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Mach, Pitel take Mt. Hood
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Bissell’s Paul Mach and Edwige Pitel (Sorella Forte) held off final-stage challenges to lock up overall victories in Oregon’s Pacific Power Mt. Hood Cycling Classic on Sunday.
In the women’s race, Pitel ensured her victory over ValueAct Capital’s Leah Goldberg by winning Sunday’s Downtown Hood River Criterium. Similarly, in the men’s event, Chris Baldwin (OUCH-Maxxis) wasn’t able to fight past Bissell’s superior numbers to pull back 13 seconds from Mach, who won the overall GC on the time he gained in the first stage.
Mach holds them off
The small Trek-Red Truck team scored its second consecutive stage win in the men’s race when Jamie Sparling took the sprint from the remnants of an eight-man break that escaped early in the 70-minute criterium. Corey Collier was also a big winner on the day, moving from sixth to third overall by jumping into the break and finishing fourth behind Sparling, Justin England (California Giant-Specialized) and Aaron Olson (Oakley-Sidi).
Sparling said he knew Bissell would probably let a breakaway go early if it wasn’t a threat to Mach’s overall so that the winners could gobble up the time bonuses given to the top three. Once in the break, the Canadian rider worked hard but decided to leave the primes alone.
“I knew I had the legs to take the sprint if it came down to a few guys,” he said. “And I rode smarter than I ever have. I was looking at the guys (in the break) and it didn’t look like there were any GC contenders, or anyone too close, so I thought Bissell would let it roll, and they did. So it was awesome.”
Sparling said memories of the 2008 race motivated him to jump into the break early and start working.
“Last year at this crit’, all I remember is our manager on the radio saying we were tail gunning and just being a little angry with us for not getting in the breaks,” he said. “So this year I had to make up for it.”
With a safe breakaway up the road about 30 seconds, Bissell’s Burke Swindlehurst, Omer Kem, Graham Howard and Morgan Schmitt rode herd on the field and kept Baldwin’s constant attacking in check. While Mach had four teammates guarding his lead, Baldwin’s OUCH-Maxxis was trimmed to just one other rider, Roman Kilun, after John Chodroff got caught up in Stage 3 crash and had to abandon the race.
“Not even close,” Baldwin said of his efforts to pull back the time. “I wasn’t going to be able to pull back one inch. I don’t have the skills to pull off that maneuver. That’s not my skill set. Same situation as yesterday, all (Bissell) has to do is watch one guy. They won the race on the first road stage with a five-man team, and they did a good job. It’s game over.”
In fact, Mach won April’s Cherry Blossom Classic in nearby The Dalles, Oregon, with the same tactic, gaining enough time on the first stage to secure the overall and putting his teammates to work on the front for the rest of the race.
“It was going to be hard for Baldwin with all the help I had from my teammates,” Mach said. “I missed my clip-in at the start (of the criterium), so that was bad. But my team was taking care of me. I didn’t really have to worry; got to watch it all.”
An ‘inexperienced’ Pitel seals the deal
Pitel admitted the day before Sunday’s criterium that she had little experience with the largely American-style of racing. Less than 24 hours later she won the race in front of hard-charging pack of experienced Americans.
“I enjoyed it. It was fast and fun,” Pitel said after her win. “I like it, actually.”
As in the men’s race with Mach and Baldwin, Pitel had just one real threat to her overall lead in ValueAct’s Goldstein, who started the day just eight seconds down after some overnight time changes trimmed a few seconds.
“I just thought, I’m not going for the win, I’ll just stick on her wheel,” Pitel said. “I have an eight-second gap, I just must be in front of her and that will be safe. And then I saw that nobody was taking a gap. It was attacking and coming back, attacking and coming back, because everybody wanted a part of the cake.”
But as the group neared the end of the race still intact, Pitel’s thoughts turned to grabbing a little more of that “cake” for herself.
“I thought if we’re all together on the last lap, I’ll go for the win,” she said.
True to form, Pitel took a flyer on the last lap and held off the field for the win, adding to her victories in the prologue and stage 2.
“I went around all the girls on the last corner and then went first downhill and through the corner in first position,” she said. “Then I went flat out, and that was it.”
Goldstein praised Pitel’s racing.
“She did what she was supposed to do,” Goldstein said. “She stuck to me like a leach and I could not get rid of her.”
Goldstein made attacks, but said, in retrospect, that she may have tried a little too early.
“I was bit too antsy,” she said. “But I did the best I could. There was a slim chance of getting rid of her. She’s too strong. And when you’re wearing the yellow jersey you have extra power.”
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