After successfully collecting the last roadside feed bag, Huang Chong immediately slotted back into the lead group.
After crossing the summit finish, he would ride about 6 km of flat road through the mountains, then descend for another 6 km back to Willunga.
After that, he would continue all the way to the 126 km mark of the stage, where the final 3.4 km mountain climb would begin.
Huang Chong glanced at the size of the lead group he was currently in. There were probably only a little over forty riders left.
It was clear that during the previous climb, nearly every team's sprinters, along with some domestiques, had been completely dropped.
Among these forty-odd riders, teams such as UAE Team Emirates, Quick-Step team, Visma–Lease a Bike, Jayco AlUla, and Israel–Premier Tech had clearly come prepared. They had the most riders remaining, with four or five riders per team.
Bora Team, where Huang Chong rode, along with the other UCI WorldTour teams, only had two or three riders left.
Seeing the situation, he was not surprised.
Teams like UAE Team Emirates and Visma–Lease a Bike had always been built around Grand Tour climbers.
Their squads were not without sprinters and Classics specialists, but those riders were generally the teams' top stars. They would never come to a fringe race like the Tour Down Under.
The riders remaining in the lead group were mostly stars Huang Chong had been very familiar with in his previous life.
There was Alaphilippe from Quick-Step team, Narváez from Ineos Grenadiers, Onley from DSM, Simon Yates from Jayco AlUla, Bart Lemmen and Milan Vader from Visma–Lease a Bike, Del Toro from UAE Team Emirates, Williams from Israel–Premier Tech, and more.
There was no question that these riders had come to this Tour Down Under with the