Kenny Williams(First Rate Mortgage) took the win at King's Valley. Seems that there was some confusion as a break got past the lead car. Not sure how nobody noticed that Donald(CMG/Alpine Mortgage) and Paul(Hutch's/OIC) weren't in the field for the finale, it must have been eerily quiet. Chad Hartley(BMC) was the lone Pro. Oregon Velo has all the pics.
The weather looks beautiful from the pictures. I haven't heard of any wrecks or misbehavior, so send something in.
The forecast for TST as of Friday afternoon was 90% chance of rain and a high of 50. We got lucky, it was beee-yooo-tiiiii-full. Hagens-Berman avenged their ball dropping at the Brad Lewis Crit by going 1,2. Super-fast track guy Adrian Hegyvery took the win and Oregon's own Andy Fischer was hot on his heels. Here's Andy leading Adrian up a climb, Will Routely(Symmetrics) was the only pro in the field, he's the yellow and black bit jutting out the side there.
Adam Curry is stateside and in fine form. Apparently he will be based in Seattle this season, so somebody else will have to drive the truck to PIR. Chad Nikolz was around to reinforce his reputation as the most handsome rider in the peloton. This year he added an authentic California tan to his repetoire.
Mike Hone of Hagens-Berman was there with his ridiculously expensive camera to get these shots. He's got one of the best flickr accounts anywhere, he's a way talented photographer for bike and other stuff. Check it out.
It seemed like the top end of the 1/2 peloton was spread a bit thin this weekend. Both of the aforementioned races were not exactly said to be screaming fast. The top guys were predisposed (Georgia, Sea Otter) and two big NW races in one day spread the fast guys pretty thin. Kenny didn't even make it back for Seward Park on Sunday(which Chad Nikolz of Hagens-Berman won).
The Rubicon boys came out screaming for Sea Otter. Tuckerman ended up 5th and Harm 10th. Sea Otter might not be as big as it used to be but that is seriously impressive. Maybe you guys should stay in Oregon and race in some good weather!
Here's some pics of them teaching kids about bikes and life and hard work and stuff.
Matt Brandt(Rudbicon), I think he's from Wisconsin, was the best U23 at the Sea O.
Jacob Rathe(Beaverton Bicycle Club) won his race at the Otter (under 16?).
So this guy goes to Georgia and is riding his bike, stop me if you've heard this one before, and he runs into an Italian, an Australian and a Belorussian. Well to make a long story short .....................DOUG OLLERENSHAW(HealthNet/Maxxis) GOT 2ND IN STAGE 1 OF THE TOUR DE GEORGIA. Daniele Contrini(Tinkov) got away at the end but Doug unleashed world famous hellacious sprint and left Navigator Ben Day in the dust for 2nd. Congrats to Doug, huge ride! PezCycling News has great daily coverage. Evan Elken(Jittery Joe's) was actually involved in forming the breakaway but didn't hang on for the ride.
As an aside, why isn't Jelly Belly at the TdG? They freakin' won Redlands, the crowds love the bean boys. They were at Sea Donkey.
Seattle area fast guy Lang Reynolds(Axley) got a guest rider spot on Priority Health/Bissell for Sea Pony.
Barry and Ryan (Kona) both top-5'd the Sea Turtle short track.
3 comments:
Maybe I was simply oblivious, but I didn't notice us going past a lead car in the KV break. The break also had to be in sight going up the finishing hill to start the last lap, and the two CMG jerseys in it at that point would have been distinctive. As for the race being slow, from my perspective it was similar to many of the P/1/2 races I've done in recent years: as soon as "the right" break gets off the front the pack shuts down. One or maybe two teams will actively slow the pack (e.g. CMG) and the other teams represented in the break acquiesce (e.g. Hutch's, FRM). Everybody else is stuck unless they're ungodly fast (e.g. Kenny) or they manage to get a small chase group off (e.g. Chad, Chris, and Mark).
As for misbehavior, there wasn't much that I saw, although I'll offer a piece of advice to a young and very strong rider: Arguing with the official regarding the distinction between riding _on_ the yellow line vs riding _over_ the yellow line is unlikely to gain you anything and could have cost you either in this or a future race.
Harry Phinney
Harry, I soooo badly wanted to go with you when you went across to the break. With a teammate up there already it was too much of a risk. CMG weren't going to let us have two to one...unless they had no choice (Kenny!)
Great ride, and smart move too!
Mick
TST was plenty fast, with a split on the first climb and an attack out of that split. Then it was chase and attack non-stop until it regrouped before heading toward the big climbs, but there were more attacks before the Anderson KOM.
Then the lead group formed on Anderson and held off the chase group all the way to Dewatto, with only Stangeland making the bridge to them before blowing up on the climb.
It was only on the upper parts of Dewatto and in the run-in that it was slow at all due to most of the 2nd group having a guy in the lead group. Recycled Cycles being the biggest team assed-out, they didn't mass at the front and sell-out to try to bring them back.
So, I'd say compared to years past, where an early break goes and then the race is shut down, this one was much faster and aggressive, and certainly more interesting than being beaten by mile 8.
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