Fayetteville, AR –Team TIBCO was looking for a sprint finish to Stage 3 of the Joe Martin Stage to try and get Katharine Carroll in one of the top three positions on the stage to earn a time bonus and make up valuable seconds on the four women ahead of her in the overall classification.

Team TIBCO helped keep the race together to the end, and Carroll’s teammate Lauren Tamayo gave her a strong lead-out that delivered Carroll to 2nd place behind sprinter Laura Van Gilder (Mellow Mushroom) on the rolling, 70-mile stage, and earn her a 10-second time bonus. Yesterday’s stage winner, Joanne Kiesanowski, took 8th on today’s stage.

The 10-second time bonus moved Carroll from 5th overall to 3rd overall, now just 0:09 behind race leader Alison Powers (Team Type 1), and 0:05 behind 2nd place Katheryn Curi Mattis (Webcor).

“It is still possible for Kat to win the race,” noted team directeur sportif Jeff Corbett. “But she has to win the final stage and Powers has to finish outside the top three on the stage. It’s going to be difficult.”

But the final-stage criterium is more like a hard circuit race, run on a technical 1.5-mile course that finishes with a steep uphill sprint on Church Street in downtown Fayetteville. It’s a race of attrition, and likely one in which Team TIBCO, as well as Webcor, will do everything they can to put pressure on race leader Powers and her Team Type 1 teammates.

Los Altos, California – U.S. National Road and Criterium Champion Brooke Miller and Katharine Carroll of Team TIBCO will do one more race this weekend in preparation for the Redlands Classic: the three-day, four-stage Madera Stage race in and around Madera, CA.

To get a little extra work, the duo will race with the men’s pro/1/2 field.

“Racing Madera with the men’s pro/1/2 field will be great prep for Redlands,” Carroll said. “Racing with the men is like doing several very hard motorpacing sessions. We should come out flying for Redlands.”

The men’s race also offers an extra time trial in the form of the 10-mile opening Ben Hur Hill Climb this Friday, which only the men’s field contests. The race continues Saturday with a double stage, featuring a flat, 10-mile time trial in the morning and a 30-mile criterium in the afternoon. The race concludes Sunday with an 85-mile road race.

“Friday’s time trial gives us an extra opportunity to dial in our time trial position that isn’t offered to the other categories.” Carroll added.

Alison Starnes & Alison Rosenthal of Team TIBCO will also be down for the Madera race, but will race with the women’s pro/1/2.

Photo: (Left to Right) Alison Starnes, Brooke Miller and Alison Rosenthal at the Menlo Park Grand Prix

When the start gun fired at the inaugural San Francisco Twilight Criterium on September 13th, the pro women’s race posted an incredible lineup that included Olympians and national champions.

Photo by Ken Conley

Two-time Olympian and 2004 National U.S. Time Trial Champion Christine Thorburn (Webcor) who placed 5th in this summer’s Olympic Time Trial, made the San Francisco Twilight one of her last races before she retires at the end of September to concentrate on her “other” full-time career as a rheumatologist. Also riding for Webcor was Gina Grain, a member of the Canadian Olympic Team, 2007 Canadian National Road Champion and 2008 U.S. Open Track Omnium Champion.

Included in the lineup with Webcor were Kat Carroll (Aaron’s), Shelley Olds (Proman), Laura Van Gilder (Cheerwine), and Kelly Benjamin (Cheerwine).

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There was no telling who would hold onto the yellow jersey as the professional women cyclists approached the starting line of the 2008 Redlands Bicycle Classic famous Sunset Road Race starting line. Pure determination was present on every face as the riders started the selective 68-mile course, with circuits in the Sunset Drive hills.

For most of the race, two were in front of the field of 20 riders. As they hammered it out through the downtown Redlands finish, Alex Wrubleski of Webcor Builders charged, drilling across the line first, and not only winning today’s stage race, but narrowly beating Mara Abbott of High Road for the overall 2008 Redlands Bicycle Classic win, by a slim one second margin. Leigh Hobson of Cheerwine and Kim Anderson of High Road were second and third for today’s stage race, respectively.

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After battling it out with her breakaway companions, Katherine Carroll, from Aaron’s sprinted to a big win in Stage One. Former Canadian national champion, Alex Wrubleski, from Webcor Builders followed with second; and Leigh Hobson, from Cheerwine grabbed third. Mara Abbott, from High Road, just a few seconds behind in a group that bridged to the breakaway kept the yellow jersey, coming off of her win at Thursday’s Prologue race.

The pro women cyclists lined up to complete 4 laps of 17.5 miles in the 2008 Redlands Bicycle Classic Stage One Circuit race in Beaumont, Calif.
This year’s course required a different strategy from the former Oak Glen Stage One race. The 17.5 mile course took the riders through Beaumont’s rolling hills, bordered by open fields. Bogart Park provided a grueling hill that threw some of the hardest obstacles. After the steep climb, the wind to be difficult for the riders.

Some found the challenging course inviting. “I thought the course was fantastic,” said Hobson. “It was definitely a challenge with the climb, but it wasn’t as selective as a mountain top finish. Teams could race more aggressively.”

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Team High Road continued on their winning ways with Mara Abbott winning the Redlands Sun Time Trial Prologue with a 25 seconds lead over Aaron’s Kat Carroll. Coming in one second later, is High Road’s Kim Anderson to round off the podium. Under cloudy skies, Abbot, who finished fourth in last year’s prologue, raced the 5 kilometers and climbed the 207 final hill in eleven minutes and ten seconds, with an average speed of 26.98 km/hr.

“It went really well, I was able to keep a good mental attitude about it, I felt really confident, not necessarily confident that I could win but confident that I prepared myself to do a really good race.” said a very happy Abbott about her ride.

Women’s Podium (l-r): Kat Carroll (Aarons), Mara Abbott (High Road), Kim Anderson (High Road)

With both Webcor and Aaron’s team placing each three riders in the top fifteen, all with less than a minute between them, High Road is looking forwards to defending the jersey, even if they are only fielding 5 riders in this race.

“It’s going to be interesting, we’ve got some pretty strong teams to go up against, Webcor is in a good position because they have quite a few good riders get good placings, but we’ve got a good position too, we’ve got Kim in third, we’ve got Mara in first and despite the fact that we’ve only got five riders, they are all pretty fit, they’ve been riding well together and do what we can.” said High Road DS Kristy Scrymgeour.

Tomorrow’s stage is the 110km Beaumont Road Race, a new stage in the Redlands Classic, and everyone is expecting a field sprint. With time bonuses on the line, attacks should be flourishing.

Mara Abbott (High Road), winner

“To be able to, on a race like that, go out and do so well is really exciting because I know I prepared myself but you don’t know what everyone else will do.”

“The thing that I really love about this course is that it’s so interesting. There are so many things that happen during it, it’s not just a straight climb, it’s not a flat course, it’s so interesting. And there’s a million different ways that you could ride it, you could ride it all day long and ride it different every time so it’s really fun. I actually had fun riding this course every single year. This is my third time riding this course.”

“You know, I think when I started out, this was my first NRC race that I’d ever done, and then I ended up getting fourth last year, and so you learn more about yourself as a racer and hopefully keep getting better and better, that’s the natural progression.”

“Beaumont is fun, I actually like the loop. It’s cool, because it’s got a little bit of everything, it’s got flat sections, some long straight sections, it goes up through a climb through this little neighborhood and so it’s cool because it’s the kind of course that’s it’s whatever you make of it.”

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