Tuesday's TTT was one of the longest in the history of week-long stage races.
Not since 1964 has the Volta a Catalunya scheduled such a long team time trial as the one of this year's edition, which took the riders around Banyoles, on a 41.3km-long lumpy loop. Just as five decades ago, the stage against the clock led to some big gaps between the overall contenders, as Movistar – who had the best time at the finish – put at least half a minute between them and all the other squads, except second-placed BMC.
A young Quick-Step Floors outfit, which included three neo-pros (Rémi Cavagna, Enric Mas and Maximilian Schachmann), was the penultimate teams to leave the start ramp in the afternoon, and the eight riders gave them all on the challenging course of stage 2, arriving at the finish line in 51:08 for 10th place, on a day which witnessed an important shake-up of the general classification.
Stage 3 of Volta a Catalunya will present the climbers with their first chance of a showdown, on the 9km-long first-category ascent of La Molina, where Dan Martin won last year with a splendid last-kilometer attack.
Photo credit: ©Tim De Waele
Pieter Serry 
