Fitchburg, Mass. — Ian MacGregor scored his first win of the season and Shawn Milne earned the points jersey as Team Type 1 figured prominently on Stage 2 of the Fitchburg Longsjo Classic Friday.

MacGregor won the summit finish of the 104-mile (167 km) Wachusett Mountain Road Race ahead of Kyle Wamsley (Colavita-Sutter Home presented by Cooking Light) and Ted King (Bissell Pro Cycling). The victory was MacGregor’s first since he captured the fifth stage of the Tour de Beauce a year ago.

It was the 15th win of the season for Team Type 1, a first-year professional squad whose mission and message is to inspire people living with diabetes to take a proactive approach to managing their health. Four riders on the pro team have Type 1 diabetes.

Milne earned himself a sizeable lead in the points competition by escaping the 139-rider field with Stefan Rothe (Marx & Bensdorf/Tristar). The pair built up a more than five-minute lead before Rothe suffered a flat tire. Milne soldiered on alone, but was caught by the peloton after more than 55 miles (88 km) of freedom.

Team Type 1 Sport Director Ed Beamon said a long breakaway wasn’t part of the pre-race plan for Milne, who won this race two years ago.

“We said if there was a three or four-man breakaway, we weren’t going to work it very hard because it’s so hard for a small group to stay away,” Beamon said. “But the field lacked cooperation and only two teams, Colavita and Bissell, were doing the chasing. I knew it was going to be suicide for Shawn to win the stage, but it gave him a 90-point cushion on the points jersey.”

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US Crit Champion Tina Pic (Colavita/Sutter Home) made her Stars & Stripes proud on Sunday, winning her second stage, the final criterium at the Mt Hood Cycling Classic. Pic outsprinted Joanne Kiesanowski (Tibco) and Jeannie Longo, riding for the composite team River City Racing to cross the line first after a week of racing in Oregon.

Tina Pic (Colavita/Sutter Home) outsprints Joanne Kiesanowski (tibco) and Jeannie Longo to win final stage at Mt Hood

“I have to say that was a bit painful, fifth stage in the race. I was hot and I was struggling to get to the finish because I got a bad start. Jeannie [Longo] was going for the finish, it was pretty impressive, wow, but I got her.” said Pic.

Canadian Julie Beveridge (Aaron’s) kept the leader’s jersey even though she crashed in the last 100 meters, as she was given the same time as the field.

“A little bit, after the time trial it definitely was, it’s still sinking in.” said Beveridge when asked if she understood the importance of this win.

By finished second and grabbing important time bonus seconds, Longo jumped to second place on GC ahead of three-times Mt Hood winner Leah Goldstein (ValueAct). To keep things in perspective, the 49-year old Longo had already won three World Road Championship before Beveridge was born in 1988.

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BMC’s Jeff Louder won the Redlands Bicycle Classic Criterium in a two-man sprint against Luis Amaran (Colavita/Sutter Home), the two survivors of a breakaway that formed an hour before, resisting the all out chase by Toyota-United and a crash that took out the other two members in the break. Ivan Dominguez (Toyota-United) won the field sprint to take third place.

Santiago Botero with the help of his team Rock Racing aptly protected the yellow jersey and with no changes to the general classification with Chris Baldwin (Toyota-United)in second place and Francois Parisien (Symmetrics) in third.

The plan worked perfectly for the BMC team. “It was the plan to get a BMC rider in the break, we really wanted to wait for half race to do it, and that’s pretty much what happened. I saw the opportunity, there’s no star on this team, we’re all here to take opportunities, that’s what happened.” said Louder.

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Argentinean Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Colavita/Sutter Home) won the bunch sprint in the fast and furious 50-mile Visalia Criterium ahead of Cody O’Reilly (Successful Living) and his leadout man Alejandro Borrajo (Colavita/Sutter Home).

Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Colavita/Sutter Home) wins the sprint

“We came out the last lap in perfect position, the train was perfect. The last lap, (the team) led out Borrajo and I and (we) came out first and second wheel and we finished first and third.” said a happy Haedo as graciously translated by his teammate Davide Frattini.

“I went as hard as I could, I couldn’t have gone any faster.” said a happy O’Reilly.

The pro men gathered on Sunday for the second day of the Sequoia Cycling Classic to tackle the flat and fast Visalia Criterium. Right from the get go, the race was aggressive as team after team tried to launch a rider on the 0.7-mile, 6-turn course in downtown Visalia.

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Eric Wohlberg (Symmetrics) won the hard way at the Merco Cycling Classic Road Race on Sunday, March third. After a select group of twenty-four riders managed a substantial gap to the rest of the field, the Canadian soloed away on the final lap to cross the finish line with over one minute ahead of the charging group. Winning the sprint, Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell) finished a second time on the podium over the weekend, ahead of Anibal Borrajo (Colavita-Sutter Home).

“I jumped with one (lap) to go, I was just having to chase stuff all day long by myself so you might as well make that effort off the front. You’re going to make that effort anyway so you might as well do it off the front. I’m sure I got my gap while the other three big teams were looking at each other, bluffing each other into committing to the chase, when you’re by yourself either you’re covering stuff all day long or you might as well be throwing it down. If you go, you go.” said Wohlberg.

The field of over 100 riders started off early on a somewhat chilly Sunday morning to cover five loops of a rolling 24-mile course surrounded by acres of blooming almond trees, and their frequent companions, bees. With only a few teams having support cars in the race, the spirit of cooperation was evident amongst the teams, as cars supported multiple riders for the 120 miles race, with BMC’s Gavin Chilcott providing feed support to Astana’s Chris Horner and others.

The first lap started off relatively easy as most riders were trying to warm up, Matt Seagrave (Kahala La Grange) managed to get a gap of five minutes to the field before being caught in the second lap.

Attacks on the second lap

Attacks were relentless on the second lap, with each team trying to be represented in the break, and shutting down any moves that they didn’t like.

Fast Freddie Rodriguez (Rock Racing) covering an attack

“Complete flurry of attacks, we had one guy up there, one group would go across, then another group would go across and we had one guy in each of those bridging moves, suddenly you have a big group up front and everyone sits up in the back, race over.” said Jacques-Maynes about the attacks on the second lap.

A successful break of about 24 riders finally went on the second lap, and quickly established a gap which grew to over 10 minutes by the final lap. Most teams were well represented in the break with multiple riders, which included Colavita-Sutter Home’s Tyler Wren, Davide Frattini and brothers Alejandro and Anibal Borrajo. Rock Racing also had four riders in the break: David Clinger, Sergio Hernandez, Sterling Magnell and Brock Curry. Bissell with three riders: Jacques-Maynes, Aaron Olson and Morgan Schmitt. California Giant Cycling Team also had three riders, Any Jacques-Maynes, Patrick Briggs and Jesse Moore. Also in the break were Amgen Tour of California King of the Mountains Scott Nydam and returning from injury Brent Brookwalter from BMC, Keven Lacombe (Kelly Benefits/Medifast), Markus Weinberg (Kahala-La Grange), Mark Shimihara (Team Clif Bar), Daniel Holloway (VMG) and Wohlberg.

The breakaway group on the third lap

Ben Jacques-Maynes and his team didn’t like to way the break was being controlled, so they attacked with less than three laps to go to reduce the numbers to around fifteen riders. “Colavita took control on the pack and acted like they were in control and so, when three quarters of the break is sitting on, it was time to start breaking it up so half way through the race we started attacking them for a bit. (We) really wanted to break it down a little bit, drop some dead weight and, we brought it down, we still had the 3 of us in the front.”

With one lap to go, Wohlberg launched his solo move, and the group didn’t respond as they were busy watching each other to see who would chase.

“When Wohlberg went, Colavita was killing every single move that we did, it was like ‘hey you want to kill move, kill that one, that’s the one that you need to kill right now, if you don’t, you’re going to lose the race’.” said Ben Jacques-Maynes.

While the chasing group attacked each other, Wohlberg built up a gap of over one minute, and was able to enjoy crossing the line. “I did a full lap solo. It was pretty tough, I don’t know who was chasing.”

Ben Jacques-Maynes won a close sprint ahead of Anibal Borrajo to finish on the podium for the second day in a row, following his third place finish in Saturday’s criterium. “I’ve done good on this sprint before, I’ve been fourth and fifth, we were in a small group, Borrajo, once again, wanted to sit on my wheel. The group came back just at the top of the hill, we got all back together and Aaron hit on the front, got his wheel, dropped me off with 250 to go and just tried not to die in the headwind.”

Ben Jacques-Maynes takes the sprint for second place

Wohlberg was happy with the weekend of racing by his teammates. “It was very aggressive actually, it was good racing. Beautiful out, not too many bees which is nice, fantastic marshalling both yesterday and today so we’re always very happy to come up here. I’m in Sunnyvale so I’m relatively local. It’s great to see these races continue and Merco stepping up to keep this race going and the town of Merced is fantastic.”

Ben Jacques-Maynes was pleased to see Wohlberg claim victory. “He’s been a training partner for years, he came second to me a couple of times last spring so I’m one hundred percent for him, great ride by him. He waltzed away from a stellar field here, he proved his class once again.”

Wohlberg was disappointed that his team, Symmetrics, did not get an invitation to the Amgen Tour of California. “We were training for Tour of California hoping that we’d get into that, but it didn’t work out for us. It’s kind of disappointing so we got three guys in Northern California still riding pretty hard right now so we’re going to try to pick these events as much as we can and continue with our season.”

Wohlberg is not sure if he will do the third race of the series, the Fresno criterium. “It was a great race last year when it was a full on stage race but if it just a one-day criterium, it’s a classic criterium but that’s not really my cup of tea. That’s kind of argy bargy all day long. If I had all my hockey gear down here.” said a laughing Wohlberg. “Maybe one of these days, there’s going to be a guy in hockey gear doing a criterium and that’s going to be me.”

Eric Wohlberg following a Colavita-Sutter Home wheel early in the race

Top 10 Results

1. Eric Wohlberg (Symmetrics)
2. Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell Pro Cycling Team)
3. Anibal Borrajo (Colavita Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light)
4. Andy Jacques-Maynes (California Giant Berry Farms)
5. Daniel Holloway (VMG/Felt)
6. David Clinger (Rock Racing)
7. Markus Weinberg (Kahala-La Grange)
8. Brent Brookwalter (BMC Pro Cycling Team)
9. Alejandro Borrajo (Colavita Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light)
10. Aaron Olson (Bissell Pro Cycling Team)

All photos copyright Lyne Lamoureux.

See also:

• Merco Cycling Classic Women’s Road Race Report and Photos
• Merco Cycling Classic Men’s Crit Report and Photos
• Merco Cycling Classic Women’s Crit Report and Photos

After his small 3-man break lapped the field with only two laps to go, Alejandro Borrajo (Colavita-Sutter Home) won the chaotic sprint ahead of Chris Horner (Astana) and Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell).

“To the last corner, I was in third wheel with two teammates ahead of me, I looked back and saw that none of the other two guys were close, so I relaxed a little bit the last 50 meters and enjoyed the win.” said Borrajo.

The Merco Credit Union Cycling Classic race has a long rich history and denotes the opening of the California road racing season. While this year the race is not part of the National Race Calendar (NRC), teams such as Rock Racing, Bissell Pro Cycling, California Giant Cycling Team and BMC chose to send squads to hone in their form for the
upcoming season.

A field of over 95 riders took the start of the 50 laps, 40 miles course in downtown Merced buffeted by winds, and attacks started immediately from the get go.

The successful break was made right after a prime and Horner just kept riding hard, and a group of nine splintered from the field. The break included Colavita-Sutter Home duo Borrajo and Tyler Wren, Bissell’s teammates Jacques-Maynes and Richard England, Kayle Leogrande (Rock Racing), Elite Mens National Criterium Champion Daniel Holloway (VMG), Adrian Garrits (Kahala-LaGrange) and Canadian national road champion Cameron Evans (Symmetrics).

“There was a prime and I just kept on riding hard right after the prime, and it split to the nine of us and I did a couple of hard laps on the front and then everyone did a really good job of rotating through. I think the break had pretty much all the strong guys in it, everyone was comfortable and was working well together.” said Horner.

The break rode well together and stayed ahead of the chasing field led in turns by the California Giant Cycling Team and Rock Racing Team.

The chase

Then dissension hit the break, with riders attacking for the numerous primes.

“And then one guy started getting a little greedy for the primes, the group gave him two, and then he started going for three and sprinting, and then it was like if you’re going to do that, then we’re just going to start attacking each other, and that’s what happened. With Ben there, and myself, and Colavita guy (Borrajo) then it was strong three of us and once we got a little bit of a gap then it was on from then on.” said Horner.

“We were rolling good then dissension crept in, the attacks started. It was basically two attacks and then we were gone. Chris goes, everyone is like ‘what do I do’” said Jacques-Maynes.

With thirteen laps to go, the group of three riders, Horner, Jacques-Maynes and Borrajo started increasing their lead ahead of a chasing group of six remnants of the break followed by the peloton.

Under the impetus of Horner, against the wishes of his breakaway companions, the trio started to catch up to the field.

“We were rolling pretty good, I saw with about seven laps to go, we were just seeing the field but we weren’t going to catch them I didn’t think especially as Borrajo started easing up so I started easing up, Chris has other options, he’s the only guy strong enough to do the work of three men and drive the whole thing down. ” said Jacques-Maynes.

Horner wanted to catch the field to cause chaos for the finishing laps. “I like the chaos of the sprint, I don’t really like it when I’m on the same lap as everybody but when I’m one lap up and all I have to do is follow a good sprinter’s line then that’s perfect. The only problem is that the other 2 guys didn’t want to so I have to do two or three laps on my own to close up the gap on the back and then unfortunately I think I closed it with three to go and I just couldn’t get that recovery to get to the front in time.”

With 5 laps to go, Holloway and Evans tried to go at it alone and stayed away until the final corner.

The field absorbed the final riders of the original breakaway and the trio caught the field with less than three laps to go, and started to work their way through the field.

On the final lap, a frustrated Jacques-Maynes was caught behind a crash. “It was basically the three guys trying to work their way through guys that were getting popped, and then, people got aggressive in the little chicane, two guys crossed wheels, started crashing, crossed my wheel, I would have turned straight into a barrier and everyone crashed into me so, that was with half a lap to go.”

Horner was happy with the chaos and just wished that the catch had been a lap or two before. “You just want that chaos and I wanted to be able to hop on like a Bahati’s wheel to the sprint. If maybe I would have caught one lap before it could have been different because I would have been fresh, the other two guys were sitting on my wheel with two or three before we caught so they have a full five laps of rest so when we caught the back end of the field, they were a little bit fresher to go through the field and I was a bit kind of red. It didn’t quite work out to plan but for sure I wasn’t going to win it if we come three guys out of the last corner, it’s too clean of a sprint, and then they’re just going to kill me.”

Borrajo pulled ahead of the other two riders and easily crossed the finish line ahead. “I felt very good in the first breakaway, I was trying to watch Horner because I know the level of rider he is, and as soon Horner moved, he jumped away and made a break of three. I felt good, I knew that I was faster than the other guys.”

Horner still sick from Tour of California, was enjoying the sunny day in the Central Valley and going back to his roots of crit racing. “I’ve done this race many, many times, I grew up doing these races. I’ve been a crit rider for my whole life more than anything. If you grew up in the States, that’s what you are, if you don’t ride crits then you don’t make a living.”

Final podium (l-r): Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell), Alejandro Borrajo (Colvaita-SutterHome), Chris Horner (Astana)

Top 10 Results

1. Alejandro Borrajo (Colavita Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light)
2. Chris Horner (Astana)
3. Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell Pro Cycling Team)
4. Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Colavita Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light)
5. Keven Lacombe (Kelly Benefit Strategies/Medifast)
6. Davide Frattini (Colavita Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light)
7. Brian Bosch (Sierra Pacific Racing)
8. Andres Gil (Pacific State Bank Cycling Tea)
9. Aron Gadhia (Kahala La Grange)
10. Justin Williams (Rock Racing)

All photos copyright Lyne Lamoureux.

See also:

• Merco Cycling Classic Men’s Road Race Report and Photos
• Merco Cycling Classic Women’s Road Race Report and Photos
  
• Merco Cycling Classic Women’s Crit Report and Photos