THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Stage 2: Wren takes stage at Gila; Vega leads
Goldstein retains women's lead after containing a dangerous breakaway
Tyler Wren (Colavita-Sutter Home) won Thursday's second stage of the Tour of the Gila with a final kilometer solo attack, while overall leader Gregorio Ladino Vega's Team Tecos-Trek put on another powerful show, setting a blistering pace over 80 miles of wind and hills.
The Tecos effort kept a small breakaway within two minutes of the pack for most of the stage. It also forced a number of abandons throughout the day.
The breakaway was initiated by Cuitlahuac Ayala Navarro (Arenas) and Jonathan Baker (Vitamin Cottage) in the first ten miles. Bissell's Benjamin Jacques-Maynes joined the group at the top of the Pinos Altos climb and the three rolled through the next 50 miles together, until Baker dropped off the pace on the windy three-mile climb that contains the last feedzone. Navarro and Jacques-Maynes — who also was in a long breakaway on Wednesday — continued on as the pack closed to within 7 seconds on the windy, wide-open roads that concluded the stage.
With eight miles to go Stefan Rothe of Marx and Bendorf Realtors bridged to the two and the new trio opened the gap back up to over 45 seconds, but were reeled in with about five miles to go.
Wren entered the last mile at the front, intending to set up team sprinter Alejandro Borrajo, but soon found himself with a gap and soloed for the last kilometer.
“I got a gap, so at that point I said, we got to go,” Wren said, “We knew Colavita was going to win the stage, we had it penciled in for a while. It was supposed to be Alejandro, but it turned out to be me.”
Second placed rider Phil Zajicek (Health Net-Maxxis), like Wren not known as a sprinter, closed on Wren in the final meters, with help from his only teammate at the Gila, Roman Kilun.
“If I had ten more meters I would have caught him,” said Zajicek, who nevertheless said he was thrilled to be racing again and feeling strong. Zajicek's last race was the Tour of California, where he was sick. He was prevented from starting the Tour de Georgia because he had not secured a UCI waiver for the medicines he takes to control his Crohn's disease. He said he now has the waiver.
Third place on the day was Sheldan Deeny of Fort Collins, Colorado, on the Manhattan-based Empire Cycling Team.
But the stage was dominated by the Mexican Tecos-Trek team, whose orange kits were at the front of the pack the entire day, with Ladino's pink leader's jersey just visible tucked in behind. Other teams reported that the team's pace was more than adequate to control.
“Tecos was riding a hard tempo; they were impressive,” said Wren. “It was a hard pace even sitting in.”
While Tecos was setting the pace however, the Bissell, Colavita and Toyota-United riders got a free ride, which could be critical for their recovery before Friday's crucial 16-mile time trial.
“I don't how well they time trial,” Zajicek said. “But they are clearly on good form.”
Women's race
Held on nearly the same course as the men, but a few hours later and in perhaps even more wind, the 88-mile women's race featured a successful long breakaway of three riders.
The NOAA reported winds from the west at 33mph — gusting to 45mph — on Thursday afternoon ... the race's final 18 miles were headed straight into the wind.
Amber Rais (Tibco), Anne Samplonius (Cheerwine) and Alison Testroete (Aaron's) got together off the front after the hair-raising Sapillo Crossing descent, about 28 miles into the race.
Testroete, from Abbotsford, British Columbia, was the best placed of the three, at 5:03 behind race leader Leah Goldstein.
On a tailwind ride down the Mimbres Valley, the trio built up a maximum lead of more than 4 1/2 minutes, which had Goldstein's team nervous. Goldstein had just two teammates with her in the lead group and they got little help from the other teams.
Testroete, who used her descending skills to initiate the break on the Sapillo descent, said she never would have taken off if she had known what the last miles were like, once the course turned into the wind and hills on the wide highway leading back to the start/finish at Fort Bayard.
"We came up the first hill at the feedzone and I thought, ok, I can make it. And then we got to the top and I could see another hill, and then another. But we just kept trading pace and we kept moving somehow," she said.
In the final miles the gap came down to about two minutes, just enough margin for the three women in the break to engage in some cat-and-mouse tactics in the final kilometer.
Rais finally jumped with about 200 meters to go and held off Testroefe and Samplonius.
"It was what you might call an exquisite suffer fest," said Rais, a Reno, Nevada, native who lives in Austria but is racing this summer in the U.S.
"On the last few hills we were getting blown all over the place and it felt like we were moving at a snail's pace," she said.
Goldstein finished in the middle of the pack and will maintain her overall lead.
"We pulled it off," she said. "Now we just will to look forward to the time trial, the crit and another day of hell," she said, referring to the Gila's last stage, the Gila Monster, which will take the women 72 miles and the men 106 miles.
Preliminary Results
1. Tyler Wren, Colavita Sutter Home
2. Phil Zajicek, Health Net – Maxxis
3. Sheldan Deeny, Empire Cycling Team
Preliminary Women's Results
1. Amber Rais, Tibco
2. Alison Testroete, Aaron's
3. Anne Samplonius, Cheerwine
