It was an ambush hiding in plain sight, but nobody seemed to notice. EF Education-EasyPost slipped two riders into the 42-rider early breakaway on stage 18 of the Vuelta a España, but few paid much heed when James Shaw and Owain Doull quietly dropped out of the move and wheeled to a halt near the top of Puerto Herrera with 45km or so still to race.
"We had a little tea party on the KoM," Shaw joked when he reached the finish in Maeztu. "No, I don't think any cameras picked it up, but we were getting our glasses cleaned in the car and we were filling up on drinks for about three or four minutes – or maybe more, it felt like a lifetime. Every group that came over the climb, I said 'OK, this is it,' but then I'd see I had to wait for the next one."
