Bend, OR – The Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team flexed its muscles this past week winning six out of eleven races it entered as its riders prepare for Philly week, a series of three races in the greater Philadelphia area held the first week of June.

The incredible string of wins began with Dominique Rollin’s win at the GP Granby Time Trial near Bromont, Canada on May 10, 2008. Rollin won the 19 kilometer time trial in a time of 24:04.14, a mere 6.8 seconds over second place finisher François Parisien (Symmetrics).

The sixth annual Mt. Hood Cycling Classic began on Tuesday May 13th with a short 1.8 kilometer prologue time trial. Ivan Stevic showed he’s returning to form after a long nine-month bout with a sore right knee by placing third with a time of 2:48.7, 3.7 seconds behind the winner Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell).

The following day, the riders competed in stage one, the Mt. Tabor Criterium. Team Bissell controlled most of the race, which was held on a hilly circuit in the heart of Portland. Despite 90 minutes of attacking by Toyota-United, and other teams, the field remained intact with two laps to go. The final three kilometers saw the Toyota-United boys in red, white and blue turn it over to their two fast men, Hilton Clarke and Ivan Stevic, who finished the job taking 1st and 2nd respectively. As a result of Clarke winning the stage, he also picked up the leaders yellow jersey, king of the mountain and sprinter’s jerseys for his efforts.

Read the rest of this entry �

Barring disasters, Australian (Rory Sutherland) is set to win his second stage race in two weeks, as his team worked tirelessly to reel in a threatening breakaway in the Queen Stage of the Mt Hood Cycling Classic.

“It’s not over until it’s over. Luckily enough today, we’ll have created some good gaps in the GC again, and there’s only maybe 2 guys to really watch. We’ll go out there fighting tomorrow and try to bring it home for two tours in two weeks.” said Sutherland.

Escapees from the break, Australian Caleb Manion (Toyota-United) outsprinted James Mattis (Cal Giant) to win stage 4, and a charging Sutherland came in third, four seconds back. Mattis attacked the break on the final climb and Manion jumped on his wheel ahead of a charging riders from the field.

“It was a pretty hard climb, it’s my first time here so I didn’t know what to expect. I think James from Cal Giant, he attacked really early, maybe 4K to go, I thought it was actually a little bit to early but he got such a big gap straight away, I was like ‘I sort of better go now’. So I sort of jumped across to him, he was going really, really strong, that’s how it stayed, I did a few turns, he did a lot of work actually, he was really strong, then we come together with 200 to go and then it was a sprint to the line.” said Manion.

Read the rest of this entry �