Sutherland, Baldwin move up to 4th and 5th overall at Cascade Classic

Bend, OR – Rory Sutherland and Chris Baldwin both succeeded in moving up one place in the overall classification on the final day of the Cascade Classic Sunday, to finish 4th and 5th  overall respectively.

“We wanted to be very aggressive the final stage, to see if we could get Rory or Chris on the final podium,” said team directeur sportif Mike Tamayo. “We came close, but the gaps at the end were too tight.”

On the last of five laps around the hilly, 24km Aubrey Butte circuit the team massed at the front to lead out Sutherland so he could launch an attack on the final time up the KoM climb.

“The guys kept the pace high to discourage attacks and soften the rest of the field,” Tamayo said. “Floyd (Landis) did a really nice job of setting Rory up to go.”

With 4th overall Ian McKissick (BMC) already dislodged and dropped, Sutherland set his sights on 3rd overall Francisco Mancebo (Rock Racing), who was 20 seconds ahead, and 2nd overall Jeff Louder (BMC), who sat 40 seconds ahead.

Coming to the top of the climb, Sutherland put in a strong attack, which only Mancebo and his teammate and race leader Oscar Sevilla could cover. With Mancebo also motivated to leapfrog up to 2nd overall ahead of Louder, the trio worked together toward the finish line, trying to increase the gap to Louder as far out as possible.

Sutherland won the sprint from Sevilla and Mancebo to take 9th on the stage, behind Anthony Colby (Colavita/Sutter Home), who took a solo win out of the remnants of a nine-rider break that had included Pat McCarty. McCarty held on for 7th on the stage.

But Louder was in the next group on the road, which also contained Baldwin, and he was driving it to the line to maintain his overall position. Louder finished 20 seconds back of Sutherland, and though he finished tied on time with Mancebo, dropped to 3rd overall.

“The guys executed perfectly on the last lap,” Tamayo said. “Rory put in a great attack and he and the Rock guys drove it to the line. Give Louder credit. He really turned himself inside out to hold onto a podium position.”

Despite finishing 4th, Sutherland earned enough points to re-take the lead in the NRC individual points classification, 19 points ahead of previous leader Tom Zirbel (Bissell).

Official Results

Menzies takes 3rd at Chicago

While the stage race squad wrapping up Cascade, Karl Menzies, John Murphy and Bobby Lea contested the Chicago Criterium Sunday, in front of thousands of fans who came to Grant Park for one of the nation’s top criteriums.

Facing full squads from other teams, the trio had their hands full for the race. But Lea took some of the pressure off by getting into a mid-race break that looked like it might have a chance to stick.

“Kelley Benefits went to the front with 10 laps to go and started to bring the move back,” Menzies said. “Once it came back, it was pretty apparent that we were headed for a bunch sprint.”

With Lea having done a lot of work in the break, that left Menzies and Murphy to battle for the win.

“Things were a bit sketchy on the last lap, so we wanted to get to the front,” Menzies said. “It was a bit early to get up there with just one guy, but we thought it would be safer.”

Which it was, when a sizeable pileup happened right behind the duo coming out of turn two of the circuit. The crash may have in part resulted from the reaction to an attack by Brad Huff (Jelly Belly), who took off with 1 km to go, got a gap and then buried himself to hold it.

“It was a long lead-out by Murph and would’ve taken a lot to bring back Huff,” Menzies said. “He’d been covering a lot of moves during the race, too. I think I told him to go three times. He went full gas, went again, then went again with 600 meters to go.”

Murphy finally ran out of steam at 400 meters to go, and Menzies started his sprint through the final two corners and onto the 200 meter finishing straight into a headwind. Menzies couldn’t quite catch Huff, and Hilton Clarke (Fuji-Serveto) was able to get around him on the line, leaving Menzies to take 3rd place in the sprint.

Official Results

Photo: Jonathan Devich/epicimages.us