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Aldape, Armstrong take Cascade road race
Leipheimer and Armstrong continue to lead overall
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Moises Aldape (Team Type 1) and Kristin Armstrong (Cervelo-Lifeforce) proved victorious in their respective races in Saturday’s fifth stage of the Cascade Cycling Classic, the Pacific Power-Cascade Lakes road race, which ended in the parking lot of the Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort. After being in a break almost the entire day, Aldape outsprinted second placed Chad Beyer (unattached) and Bradley White (Successful Living) at the line.
In the women’s race, Armstrong rode clear of the main field at the bottom of the 4-mile Sparks Lake Climb and came across the finish by herself, followed by Julie Beveridge (Aaron’s) in the red Best Young Rider jersey, and then Beveridge’s teammate, Felicia Gomez in third.
Levi Leipheimer (Astana) remains in yellow, but Tom Zirbel (Bissell), who came into the day 1:58 behind Leipheimer and just 4 seconds ahead of Jeff Louder (BMC) finished the stage in 37th place, and has moeved down to 9th on GC at 3:12 down. Louder is now in second, followed by teammate Darren Lill, while Chris Baldwin (Toyota-United) and Matt Wilson (Team Type 1) retained their fourth and fifth places, respectively.
In the women’s GC, Armstrong increased her lead over second-placed Thorburn by 1 minute, while third-placed Beveridge succeeded in decreasing her time to Thorburn by 26 seconds and is now just 29 seconds behind her. Katheryn Mattis (Webcor) retained fourth place, and Felicia Gomez (Aaron’s) moved into fifth.
Men – Another long successful break
As in the stage 1 and 2 road races, Saturday’s stage included early attacks and a long break that put three of its members on the final podium. From the moment the officials raised the green flag after the neutralized start, a variety of teams tried launching attacks, and it was one that went off around mile 27 that stuck for good.
The break initially included 11 riders: Tim Johnson (Health Net-Maxxis); Toyota-United’s Caleb Manion and Dominique Rollin; Jeremy Vennell (Bissell); BMC’s Ian McKissick and Brent Bookwalter; Successful Living’s Brian Jensen and Bradley White; Moises Aldape (Team Type 1); Blake Caldwell (Garmin-Slipstream); and James Mattis (California Giant-Specialized).
At mile 30, Chad Beyer, a 21-year-old riding unattached who has ridden for the U23 National Team program for four years in Belgium, bridged up to bring the break to a dozen strong.
Bookwalter and Caldwell were the highest placed GC riders at just over 4 minutes back, and with representatives from all the GC-contention teams, the peloton seemed content to let the break gain a maximum two and a half minute gap. Their pace, though, largely driven by Chris Horner (Astana) as he protected yellow jersey teammate Leipheimer, was high enough — they were averaging roughly 26 mph near mile 50 of the 84-mile course — to blow roughly 50 riders off the back of the field who never made it back to the main pack.
Riders in the break seemed to agree that, though the workload was a little unevenly distributed given the number of riders who were there without teammates, when they needed to, the group worked well together. “It was a big break,” McKissick explained. “My job was obviously to do most of the work just to keep the break rolling because Brent [Bookwalter] was close to GC with Caldwell, so we were trying to save him. I was doing a lot of the work in the beginning, and then towards the middle, everybody was working really well together.”
When the course started heading up with about 20K to go, McKissick said that everybody started getting tired. Teammates Rollin and Manion lost contact with the group, and shortly after, McKissick said he knew they had to push the pace in order to maintain the gap. “I pretty much committed and just rode on the front all the way to where it gets steep … I did what I could, and then I got dropped.”
With a gap of 2:35 and less than 8 miles to the finish, Jensen attacked the break, Beyer countered, and Jensen fell back to the break again while Beyer headed up on his own, gaining a maximum 10 second gap as the road got steeper. “I was going pretty good, but I noticed there was kind of a headwind and it wasn’t that steep, so I didn’t put all my energy into the break right there. I just kind of saved it, and waited for the group to catch me, sat in, and then waited for the sprint.”
Next, Caldwell attacked the break with just about 5K to go, and quickly gained a 12-second advantage. White bridged up to Caldwell near the parking lot through which riders had to take a wide sweeping turn to the finish. “Blake was out a little bit longer than me, so I had a little bit more left in the tank,” he said. “When Team Type I [Aldape] hit it [right before the finish line], I hit it again. He sat on a lot of the day because he was the only guy in the break from his team, so he had a right to. And then coming down the stretch, I knew, I figured I was second place, and then right at the end, the USA guy [Beyer] came around me.”
Team Type 1 director, Ed Beamon, though ecstatic with Aldape’s win at the finish, explained that he had been quite nervous when Caldwell was away. “When Caldwell went, I told him [Aldape] to go with him, and he didn’t,” he said. “He was so confident that he just stayed with the group, stayed with the group, and went with all the surges. I think he felt if they came in to 1K to go with under 10 seconds, he could sprint to him. And so he just stayed very, very patient … I think the first real threat in the last 500 meters was Jones, and he just stayed with Jones at, what, 150 meters, and he just launched. He was just really confident and patient, and just ignored his director,” he said, good-naturedly.
And it worked, as Aldape, a 26-year-old from Mexico who competed in the 2006 Giro d’Italia, took the stage ahead of Beyer and White. He also took the KOM jersey from teammate Wilson.
And, again, as in the previous road stages, though not in the break, Leipheimer made his way to the finish line very shortly after the winners. Protected by Horner at the front of the group all day, he made a break at the bottom of the final climb.
“We hit the bottom of the climb,” he said, “and I think Toyota took control. They split it up pretty well. And then when the dust settled, it was Darren Lill and me. We actually caught one of his teammates [McKissick] from the breakaway and he helped us get a bigger gap. And then I worked with Darren to the finish here. I think we were just under a minute behind the breakaway [across the line].”
Asked by a local tv reporter what his plans are for Sunday’s final stage, Leipheimer said he and Horner are just going to do more of the same, and will defend the jersey. “We definitely have the attitude like we’re just going to give it everything, and if we can pull it off, it will be something special.”
Women – One long break, but Armstrong gets it on the climb
The women’s race began at Wanoga State Park, 13 miles into the same course as the men’s, and numerous teams began attempting attacks right away.
“Tibco was really active today,” Armstrong said. “They were probably the most active today as far as attacking goes.” She went on to explain that, though a lot of groups tried to form, as soon as a team in a small break would try to put a second representative from their team in the break, she felt she had to reel them back.
Her priority, of course, was to protect her GC lead, and riding alone, she could not take the chance of a big, well-formed break getting away. “If there’s a group of, like, 10 girls up there, the amount of time they can put on in, like, 50K? … For me, it’s easier to take care of a 20-second gap right away, and just rest, because … the girls give up for awhile. And then I just sit there. And then maybe 20 minutes later, they try again. And then if there’s a scary one, I go for 30 seconds. But if it gets far away, then I have to sit up there for 20 minutes, and that’s hard … I was in the front quite a bit today, patrolling.”
Gomez agreed with Armstrong that Tibco was very aggressive, and said Bicycle John’s and Webcor were also very active in trying to create breaks. And she confirmed that Armstrong made sure not to let any dangerous groups go. “She wouldn’t let the group get too big, and as soon as it started to get big, she would just jump on the train, and someone would pull her up,” she said.
At mile 40, Rushlee Buchanan (Team Tibco), a 20-year-old Kiwi who won a silver medal at junior worlds in 2005, headed out on her own for nearly 30 miles. “She’s got a really good kick and she’s an up-and-coming rider,” teammate Amber Rais said. “She’s a new rider to the NRC peloton and today took a lot of courage. I have the utmost respect for what she did today because she made the race.” Rais said that Buchanan “stuck her head down and kept going,” but “it was a long climb to the finish, and we’ve got some top Olympic medal contenders in the group.” And it was one of those contenders, Armstrong, who eventually caught here with about 2K to go.
At the bottom of the climb to the finish, Armstrong made a strong attack off the main field, and said no one came with her – at least close enough for her to see. “I looked back and I saw Julie [Beveridge]. She was kinda going by herself. I think she was trying to put some time on Christine [Thorburn, who sat 55 seconds ahead of Beveridge on GC coming into the day]. Julie’s teammates, Aaron’s, were really there for her today, and I think they really helped her get that separation from Christine [on GC].”
Gomez confirmed Armstrong’s assumption. “We wanted to kind of put the hurt on Webcor on the last part of the climb,” Gomez said. “On the last climb, Meredith [Miller] set a pretty good tempo at the front, and then I took over and tried to surge, basically to put some hurt into Christine, and then Kristin took off. Julie and Christine went with her. And I just was a little bit behind that, and tried to ride tempo at that point.” One by one after Kristin, they each passed Buchanan on the climb. Gomez said that Beveridge eventually dropped Thorburn, and Mattis, who had caught up to Gomez, saw this, and went up to work with Thorburn; Gomez sat on while Beveridge continued to ride alone after Armstrong, trying to get as much time on Thorburn as possible.
Describing what it was like trying to put time on Olympian and former national time trial champion Thorburn, Beveridge laughed and said, “I just kind of upped the tempo and was thinking, ‘Ok, I’m hurting! She’s got to be hurting more! ... Hopefully!’” She could see Armstrong ahead of her all the way, and said that competing against Armstrong is helping her ride way better than she ever has. “With her here, it’s making me really up my performance.”
Thorburn explained that once the climbing started, she realized she wasn’t feeling well. “Otherwise, we would have tried to be aggressive against Kristin. So then it was kind of damage control after that,” she said. “When Kristin accelerated, no one could go with her and I just tried to follow Julie as long as possible, and I got gapped off her … Katheryn [Mattis] bridged up … and did a fantastic job just helping me limit the time loss.”
Looking toward the final stage on Sunday, Thorburn said, “Tomorrow is a new day.”
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