NVGP Stage 1
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007Baby Smithers and I took it all the way downtown for the first stage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix tonight. It was super sweet.
I have to say that St. Paul and the race promoters did a great job on short notice (less than a year) in putting together this new stage. Time trials are ok, and I am sure that a number of riders like them as it starts a stage race off with relatively low stress, but in terms of race appeal to the masses there is nothing like a downtown crit to generate some excitement.
I spoke with some members of the ValueAct Capital and Advil ChapStick womens team following their race and they reported that the course was tough, maybe even tuff. As proof I quote Court:
125 starters
+
1k course
+
90 something degrees outside
+
tight tight corners
+
your typical omnipresent midwestern wind
+
approximately 20 manhole covers per square foot of asphalt (only a mild exaggeration here)
+
2 riders called up per team (meaning almost 30 riders called up)
+
me not getting a call up
=
1 NOT HAPPY COURTENAY
She does not mention how up and down the course was. The start finish line was almost at the top of the course and after two right turns the descent started. One left and two right turns later the riders bottomed out and were then faced with a super fast flat section following by one more right before the climb back up to the start. One lap, no problem. 60 minutes of that climb and descent? Not easy.
In both the womens and mens races there were riders coming off the back in the first 10 minutes. Most kept riding in the hopes that the officials would leave them in the race until the half way point at which they would qualify to start tomorrows stage 2 road race.
Baby Smithers enjoyed the event for the most part but started to get a bit fussy between laps when there was a lack of action. He was held in rapt attention when the riders went by but was more than a bit bored and agitated when there was no action. So we bailed out early.
While I was not able to hang around for the finish of the mens race it looked like absolute war out there with numerous riders launching themselves off the front of the race. The first was local rider Adam Bergman but the pack reeled him and his breakaway companion back after two laps. Each team the spent the rest of the race trying to get someone off the front. Based on the results it appeared to be a four up sprint with the rest of the pack trailing in behind. Below are the results:
1 Ivan Stevic – Toyota United
2 Kirk O’Bee – Health Net
3 Jonathon Page – Nature Valley
4 Henk Vogels – Toyota United
5 Rory Sutherland – Health Net
6 Evan Elken – Jittery Joe’s
7 Cesar Grajales – Jittery Joe’s
8 Phil Zajicek – Navigators
9 Carlos Alzate – Columbian National Team
10 Matty Rice – Jelly Belly
The womens race stayed together for the most part until toward the end of the race. Eight riders cleaved themselves off the front and it was these 8 that fought out the finish. The results for the women were as follows:
1 Catherine Cheatley – Cheerwine
2 Shelley Olds – Proman
3 Teresa Moriarty – Flanders
4 Stacy Marple – Tibco
5 Leigh Hobson – Cheerwine
6 Kristin Amrstrong – Lipton
7 Felicia Gomez – Aaron’s
8 Alex Wrubleski – Colavita
9 Laura Van Gilder – Cheerwine
10 Brooke Miller – Tibco
CyclingNews.com will have the full results whenever.
Local rider Teresa Moriarty looked fantastic in the final few laps tonight. If she timed her training and recovery correctly she will have the killer form for the rest of the weekend as the races will only get harder from this point on.
Tomorrow is the Cannon Falls Road Race and, while the event is only 60 miles long for both men and women, the wide open terrain and the inevitable wind that is sure to be on hand will make this race a hard slog for anyone not up to the challenge.
Friday night is the Minneapolis Downtown Classic and I plan to be back on the scene with, hopefully, some audio reporting in addition to photos. If we have a baby between now and then I probably won’t make it though,
Below is my photo coverage of tonights event.
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