Land Rover-ORBEA takes 3rd at Elkhorn Stage Race
Elkhorn Stage Race -
With most of the guys on a much deserved down time, Evan resting from a crash at Nature Valley and Roman healing from having a pin put in his wrist, Land Rover-ORBEA sent only three riders to Baker City to race in the Elkhorn Stage Race. Carson, Bobby and Logan braved the rough weather to take 3rd over all in GC.
Report and Photos from Pat Malach of www.oregoncyclingaction.com
Stage 1 –Oregon Trail Road Race
Partly sunny skies, moderate temperatures and a police escort out of town greeted the start of the 8th annual event, with weather ranging from pelting torrential downpours and hail testing riders' endurance as they climbed up into, and then descended out of the Wollowa-Whitman National Forest on their way to the finish.
Bobby Sweeting, the Land Rover-ORBEA racer who is coming off his recent best-young-rider performance at the NRC Nature Valley Grand Prix in Minnesota, won the men's race by out sprinting a four-rider break that a got a small gap in the rolling foothills approaching the finish of the 72-mile event.
"Coming back from the climb, I knew there were at least one or two little gradual out sprinting running in to the finish," Sweeting said. "I attacked on the first one because I figured it would be pretty much flat after that. One guy came with me (Metromint Cycling's Evan Tuckett) and there were five rollers that I didn't expect. It was super hard and just shattered the field."
On the second-to-last roller, Hegyvary and Ian Tuttle (Above Category Racing) joined the pair up the road, and the quartet immediately began working to keep it away. Sweeting said he gambled on the break group's gap and stopped rotating with about 600 meters to go.
"With 200 to go, I jumped first," he said. "I saw that (Hegyvary) got on my wheel and started to come around me. Fortunately I got him by like a wheel. It was close."
STAGE 2 Pleasant Valley Time Trial
The rains ceased and skies cleared for the Saturday morning Pleasant Valley Time Trial, but a consistent wind made riders work for their downtown finish.
Metromint Cycling's Phillip Mooney won the men's race on a 11-mile out-and-back course that also started in downtown Baker City. Mooney clocked a 21:07, but it was Hegyvary's second placed ride just one second slower that lifted him above Sweeting into the top GC spot by 30 seconds after the two leaders finished with the same time the day before. Hegyvary's time trial advantage proved to be the deciding factor in the race for the overall with just the criterium and the 19-mile finale to follow.
STAGE 3 Gold Rush Criterium
The 1km, six-corner, L-shaped criterium course centered in downtown Baker City made for fast and fun racing, but did little to affect the overall of men's race.
Sweeting added another stage win to his results in the men's race, biding his time in the group during the prime-filled 60-minute race in anticipation of the upcoming GC battle on Dooley Mountain the following day. But as the race neared the finish still intact, Sweeting decided to go for the win.
"I just cruised and figured, with a few laps to go, that one sprint won't hurt me for tomorrow," he said. "The Bob's Bicycle guys had a good lead-out going, so I pushed my way into the top five."
Sweeting came through the final corner fourth wheel before opening enough of a gap to hold off the bunch all the way down the long finishing straight.
STAGE 4 Dooley Mountain Road Race
Reports of snow and 35 degrees at Dooley Mountain's summit, where the 102-mile Queen Stage was scheduled to finish, forced a last-minute decision by the chief referee to shorten the race. Instead of doing the 109-mile death march, riders proceeded 12 miles out of town, then seven miles up Dooley.
Bob's Bicycle.com's Kevin Rowe, who started the stage fourth overall, turned the tables on GC leader Hegyvary and runner-up Sweeting by riding off the front early, finishing 33 seconds ahead of the chase group containing his nearest GC rivals.
Hegyvary, who started the day 54 seconds ahead of Rowe, managed to hold onto his overall lead, but double stage winner Sweeting slipped from second to third overall after failing to recognize the danger of the move by the Bob's rider, who started the day just 23 seconds behind him.
With fresh legs and the GC battle still very much up for grabs among a handful of riders separated by less than a minute, the field flew up the finishing climb as Rowe's early attack caught the two leaders off guard. He played his advantage to nearly maximum result, falling short of the top prize by just 22 seconds.
Sweeting admitted his mistake in letting the Bob's Bicycles.com rider go, saying he was caught up in the rush up the hill and with the rider in front of him on GC, and he didn't realize a threat to his own GC spot had ridden up the road.
"We went up the climb pretty fast. It wasn't a slow climb," Sweeting said the next day. "We were cruising the 39-16, going like 17 or 18 miles an hour."
As Rowe rolled off the front early on the climb and his teammates set tempo on the front, Sweeting and Hegyvary, separated by just 30 seconds overall at the start of the day, played cat-and-mouse up the climb.
"I stared attacking (Hegyvary) with about 4k to go," Sweeting said. "He would cover me and just sit on. Every time he'd sit on me, I didn't want to pull him around. And every time I attacked and sat up, the guy up the road got a bigger gap."
And so it played out down the road as Rowe charged the line to take the stage and second overall.
"I think after 100 miles it would have been a totally different stage," Sweeting said of the shortened course. "At first I was unhappy that the race got shortened, but I was numb after an hour. So I figured 100 miles would have sucked pretty bad."
Men Pro/1/2 Overall
1. Adrian Hegyvary (Hagens-Berman)
2. Kevin Rowe (Bob's Bicycles) +:21
3 . Bobby Sweeting (Land Rover-ORBEA) +:31
4. Evan Pickett (Metromint Cycling) +:48
5. Dan Bryant (Safeway) +:57
