For the sixth time in my career, I’m experiencing the realization that a never-ending race has, in fact, come to an end. Looking back on the race -- the final week in particular -- I’m very proud of what we were able to accomplish, especially considering that we were down to only five riders after the time trial.

Soren and I refueled well on the rest day and enjoyed an easy ride in the time trial; losing only a handful of minutes to Froome while taking it easy was a good sign of the legs to come. 

Lennard Kamna would push through knee pain for one final hurrah in the time trial, snagging a top-10 while Wilco also had a great race. Lennard is only 20, so the team wisely decided to pull him out and prevent any long-term damage. It was a blow to lose another rider, but the rest of us refocused, determined to support Wilco with everything we had left.

Stage 17 featured the finish on the absurdly brutal Machucos climb, and I braced myself for my new role as Wilco’s last man. The others took my shepherding role from the start, and I focused on passing the penultimate climb with the leaders so that I could place Wilco on the front line for the 20 percent wall. I kept waiting for the fearsome Sky train to crank up the speed and whittle down the peloton, surprised to learn after looking back at the top that that’s exactly what they’d done. 

Apparently a bit of rest and some cooler temperatures gave me the legs of my life. I’d just set an all-time 20-minute record without suffering to do so. Things continued perfectly when Wilco started the narrow Machucos wall on the front row and I found myself surrounded by the entire top 10 in GC, drifting backward in the satisfaction of a job well done.

The winding and rolling coastal start on the following stage saw a single-file peloton as the attacks continued for well over an hour. Eventually we settled down and reloaded the cannons for the showdown on four medium climbs in series. I’m not quite as good on the shorter efforts, but Soren had a great day and could stay with Wilco until the final kilometers. I thought I’d just had a sub-par day, but later discovered I’d set 5-, 10-, and 15-minute records on the same climb; the level of the peloton was just that high!

Most of the peloton wanted a more relaxed day to be better-rested for war on Angliru. The stage finished with a short, sharp climb and subsequent descent to the finish. Contador, ever the protagonist, once again proved to be the jumping frog -- frustrating Sky’s plans to boil him slowly. As proof of our form and determination, Soren and I made the 30-man selection, then raced to the front to join Sky in chasing back Contador’s attack. Our furious downhill pursuit clawed back 40 seconds in 13 kilometers, ceding no time to Contador and preserving Wilco’s podium for one final battle.

Historically, stage 20 in the Vuelta is the point at which I nearly quit the race altogether. I’d already had that day on stage 14, though, so I was looking forward to the race! It looked like a whole day of rain, but on the Sunweb bus we were all excited for war. We were fighting for a podium and would empty ourselves to reach it.

Phase one of our plan was to put someone in the break to get over the first one or two climbs ahead of the leaders -- Soren checked that box. Next was to put Wilco in the front for the harrowing high-speed rainy descent to be ahead of any splits. At the bottom of that descent, we had three in the front group of 20-riders, with Zakarin and a few other GC riders 30 seconds in arrears. 

It was pretty surreal to be climbing in a group of almost-exclusively GC riders, and hanging on! Contador slipped away on the sketchy descent after Nibali and de la Cruz crashed, but Wilco started the Angliru amongst the favorites after a perfect race, and with three teammates around him. At that point, we could only ask that he leave it all out there. He had a great race, but faded in the final kilometers and dropped to fifth in GC. Everything had gone perfectly. The others had just been better that day, so we could be happy with the result.

The final stage is a 75km neutral rollout followed by an hour of madness. The first couple of hours were a struggle between wanting not to be so bored, but not wanting to go so fast as to be in pain. Eventually we reached the circuit, the peloton allowing Contador to enter alone as part of his final race. From that point it was a chaotic mess, nobody holding anything back. 

Anybody who has ever raced a criterium with a U-turn can imagine the furious chopping and bashing that goes on with 24 U-turns in an hour. As a team, we still managed a good lead-out for Soren, also placing Wilco in a good position. Soren sprinted to third, his second podium of the Vuelta, and Wilco was ahead of a split in the final kilometer that boosted him to fourth in GC. 

An excellent way to end the day and the Vuelta!

By Chad Haga