Preview and Stage ReportsWhile not a race on the US National circuit the Tour of Willamette has been as close as it gets to racing on European roads as it can be in the United States. This year was almost to European as the Pro 1/2 field traversed the Vincent Creek circuit during the Smith River Road race that had road closure signs all the way up the main climb, along with riders positioned every 100 meters looking for the wheel car. The finishing stage this year was the Kill Hill Road Race versus your typical Criterium finish, and a good thing too as the winner in the Women's and Men's field came from behind to win the final stage solo to take the overall GC.Women's Race: The Saeco/Timex came ready to take care of business with loads of talent including Suzy Pryde, Kendra Wenzel and Linda Jackson. However, the top local team from Oregon [QualMed/Saturn] was ready to defend their home turf and put up a great fight till the end. The prologue set the stage as 4 Saeco and 3 QualMed riders were in the top ten, but first year rider, Andrea Hannos, Steveston Cycling, stormed to the top first winning the prologue with a time of 2:42, one second ahead of Kendra and 5 ahead of Cynthia Mommsen, The Olympic Club and Ward Griffiths of QualMed. Stage one: Smith River - Even though they skipped the horrid Vincent Creek loop, the women still had a tough race, entirely on BLM roads (narrow chip seal) with plenty of rough roads and climbs to separate the riders. Saeco/Timex made the local riders look the part as they stormed to a 1-2-3 finish with Kendra winning, Linda second, and Suzy third. Cynthia came in fourth to claim the top mortal place, and it looked like it might be a long race for all the local teams as Saeco/Timex was riding well. Stage two: Brownsville - Once again the women were fortunate to miss the really rough stuff, but still had an interesting time going up the their first climb as the men were coming down at the same time. This created a small scare as one of the women fell over the center line at the same time a guy was descending, enough said as he went flying down the road, sans bike. The race continued on and with 50 km to go, at the major climb of the day, Miranda Briggs, QualMed/Saturn and Gianna Roberge, Saeco/Timex took off on what would be the winning break. However, with about 10k to go Gianna was able to convince Miranda to pull her to the finish and then dumped her on the final roller to win by 9 seconds plus an extra 5 for the 15 over 10 second time bonus. Kendra won the field sprint gaining a 5 second bonus to be down 1:37 for the stage. This shuffled the top GC spots as Gianna took the lead followed by Kendra, then Miranda. Stage three: Irish Bend TT - A fairly flat, but wet Time trial with 9 gradual right angle corners, a turn around and then 9 more corners. I think the TT results surprised the Saeco/Timex team a little as Miranda powered into 3rd place in the TT only 32 seconds off Linda's winning time of 23:02 and 10 seconds down on Gianna. This moved Miranda in second overall as Kendra was 1:42 down, while Gianna added a few seconds to her lead. Stage four: Alpine Circuit Race - A deceptively taxing circuit race with one 3 km climb of 100 meters followed shortly by a 1.5 km 50 meter climb, toss in a roller on the back stretch and a lot of rain along with an afternoon start and it gets harder and harder. Suzy Pryde was the Saeco rider of the afternoon winning in a solo break and taking 30 seconds out of Melanie Mcquaid, Rocky Mountain Cycling who also got away from the main group. Saeco took the uphill field sprint with Linda getting enough time on Miranda to move her into 2nd place while Miranda slipped to 3rd overall after finishing a few seconds behind Linda and 1:05 down on Suzy. However, the final stage included the hardest climb the women would see with 450 meters of climbing in under 20 km with 250 meters of the climbing in one 5 km section, then the final 10 km with over 300 meters of climbing. Stage five: Kill Hill - no luck for the local team. With Miranda sitting in third just over 30 seconds down on Gianna and less than 10 down on Linda, things looked really good. I was thinking I was happy to DNF my race to help out our women's team and rode in the team car to "try" and help out. Then about 10 miles into the stage half the QualMed teams drops back as Ward gets a rear flat. No problem I jump out grab a rear wheel and start replacing her wheel. Then after I change her wheel and give her a push I move to the side only to be hit by another teammate (Norrene Valente) who also received a wheel change. Ouch, head-but at 20 miles an hour, and one teammate out of the race (but neither of us received any serious injuries). Well, after taking Norrene back to the start, we rejoined the pack just as they were finishing with a rest stop. Soon after that they were beginning to ascend the main climb as Ward was pulling back again with another flat. No problems this time and we get her going only to have another teammate (Kathy Gunter) get a flat, then just after the ascent a few tricky corners causes a crash and another teammate is in need of help. Then it's all out down hill to try and find the main group (minus over half of the QualMed Team). As we whip around the corners (I love riding with a good driver) we notice a few riders going off course. As we start to track them down we notice the entire peloton is off course. Whew! Some one is looking out for the local team, as the officials figure everything out, the group is put back together and the race essentially starts over. With the main climb out of the way and the riders rested, Saeco wastes no time sending Linda up the road - FAST. She goes away from the group as if they were standing still, but since our riders were told to let either her or Gianna to go, they didn't chase too hard. This left Linda with a nice long 50 km TT, during which she put 10 minutes on the peloton, WOW. The peloton rolled along and basically waited for the final climb, were QualMed went to the front and tried to put the pressure on up the climb. Saeco was too strong though, and Suzy took the uphill sprint with Melanie Mcquaid taking third and Miranda 6th but good enough to stay 13 second in front of Suzy to remain 3rd overall. Final GC:Place # Rider Name Team Name GC Time Down 1 201 Linda Jackson Saeco/Timex 13:49:19 0:00:00 2 203 Gianna Roberge Saeco/Timex 13:59:47 0:10:28 3 205 Miranda Briggs Qualmed/Saturn 14:00:19 0:11:00 4 202 Suzy Pryde Saeco/Timex 14:00:32 0:11:13 5 230 Andrea Hannos Steveston Cycling 14:01:59 0:12:40 6 204 Kendra Wenzel Saeco/Timex 14:01:59 0:12:40 7 260 Melanie Mcquaid Rocky Mountain Cycling 14:02:05 0:12:46 8 207 Ward Griffiths Qualmed/Saturn 14:02:13 0:12:54 9 241 Cynthia Mommsen The Olympic Club 14:02:15 0:12:56 10 211 Rydeen Stevens Qualmed/Saturn 14:02:39 0:13:20 11 237 Ellen Krimmel Start-To-Finish 14:03:01 0:13:42 12 234 Wanda Howlett Team Athena 14:03:04 0:13:45 13 264 Sara Graham Pscc/Gregg's 14:04:01 0:14:42 14 249 Keri Silk Start-To-Finish 14:04:10 0:14:51 15 266 Nicole Gingles Hutch's 14:04:15 0:14:56 16 267 Kathy Gunter Qualmed/Saturn 14:04:26 0:15:07 17 240 Erin Mcgann Escape Velocity 14:04:26 0:15:07 18 224 Cybil Diguistini Escape Velocity 14:05:10 0:15:51 19 263 Laura Reed Pscc/Gregg's 14:05:50 0:16:31 20 252 Nina Strika Northwest Regional 14:05:55 0:16:36 Top Women's Teams (based on top three riders):Saeco/Timex 41:49:38 0:00:00 Qualmed/Saturn 42:05:11 0:15:33 Start-To-Finish 42:26:48 0:37:10 Escape Velocity 42:33:15 0:43:37 Pscc/Gregg's 43:55:04 2:05:26 Northwest Regional 44:12:52 2:23:14 Men's GC:Place # Rider Name Team Name Gc Time Down 1 131 Steve Larsen Schwinn 14:30:45 0:00:00 2 99 Ronnie Schmeer Ray's Boat House 14:31:55 0:01:10 3 121 Nathan Dahlberg Sierra Speed Gel 14:34:10 0:03:25 4 118 David Zabriskie Team Einsteins Bagels 14:34:14 0:03:29 5 53 John Grochau Team Cinzano 14:34:20 0:03:35 6 32 Doug Carlton Saturn Of Bellevue 14:34:20 0:03:35 7 63 John Hunt Start-To-Finish 14:35:12 0:04:27 8 108 Michael Tobin Georges Cycles 14:35:23 0:04:38 9 77 Adam Livingston Diet Rite 14:35:32 0:04:47 10 64 Ben Jacobson Ray's Boat House 14:36:02 0:05:17 11 139 Keith Stark Unattached 14:37:29 0:06:44 12 20 Seth Angevine Team San Jose 14:37:58 0:07:13 13 57 Bill Harris Miduole Masters 14:38:19 0:07:34 14 23 Rusty Beall Northwest Regional 14:38:56 0:08:11 15 132 Ted Graumann Qualmed/Saturn 14:39:19 0:08:34 16 94 Bob Roll Litespeed/Nike 14:39:52 0:09:07 17 110 Jonathan Vanheel Team San Jose 14:42:02 0:11:17 18 92 Eric Roesinger Northwest Regional 14:43:10 0:12:25 19 116 Brian Wills Pen Velo 14:43:36 0:12:51 20 107 Burke Swindlehurst Team Einsteins Bagels 14:43:54 0:13:09 Top Men's Teams:Ray's Boat House 44:03:02 0:00:00 Team Einsteins Bagels 44:09:08 0:06:06 Hutch's 44:26:43 0:23:41 Sierra Speed Gel 44:37:11 0:34:09 Team San Jose 44:45:18 0:42:16 Bike Gallery/Sequent 45:03:55 1:00:53 Saturn Of Bellevue 45:04:28 1:01:26 Team Cinzano 45:12:26 1:09:24 Northwest Regional 45:30:37 1:27:35 |