Archie Ryan had his climbing legs on in Andorra, riding a mountainous race that suited him and taking his best result of the season in the process (Photo: Luis Angel Gomez-SCA-Cor Vos)

Archie Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost) has clearly fully recovered from his recent efforts at Critérium du Dauphiné, with the Irishman putting in arguably his best ride of the season so far in the new Andorra MoraBanc Clàssica (1.1) one-day race.

Though the 23-year-old Irishman didn’t have quite what was required to hold the very strongest riders on the upper slopes of the final climb to the finish line, he put in a climbing display that he can be really happy with.

As the select group grew smaller and smaller on the 11.8km cat 1 ascent of Coll de la Botella, Ryan remained with the leaders and had two team mates for company in the shape of Esteban Chaves and Lukas Nerurkar.

Eventual race winner, Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), effectively got the final underway with an attack with 6km remaining on the tough main road finishing climb. And from that moment, the front group was split and the race was on for the victory.

After the Dane forced the first real selection, it was Enric Mas (Team Movistar) who was next to do some damage, surging forward and distancing Skjelmose and Chaves, though they kept their cool and rode back to the leaders.

By the finish, there were just five riders in the lead group contending to win, though Skjelmose was too strong for the others, winning the uphill sprint from Cristián Rodríguez (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Mas and Chaves, all finishing on the same time.

Australian Sebastian Berwick (Caja Rural-RGA Insurance) rode a very strong final climb to stay with them, though was tailed off in the sprint, finishing 5th at six seconds.

Then came Nerurkar, in 6th at 23 seconds, followed by Jonathan Klever Caicedo (Petrolike), in 7th at 34 seconds, and then Ryan, the Irishman taking 8th place some 37 seconds behind winner Skjelmose.

José Félix Parra (Equipo Kern Pharma) finished in 9th, on the same time as Ryan, with Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) rounding out the top 10 at 46 seconds. Ireland’s Killian O’Brien, the first-year U23 rider competing with Petrolike, was also in the race but was among the non-finishers.