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'Cross Examination: Dunked but undaunted, Tilford wins KLM 'cross
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When Steve Tilford crashed his bike into an icy lake on the second lap of Sunday’s KLM Marketing UCI Cyclocross Race, his first instinct was to get back on and start racing.
A warm blanket and some dry clothing would have to wait. The Trek-Volkswagen rider from Topeka, Kansas, had another epic chapter to write in his already-storied career, which includes five world mountain-bike and four national cyclo-cross titles.
Tilford tossed his waterlogged bike out of the lake and after just one lap on the 2.5km course had chased down and passed Brent Prenzlow (Celo Pacific-Salsa) en route to winning the second annual edition of the race at Kansas City’s Wyandotte County Park.
The bizarre incident and his stunning comeback had even Tilford shaking his head in disbelief afterwards.
“I was on my hands and knees on the ice and my bike’s laying there flat on it,” Tilford said. “Then all of sudden, the ice broke through and I just went in up my waist and down to my shoulders.”
Before his ice bath, Tilford was 20 seconds clear of Prenzlow after the first of eight laps in the 60-minute event. But on his second trip through a frozen, rutty patch of mud on the tree-lined course, he lost control and skidded out onto the ice.
With temperatures in the low 20s and a stiff, biting wind blowing out of the north, “I knew I was in trouble,” Tilford said.
“After I got out, I yelled to the guys in the pit that I needed some new gloves because my hands were frozen. But by the time I rode another lap, the gloves had frozen solid on my hands and I couldn’t get pull them off with my teeth or my hands.”
Tilford also found himself riding a bike that had essentially become a single speed. Already caked with mud, the bike’s brake and shifting cables seized up, caked with icy slush from the trip into the lake.
But it didn’t matter. Tilford quickly caught up to Prenzlow and was eight seconds clear of the rider from Carlsbad, California, by the start of the next lap. From there, he put it on cruise control, tossing down lap times of 7:47, 7:43, 7:47 and 7:54 to build a lead that was a comfortable 29 seconds heading into the final lap.
“At the end, I tried to maintain and not make any more mistakes,” Tilford said. “Obviously, if this would have been the nationals, I would have finished 30th or something. You have to be able to shift and brake your bike or you usually don’t do well.”
The race for third was not decided until late in the race. Trek-VW’s Bill Stolte, teammate Shadd Smith and Alan Factory’s Bjorn Selander were separated by only 28 seconds with three laps to go, but Selander attacked the two and maintained his advantage for third, 55 seconds behind Tilford.
A two-part storm – first ice, then snow – that struck days before the race also prevented many competitors from St. Louis and other cities east of Kansas City from making the trip to the course that will play host to the 2007 and 2008 national championships. One of the more prominent no-shows was defending national champion Todd Wells (GT), who was suffering from a stomach flu.
The UCI women’s race Sunday turned into a head-to-head battle between Portland’s Sue Butler (River City Bicycles) and Team Maxxis’ Melissa Thomas of Boulder. The pair pulled away from the field at the start of the 40-minute race and had nearly 30 seconds’ lead with two laps to go. Then Thomas made her move.
“She (Butler) had a friend who kept yelling at her to stay on my wheel especially in the windy section so that made me try to drop her because I didn't want to keep pulling her around,” Thomas said.
Thomas was 15 seconds clear on the bell lap and scored her first cyclo-cross win of the season when she arrived at the finish with a 24-second cushion over Butler. Catherine Walberg (Team Kenda Tire) came in third.
“It hurt to breathe, the air was so cold,” said Thomas – who could barely talk after the race. “But I love adverse conditions and wore hand warmers in my gloves and shoes so I wasn’t really cold.”
Walberg, a Topeka resident, won Saturday’s Missouri State Cyclocross Championship race on virtually the same course while Tilford rode to a 1:23 win over Prenzlow in the Cat. 1-3 race. —Sean Weide
KLM Marketing UCI Cyclocross Race (C2)
Kansas City, KS. December 3
Elite men
1. Steve Tilford (Trek-Volkswagen), 1:01:54
2. Brent Prenzlow (Celo Pacific-Salsa), at 0:16
3. Bjorn Selander (Alan Factory), at 0:55
4. Shadd Smith (Trek-VW), at 2:02
5. Bill Stolte (Trek-VW), at 2:49
6. Nathan Rice (Big Shark Racing-Ridley), at 2:52
7. Joshua Johnson (Big Shark Racing-Ridley), at 3:34
8. Shawn Harshman (Harshman Wealth), at 4:02
9. Brian Jensen (Jelly Belly), at 4:11
10. John Behrens (Celo Pacific-Salsa), at 4:22
Elite women
1. Melissa Thomas (Team Maxxis), 35:26
2. Sue Butler (River City Bicycles), at 0:24
3. Catherine Walberg (Team Kenda Tire), at 0:59
Muller, Winfield take Verge MAC finale
Former Swiss U23 champion Michael Muller and Deidre Winfield (Velo Bella-Kona) wrapped up the Verge MAC series with wins at Sunday’s Capital Cross Classic in Reston, Virginia.
In the UCI women’s race, Maureen Bruno Roy (Independent Fabrications) took the hole-shot. But it was Winfield who was best able to take advantage of the course conditions. Using the hairpin turn after the pits as a launching pad, Winfield shot off down the long, paved downhill straight that followed, visibly faster than all of her competitors. Bruno Roy was faster in the technical parts of the course, but Winfield dominated on the power sections, and the IF rider had to settle for second.
A controversial sprint for third saw Betsy Shogren (FORT Factory Team) cross the line ahead of Melanie Swartz (Velo Bella-Kona), but Shogren was later relegated. Visibly upset, Shogren said, “I’m the first to admit if I did something wrong, but I don’t feel I did anything wrong.”
Still the result was good enough to give Shogren a third Verge MAC championship — the first triple winner in any division in the history of the series.
In the men’s race, Muller — who was visiting friend Jon Hamblen and reacquainting himself with racing after several years in agricultural school —introduced himself to American ’cross in dramatic fashion by bunny-hopping the barriers on the first lap.
The early laps saw the front of the field repeatedly stretch and come back together before Muller and Wisconsin’s Tristan Schouten (Trek-VW-Michelin) rode away with Hamblen (RGM Watches-Richard Sachs) in pursuit.
With two laps to go, Hamblen finally caught the two leaders after a long chase. But the race would be won at “Gambler’s Gulch,” a short run-up with two small fallen tree trunks followed by a quick downhill.
On the last lap, Muller, Schouten and Hamblen hit Gambler’s Gulch together with Muller in front. Muller elected to ride the section while the other two ran. Running seemed to be the better choice for a couple of seconds, but then Muller exploded down the following hill while the others remounted, taking a gap that he held to the line. Schouten took second ahead of Hamblen.
Behind them, a championship battle ensued. With a sixth-place finish, Weston Schempf (FORT Factory Team) clinched his second Verge MAC championship, having won the Men’s “B” Championship in 2004.
Race note
Nick Bax (Team Hot Tubes) did the double on Sunday, destroying the junior field to win by nearly five and a half minutes, then heading straight back to the staging area for the B Men’s race — which he also won.
Schneider, Sawyer win in Georgia
Jed Schneider (Alan Factory) and Kim Sawyer (Travel Girl) on the sixth race of the Georgia Cross Series on Sunday in Macon.
The race also doubled as the state championships.
In the men’s race, Schneider and Eric Murphy (Toshiba) broke free and stayed clear of a five-man chase group that included series leader Michael Cummings (KHS-Cycleyouth).
Schneider put in the winning move with one lap to go and finished seconds ahead of a hard-chasing but ecstatic Murphy, who finished as the top Georgian in second place and collected the state championships.
The women’s race was once again animated by Travel Girl teammates Sawyer and Kim Foland, who put the hammer down on Ellen Carroll (Outspokin’).
Carroll chased hard but was at a disadvantage on the open, windy course. Sawyer left her teammate a little over halfway through the race to claim the state title.
The final race of the series will be held at Indian Springs State Park on December 10th.
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