Land Rover-ORBEA wins Young Rider Jersey at NVGP

After placing 15th at the TD Bank Philadelphia International Cycling Championships . . . As I have since found out that placing 15th in this race is huge, especially for a first year pro squad, the next stop on the calendar for the boys in yellow was the Nature Valley Grand Prix. Nature Valley was a 6 stage, 5 day race. Three criteriums, two road stages and one time trial, for the first four stages the team waited to make it’s move on the young rider jersey.

Here’s Bobby Sweeting’s report on the race -

The trip to the twin cities was a good one for our young team and not only did we mix it up with the best but we put them under pressure as well. Mike Northey's day long break away on stage 5 put him into the virtual leaders jersey until only a few miles to go.



It was great to see our guys making Ouch and Bissell just a bit nervous. Mike did get 3rd on the day and took the lead in the best young riders classification with me sitting 2nd at 7 seconds back. It was an ideal situation going into the final days criterium and the team was motivated to keep us at the front and out of trouble in order to protect our GC spots. This was easier said that done on the infamous Stillwater course.

It's a 20 lap race on a 2 km circuit with a 200 m climb up to the finish that averages 18% and tops out at 22%. The field splits instantly almost every year, and the officials even said that if you could make it just 5 laps, even off the back, that they would pull you but still give you a finishing time. Guys were lined up at the start 30 minutes before hand, but fortunately the top 25 GC riders were getting call ups. I got in a good warmup and Mike and I started right up front for the first sprint up the hill (they made us start at the bottom of it even though the finish is at the top). The rest of our guys rode like animals and before long we had the entire team up at the front. Everything was going to plan until a crash about 4 laps into the race. Three riders went down directly in front of me and I had nowhere to go but into them. Before I could even look at my bike I had my teammate Carson by my side ready to swap wheels so that I could get back to the pit. My equipment turned out to be fine, but Carson sacrificing his own race showed me just how much the guys on this team will sacrifice for each other. A quick free lap and I was back in the mix and feeling pretty good. Mike was looking good as well, but unfortunately so was our biggest rival, Scott Stewart, only 11 seconds down on the young rider GC. With Jim off in a break with Floyd Landis we just tried to conserve as much as possible and wait for the inevitable bombshell that Rory Sutherland was bound to drop in his bid for the overall win.

That bombshell was dropped with 3 to go when Ouch went to the front and decided to rip everything apart. The diminished field of about 35 guys quickly turned into multiple groups of 3 and 4 just trying to make it to the line. Unfortunately Mike had been gapped and Scott was still looking strong, and I knew I couldn't let him get more than 4 seconds ahead. With 2 to go I found myself maxed out on the hill and losing ground to the leaders, but Scott was in difficulty as well. As fate would have it I ended up in a group that included me, Scott, and his teammate Stevie Cullinan. Fantastic. He began attacking straight away but I was able to stay right on his wheel. I was relieved as I crested the hill with 1 to go when I found that only Stevie was with me and Scott was quite a ways back. All I was doing on that last lap was trying to somehow will Mike to keep pushing to finish within 11 seconds of Scott and hold on to 2nd place. It was desperately close but Mike crossed the line 9 seconds too late and slotted into 3rd. But hey, 1st and 3rd on the young riders GC is great with the amount of talent that was there.

Quick video of the climb –can you spot the guys in yellow?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ERyCWHoq0&NR=1
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The final podium: Bobby Sweeting in the white young rider’s jersey –it was a team effort, it’s too bad only one guy gets to wear it, all the Land Rover-ORBEA rides rode in support of Bobby and Mike to achieve the goal of winning the jersey. -Awesome job guys!