, Ejnar Nordby fourth, and Wesley Meadows fifth. The climbers performed extremely well on this sprint, which is actually typical of this enigmatic stage if you look back through the tour’s archives. Ivansson was 6th, Mertens 7th, Ebersold 9th, Alexander 12th, and Pettis 13th. Iacob actually took a bit on time on the rest of the field with the exception of Lizarraga and won the tour by the largest margin in its short history. Pettis held onto second, Mertens third.
  
   Closing Notes
  
   This win by Iacob adds to Romania’s success in recent tours, with Anghel Ghidarcea having won last year’s Essex Tour and the previous year’s Cymru Taith. In addition, this was just the third time in OCM history that teammates have finished first and second in a tour. Both of the other occurrences have happened in Perm Tour. John Hager and Kaspar Rowley of Razor Racer performed the feat in Perm Tour #3 (Season 5). The following year, Team Sorbotn Cycling performed something that is simply no longer possible with the level of competition that we now have, 13 seasons later. The Norwegian team took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th in the General Classification. Some OCM purists still believe that the 5th-place finisher, Desmond Larrison of The mighty, was the actual winner, citing unspecified doping operations. However, no charges were ever filed against Team Sorbotn Cycling or its riders. Following this most recent tour, Iacob and Pettis credited their historic achievement to “great equipment and greater teammates.”
  
  Written by freelancer Eric Place from trackstah07 to OCM Magazine