THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Weather and confusion dominate NVGP opener
The first stage of Minnesota’s Nature Valley Grand Prix was called off Wednesday night, midway through the men’s session.
Remarkably, Wednesday’s opening stage wasn’t particularly inclement. Heavy rain all day and a low sky had backed off in time for the downtown St. Paul criterium. But 20 laps in, at the final curve before the finishing straight, the lead moto-ref went down at 25 miles per hour on the soaked tarmac. A comet trail of sparks lit up the course. The blue Triumph slid on its side and clipped a Successful Living rider ─ who succeeded in escaping the mishap with nothing but a wrecked machine. No one was hurt, but many were spooked.
The wet road and crowded field had contenders like Kirk O’Bee (HealthNetMaxxis) and Aaron Olson (Bissel) well off the front and lapping the field only ten laps into the 1.1K circuit.
The shuffleboarding moto therefore took out much of the tail end of the field. Referees ran out and neutralized the course. Riders were brought to the start while officials conferred.
Finally, the riders themselves were polled: Cancel? The ayes carried the vote, the purse was donated to a local children’s hospital, and the peloton set its sights on stage two, a road race in the rolling hill country of Cannon Falls, 30 miles south of the Twin Cities.
Kirk O’Bee was said he was fine with the decision.
“It was going good, but what can you do?” he asked. “Guys were heavy on the brakes coming into the corner, worried about their tires holding. But it really wasn’t that bad. There were too many motors on the course.”
O’Bee had cause for disappointment. Wearing the stars and stripes, the national criterium champion looked formidable at the head of the race. Bissel’s Olson looked to be the only rider with the wherewithal to cover O’Bee. Toyota-United’s Ivan Stevic, last year’s GC champion and stage winner, organized a chase but he didn’t have any friendly company and never gained contact. O’Bee’s lost opportunity offered something of a reprieve for Stevic. The GC picture offers a clean slate for stage 2.
The women fared slightly better. Their race had been shortened from 40 to 30 laps. But due to the huge field ─ the Grand Prix is the largest pro women’s race in the country ─ defending champion Kristin Armstrong (Cervelo) attacked out of the chute, chased tenaciously by Brooke Miller (Tibco).
Incredibly, the duo lapped the field in just three turns, and the result was mayhem for referees. While the women did finish the crit, it was impossible to untangle time gaps. As it was, referees established a finishing order for the first 46 riders, but did not record any time gaps, thus postponing any GC signals.
“If I was Kristin I’d be pissed,” said Brooke Miller. “And I wouldn’t have chased her as hard as I did, I’m a sprinter, that’s not my style of racing,” she said. Indeed, Miller chased hard and was eventually joined by teammate Joanne Kiesanowski, but they fell back by as much as 40 seconds to Armstrong.
That kind of time gap in a relatively short race can be unassailable.
The question for future stages will be whether the considerable firepower of the TIBCO team, with help from damaging attacks from riders like Shelly Olds (ProMan) and Laura Van Gilder (Cheerwine), can unseat Armstrong, who’s never been especially dependent on teammates to claim a place on the podium.
“We’re here to win the GC,” said Miller. “We’re strong and we’re going to give it our best shot.”
Thursday's stage, a 60-mile road race, is frequently a battle against wind and weather, and the forecast frequently plays a big part in team strategy.
Friday morning's time trial is a normally on a flat course along the Mississippi River near St. Paul, but this year, a brutal 8-10 percent grade climb has been incorporated into the last kilometer. The climb is steep enough to make many riders opt for road bikes for the stage.
Later that day, Minneapolis hosts its downtown criterium, a legendary event that regularly has drawn as many as 30,000. An 86-mile road race in Mankato follows on Saturday, and the Grand Prix winds up on Sunday with what has been called the toughest crit in American road racing: a circuit in Stillwater that includes a 24 percent grade on the day’s toughest climb.
