Just as it was looking like Mark Cavendish might have the legs to stick around for any potential sprint finish, bad luck struck again as the Manxman dumped his chain on the Cipressa and was forced to chase.

Cavendish said that the timing of the mechanical meant he had to push upwards to 600 watts just to stay in contact with the group as they went over the Cipressa and as a consequence had nothing more to give as the pace went up again on the Poggio.

“I wasn’t able to keep moving up” said Cavendish at the finish in San Remo. “It wasn’t that I was getting dropped, but you need to keep moving up or fighting for position, and I just didn’t have the energy to keep doing it, to keep doing those little accelerations on the Poggio, so every corner I was losing a couple of positions and it put me too far back.”

After dropping the chain in the same manner at Tirenno-Adriatico just a week before, Cav has been extremely unfortunate as far as bike issues go so far this season. With Gent-Wevelgem coming up next Sunday, he’ll be hoping his mechanical woes are behind him as he guns for a victory in one of the few sprinter-friendy Classics he hasn’t yet won.