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Chris Horner (Saturn) and Kimberly Bruckner (T-Mobile) locked up the overall titles at California’s Solano Bicycle Classic, as Horner continued his dominance and took the final circuit race and his teammate Ina Teutenberg scored a sprint win in the women’s race.
Horner not only held on to his leader’s jersey, he won the stage. Jumping out of the penultimate corner, Horner bested the sprinters outlasting Greg Henderson of 7Up-Maxxis and HealthNet’s Gord Fraser in a blazing fast field sprint.
The day started for the men promptly at 1 pm, when the neutralized parade of riders left downtown Fairfield and headed out to a hilly 5.5 loop around a pricey residential neighborhood. The hills were vibrantly green, dotted with leafy oaks and punctuated with the sounds of shifting gears.
Early on there were no decisive moves, as teams were content to ease into the day’s events. A softly chugging uphill, backed by a swift right-hand descent along a golf course stretched the peloton out to nearly full size before it regrouped on the wide streets. An early crash caused by a puncture took out and bloodied six riders, but had little to no effect on the overall proceedings.
In fact, things were getting downright sluggish until lap seven, when a break of seven riders, including John Lieswyn of 7Up-Maxxis, came off the front. Mark McCormack of Saturn also tagged along, which brought the rest of his teammates to the front of the field to shut down the chase.
“We were trying to keep the pace as slow as we could,” said Horner. “We wanted to try and actually let the break stay away. We wanted to do as little work as possible, because we only get one day of rest before we head into Redlands.”
Ofoto-Lombardi’s Erik Saunders and Saul Raisen were having none of that, and they organized a tremendous two-man time trial to jump away from the field. They bridged a 70-second gap in under one lap.
“We were pretty present up front,” said Saunders. “But we missed that one move. I was just screaming ‘We have to get guys up there.’ There were four of us all lined up, and so I said we have got to try and go now.”
With Ofoto-Lombardi now in it, the gap grew to 1:36 seconds before Jelly Belly took initiative and started to chase. Standing 3rd overall on GC, Ben Brooks had the most to lose if Lieswyn could get ahead by more than two minutes.
“A dangerous group got away,” said Brooks. “So we went to the front in the last 20 miles or so to make sure that it didn’t get out of hand.”
The group was reeled in on the stretch drive back into town, and with full fanfare the men began setting up for a sprint.
Horner led out teammate Ivan Dominguez, while Gord Fraser and Greg Henderson shifted up into position. Something spooked Dominguez, who backed off, and Horner seized the opportunity.
“Chris Fisher clipped a pedal,” said Horner. “And that might have caused a bit of hesitation from there, so Ivan sat up and I thought I could take it.”
In a full gallop, Horner came in to take the day and seal the race. Fraser was pipped at the line by Henderson.
This time Ina gets the win
The women’s race was played out under cooler temperatures and less cumulative barbecuing by the fans. Some children were playing jumprope, but they stopped temporarily to watch the whizzing women race by.
An early break led by Saturn’s Ina Teutenberg proved successful, though the initial group of 10 was cut down to just three riders by the end of the day. Catherine Marsal of the Canadian Federation Team hung on, as did Sandy Espeseth of Victory Brewing/Amoroso, to finish in that order.
But the race was not entirely without its drama, as the chase pack was animated time and again by Lynne Gaggioli of Velo Bella. Despite repeated attempts to jump off the front, she could not encourage anybody else to come with her, and it was not until the gap grew to a nearly unmanageable interval that others joined in the chase.
“Towards the end the break got a little over three minutes,” said Gaggioli. “And Saturn got a little worried about keeping their third place overall, so they started chasing it. I was helping them a little, but I didn’t think they were going hard enough, so I started attacking to make sure I kept my fourth place.”
This began to work, and when T-Mobile entered the fray to pursue its own ends, the gap came down.
“T-Mobile was chasing to keep the gap close enough to secure a team victory,” said Teutenberg. “That worked for everybody, because we could do our job on the front and stay away.”
In the field sprint it was Diet-Rite’s Tina Mayolo-Pic over Lynn Bessette of Saturn. The top 3 of both the individual and team GC remained as they were when the day began.
