“Overall it was a pretty chill day,” said American Patrick McCarty (Garmin-Chipotle), about a stage contested largely on a straight, mostly-flat highway road. “There were a lot of attacks at the beginning, but then there was a crash and it came back together. It was like that all day. People would attack, something would go but it would pretty easily get disrupted. The hardest part was at the end. That’s when the top guys started racing hard.”

Also finishing safely in the bunch was 44-year-old Raúl Alcalá, who crossed the line 52nd in what was his first pro race in nearly a decade. Alcalá, the first Mexican to ride the Tour de France and a two-time Tour stage winner, retired from the pro peloton in 1994. But a day ahead of this seven-stage tour around Mexico’s largest state, Alcalá told VeloNews that he’s caught the cycling bug once more and has dreams of returning to the sport’s biggest races.

A day later he appeared strained after the three-plus-hour affair, but was hopeful his legs would come around as the race headed into the mountains for stages 2 and 3.

“It was hard and fast,” admitted Alcalá, who finished top 10 in the Tour de France three times during the late 1980s and early ’90s. “At the beginning my legs were a little heavy but I felt better at the end. I hope tomorrow I feel even better. Right now I’m tired but less than what I was thinking it would be.”

Canada’s Team RACE Pro was led by Mark Walters, who was 4th among the 117-rider field that includes 17 teams from eight countries.

Next up in north central Mexico is the longest stage of this third-year event, a 188.7km grind from Parral to Guachochi. The stage includes five categorized climbs, as it crosses the jagged Sierra Tarahumara mountain range. Stage 3 brings more of the same, as the field faces a 155.9km trip from Guachochi to Creel that includes seven rated climbs and finishes 8173 feet above sea level.