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Aldape and Stevens win Cascade's stage 4
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Moises Aldape (Team Type 1) must have experienced a little déjà vu as he crossed the finish line of the Cascade Lakes Road Race by himself in stage 4 on Friday – he won this same stage last year.
Phil Zajicek (Fly V Australia p/b Successful Living) won a bunch sprint to take second place 13 seconds later, while Francisco Mancebo (Rock Racing) took third. The top of the GC remained unchanged with Oscar Sevilla (Rock Racing) retaining his lead, Jeff Louder (BMC) in second at 40 seconds back, and Mancebo in third at 1:00 back.
In the women’s race, the competition — and the reporters — were experiencing some déjà vu as they watched Evelyn Stevens (Webcor Builders) once again soloing across the line for her third stage win. Amber Rais (Team Tibco) came in 12 seconds later, ahead of Alison Powers (Team Type 1). Stevens retained her lead in the GC, while things shuffled a bit behind her: Rais remained in second at 1:18 down, while Powers is now third at 1:39 back.
Cooler temps, but blistering pace continues
As in previous stages, the 154-strong men’s field began attacking virtually from the start of the 84-mile road race that ended at the Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort. All were short-lived until just after the KOM at mile 15 when a break that included Jackson Stewart (BMC), Mike Creed (Team Type 1), Tim Johnson (OUCH-Maxxis), Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell), current U23 national road champion Kirk Carlsen (Felt-Holowesko Partners-Garmin), Davide Frattini (Colavita-Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light), and Jesse Sergent (Trek-Livestrong) began putting serious time on the peloton.
With Jacques-Maynes just 1:59 down on GC, Sevilla’s Rock Racing team was under pressure to try to reel them back in. By mile 40, though, the break had 2:50 on the field, more than enough time to make Jacques-Maynes the leader on the road. Jacques-Maynes was confident the pace of the break succeeded in making Rock work. “Creed was on an absolute tear ... He would just come through and just rip everyone off his wheel. No one could roll through with him. Hats off to him, he was riding like a maniac,” he said.
Sevilla admitted the day was hard, starting with gastrointestinal problems he had early in the race. Once that subsided, though, he said his team was on the front working the entire time. He said they were not worried about the time gap because the level of experience on the team is so high, and they believed the final climb to the finish would take its toll on the break.
Around mile 54, the time gap began coming down, and by mile 74, it was just one minute. BMC teammates Tony Cruz and Chris Barton initiated a chase at this point, and were joined by teammate Steve Bovay, Aldape, and Victor Hugo Pena (Rock Racing). Just before this, Jacques-Maynes had secured the green jersey by winning a sprint at mile 72, after which he got popped off the break and fell back to the chase group.
With roughly 10k to the finish and now at the bottom of the final climb, Sergent attacked the break, gaining roughly 10 seconds. The chase made contact with the break, and the pace increased. Sergent quickly got swallowed up and both he and Cruz went off the back. Aldape and a BMC rider attacked the newly formed break, and Aldape was soon on his own, gaining as much as 35 seconds on the chase, and making the rest of the climb to the finish on his own.
A Beijing Olympian for his home country of Mexico, Aldape said he remembered last year’s stage, and how perfect it was for him. He had talked to his wife, Gabriela, and his son on the phone the previous night, and she told him to win the race and call him once he’d won. With a smile, he said the win was for his team, and he was clearly looking forward to calling his wife.
Along with other riders, Zajicek, the 2007 Cascade winner who is riding the race without teammates this year, passed the break, and then crossed the line with an elated smile and arm gesture. He explained that he hadn’t realized Aldape was still away and mistakenly thought he won the stage.
Still happy with the result, he said, “It is such a fast finish and choppy pavement, but I was able to come off of Sevilla and Mancebo. They were going really fast, and I was able to time it just perfectly and go around them for second.”
Becoming routine
The women’s race also finished at Mt. Bachelor, but started 13 miles into the men’s course at the Wanoga Snow Park. As in the men’s race, attacks came right from the start, and the first one that gained some time included Lauren Tamayo (Team Tibco), Kristin McGrath (ValueAct Capital), Stacy Marple (Colavita), Annie Malouin (Wines of Washington), and Anne Samplonius (Team Lip Smacker). They gained about 1:50 before being brought back by a hard-charging field driven by the women of Stevens’s Webcor Builders team.
Team Tibco sent off another substantial attack with about 20k to go that included nine riders: Joanne Kiesanowski (Team Tibco), Rebecca Much (Webcor Builders), Kristin Sanders (ValueAct Capital), Cara Gillis (Touchstone Climbing), Kelly Benjamin (Colavita), Cath Cheatley (Colavita), Robin Secrist (Veloforma), Patricia Bailey (Wines of Washington), and Kristen LaSasso (Kahala LaGrange).
Rais said, “Webcor got to the front and chased like a well-oiled machine, and they brought that right back.” Alison Starnes then attacked and got another small break going with just about 5k to go to the base of the final climb, but Webcor chased that back as well.
“So we caught the break as we were going up the final steepest pitch, probably about 8k to the finish. Everybody just kind of sat for a second ... Kristin McGrath attacked and then Chrissy Ruiter (ValueAct Capital) attacked, and we started getting into this cat and mouse thing,” she explained. “So I countered one of ValueAct’s moves, and then Evie (Stevens) countered me. I couldn’t go with her because I’d just accelerated.”
In what is now becoming a familiar scene at Cascade, Stevens headed up the climb to the finish alone, gaining a substantial gap on the splintering chasers and field behind her.
Powers jumped into a chase that included Rais, Cheatley, Julie Beveridge (Team Tibco), Ruiter, and Jessica Phillips (Team Lip Smacker).
Team Type 1 started the week with five riders, but came into the day down to three, so Powers explained that they had to play their cards carefully. “We had to be super smart, and we were super smart, and saved our legs today,” she said. “Just at the very, very beginning (of the chase to catch Stevens), I helped drill it a little bit. But then I realized there were two Tibcos and girls that were above me on the GC. I knew it wasn’t really my job anymore. My best bet is to try to get some time bonuses at the finish, and I was just barely able to do that with third place.”
Her effort moved her from fifth on GC into third.
As for Stevens, who looked completely fresh after coming across the finish line, she couldn’t speak highly enough about her teammates. “I stayed protected and didn’t have to do hardly any effort until I got to the base (of the climb),” she said. “Amy (Dombroski) and Erinne (Willock) brought me up ... I had to deliver after the work they did today. There were great competitors out there, but I had this team. They would just get up there and bring it back. I would try to do some work, and they would just look at me (and tell me) get back in there! They were really amazing.”
The Cascade Cycling Classic continues on Saturday evening with the Downtown Criterium in Bend.
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