Uneventful opener to Castilla y León

Euskaltel and Orbea both made muted starts to the Vuelta a Castilla y León earlier on Friday.

The 159km stage starting and ending in Salamanca was always destined for a bunch sprint, and so it turned out after the day's four-man break was caught inside the last three clicks. Neither the orange nor the blue team managed to get one of their riders in contention though, with Jon Aberasturi being Orbea's top man in 10th and Pablo Urtasun not far behind in 14th. On a positive note though, none of the riders (that includes both teams), except for Alán Pérez, lost any time, so it's still all to play for for the remaining couple of stages. Pérez, still easing his way back into competition after a an injury-enforced delayed start to the season, ceded 4:43.

Manuel Cardoso sprinted to a popular win for Caja Rural - check out the video here. Source: www.biciciclismo.com