April 10, 2008 – Well I was going to write a race report about Redlands this past week but my team mate Christine wrote up a fantastic one on how the last day of Redlands went down, so I’m just going to use hers! I also included some pics from the week. Now I’m just outside of Amsterdam for the next five days and preparing to do two UCI races and one World Cup event with the national team. We will also be doing some races in Belgium, France and Switzerland over the next month. After that I’ll re-join the Webcor team for the Berne WC in Switzerland and Tour de L’Aude in France.

Stage 3 Redlands Race Report

The Webcor women had been doing a fantastic job all week keeping Alex in good position to take on the time bonus sprints at both the QOM competition line, the intermediate sprinter’s line and the finish bonuses, and Alex was chipping away at Mara Abbott’s prologue lead of 30 seconds (to Alex).

The final stage, the Sunset Circuit race, starts in the downtown and climbs at least 2km while “neutral” behind the Com car before racers are allowed to start racing on the circuits above town. The circuit, which the women did 9 times, is about 10km with a twisty technical descent, stair-stepping climb for 3km and a false-flat stretch along the top of the course on “Sunset Road,” thus the stage name.

Starting this stage, Alex was 11 seconds behind Mara in second place. The first time across the QOM line at the top of the climb had bonuses of 3, 2, and 1 second to the top 3 across it. The only other opportunity for time bonus was at the finish for 10, 6, and 4 seconds to the top 3 placers. Clearly, Webcor and Alex had a challenge ahead, but we proved up to it in the end.

Through the fast neutral and short, technical descent before the main climbing, Gina, Amy and Rebecca kept the pace high to allow Alex to maintain good position. Once the main climb began, Christine and Erinne took over the pace-setting, taking Alex to the 200m to go sign where Alex did her fantastic sprint and seemingly easily out-sprinted Leigh Hobson (Cheerwine, who was looking to take the Climber’s jersey overall) and Mara for the first necessary time bonus. Now the tasks were to whittle the field to a manageable size while keeping breaks in check so Alex could go for the stage win, and to monitor Mara so she could not take any time bonuses for the top-3 placements. Easy, right?! Of course, other teams had goals as well, and Anne Samplonius took off on the 3rd circuit in a solo break.

A few riders tried to bridge, but Rebecca and Erinne covered them easily. Eventually, Meredith Miller (Aaron’s , who was fighting Cheerwine for team GC overall and wanted even numbers with Cheerwine in any break) got away solo and bridged to Anne, whose gap reached a maximum of 2 minutes. Webcor keep a bit of tempo to that point, but once the gap placed both Anne and Meredith ahead of Mara, High Road had the responsibility to bring the gap below 40seconds. Fortunately, this spent Alexis Rhodes (High Road’s strong rider and good sprinter), who fell off the pace once Erinne took over on the climb to bring back the 2 escapees. We had 2 circuits left at this point, and the attacks began afresh, with Alex always covering Mara, and Christine shadowing Kim Anderson (High Road). Erinne had the big task of bringing it all back together so Alex would have the finish bonus opportunity. Somewhere along the way, Alex gained a few more Climber’s Competition points over Mara and Leigh to stay firmly in the lead for the best climber’s red jersey.

Over the top of the second to last climb, Erinne had rolled off the front to discourage attacks, but nonetheless, Stacy Marple (Cheerwine) took off at the start of the descent with a decent gap. Erinne jumped on her wheel through the technical descent and watched her over the final climb before sitting up to help Christine spend the next 15km slowly bringing Stacy back just before the finish. Once Stacy was in sight, Aaron’s wanted her to come back sooner so began chasing at 5km to go as well, and she was reeled in at 3km to go.

Next ensued a couple of attacks by Aaron’s , including Cat Carroll who was in 3rd place overall, but Webcor brought it all back. With Erinne and Christine on the front and Alex tucked nicely behind for the sprint, another Aaron’s rider started the sprint at 1km, which forced Alex to chase early. Kim Anderson saw her best opportunity to counter this move with 700m to go, but speedy Alex jumped on her wheel and then jumped around her in the final 400m and technical chicane to finish a couple bike lengths ahead of Leigh Hobson in 2nd and Kim Anderson, who hung on for 3rd.

Mara rolled across the line with the same finish time but outside of time bonuses, and thus Alex moved ahead of Mara by one second for the overall win! Along the way, Alex also claimed the Points Green Jersey (best combination of Intermediate sprints and finishing placements) and the Climbers Red Jersey (best placings at designated hilltop sprints), which were not primary goals but were necessary for gaining those valuable bonus seconds that many had in addition to the points for the respective competitions. Finally, Redlands Classic is the first of the Women’s Prestige Series, so Alex also won the initial WPS overall leader’s jersey, sprint competition jersey, and Under-25 competition jersey. Seeing her put all 6 jerseys atop her Webcor kit was an amazing photo opportunity!!

Webcor has a history of close finishes at Redlands with the team supporting Christine to a 1 second win in 2005. We were equally ecstatic about this year’s entire team effort over the 4 days of racing. Master Mechanic Dave, Super Soigneur Avery, and Director Karen provided flawless support and strategy. Huge thanks to the volunteers at this all-volunteer run Redlands Classic and the biggest hug to our annual host mother, Cid Breyer, who provided us with nourishment all week, and to our new hosts Ann and Daryl Brandt who are now super bike racing fans.

Next up for team Webcor will see the Canadians (Erinne, Alex and Gina) in Europe racing for Team Canada at the next World Cups Drenthe and Fleche Wallone, and Americans Katheryn and Christine racing for the US team at Fleche, before we all regroup again as Team “Go Green” Webcor for the Berne World Cup in Switzerland in early May and the 10-day stage race Tour de l’Aude in France the end of May. The up-and-coming riders will show the Webcor colors at Tour of the Gila and Mt. Hood Classic during the same period.