THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Bajadali surprises the biggies to take overall at Redlands
At 40 years of age and in his 19th season as a professional, Scott Moninger thought he had seen it all. He began his pro career at Team Crest with an overall victory at the Redlands Classic in 1989, and he has since done the rounds with American pro teams: four years with Coors Light, two with Chevrolet-L.A. Sheriff, four years with Mercury, three with HealthNet, and now his first season at Team BMC.
Moninger has taken some 250 victories in his incomparable career, and it looked like he had his hands on one more trophy — it would have been his third overall win at Redlands — going into Sunday’s final stage of the 23rd Redlands Classic.
This stage is one of Moninger’s favorites: a dozen laps of the twisting, turning, climbing, dipping 10.12km circuit known as the Sunset Loop, which produces 7000 feet of climbing (and descending) in its 155.5km. It’s a course that certainly suits Moninger’s strengths; but there were other factors at work on this occasion.
Talking on Saturday after the criterium stage, Moninger told VeloNews, “Yesterday was hard and I think a lot of guys were tired and thinking about tomorrow.” In fact, going into the final stage, there were seven riders, from seven different teams, all within one minute of Moninger on GC. And most of those riders were expected to try some sort of attack on stage 3’s Sunset Loop.
But no one could have expected the wholesale changes that would be wrought by an early breakaway, which lost and gained a few men through the day, and ended up gaining four minutes on Moninger and the two overnight podium contenders, Justin England (Toyota-United) and Anthony Colby (Colavita-Sutter Home). But the man lying fourth on GC, the unlikely Andy Bajadali (Jelly Belly), did make it into the eventual 13-man move.
And so the tumultuous stage resulted in Bajadali, who like Moninger lives in Boulder, Colorado, taking the overall title by 10 seconds over another Boulderite, Phil Zajicek of Navigators Insurance, with Californian Ben Jacques-Maynes of Priority Health grabbing third place, 30 seconds back.
How it all happened
Bajadali’s team manger, Danny Van Haute, said “Before the stage, our card was, ‘Okay, what do we want to do today? Is it a good result, fourth? Or do we really go for it and take our licks if it doesn’t work?’ So we wanted to be aggressive all day. Right from lap one. And if it stays away it stays away. If it doesn’t we’ve made our effort and I’m happy with the performance. So if it didn’t stay away, I’m happy, and if it did stay away, I’m very happy.”
Bajadali said, “I felt great this morning. I got a great massage last night. I’ve been feeling better day by day. I just had a good feeling, and I went early in the break. I was just following wheels….”
Zajicek, lying fifth overnight, didn’t make it into the original break of 14. But he did see it forming on the second lap after some 20km of racing. “It was just really aggressive riding,” he said, “mainly by HealthNet. They’d really missed out on the individual GC, so they needed to get another stage [following the crit win by Rory Sutherland on Saturday].”
The two HealthNet riders that made it into the break were Sutherland and Jeff Louder, while Bajadali had Jelly Belly teammate Alex Candelario with him. Also putting multiple men in the move were Toyota-United (with Chris Baldwin, Chris Wherry and Burke Swindlehurst) and Slipstream-Chipotle (with Timmy Duggan and Tom Peterson). Those with just a single rider in the break were Navigators (Ben Brooks), Priority Health (Jacques-Maynes), Symmetrics.com (Eric Wohlberg), Colavita-Sutter Home (Peter Hatton) and Kelly Benefit Strategies (Dan Bowman).
Surprisingly, Toyota’s best GC rider, England, didn’t make it. “I didn’t feel that great,” he said. “We made a couple of attacks early on and it kinda put me in the deficit, and I was kinda hanging in from then on.”
Behind the 14 leaders came a chase group of 40 being pulled for Moninger by three BMC teammates. One of these three, Jonathan Garcia, said, “Guys that weren’t a threat got away, though we did let Baj go, and we were just trying to keep the gap hovering around 50 seconds, which we did. We were just a few guys short maybe with the horsepower, for riding tempo up front. And then there were some big accelerations from Toyota that broke things up.”
The break’s 50-second gap stretched to 1:30 on lap 6, halfway through the race, before Health Net's Tim Johnson bridged with Slipstream’s Jason Donald and Symmetrics’ Christian Meier. As they went across, Toyota’s Swindlehurst dropped back, while Zajicek was getting antsy in the Moninger group.
The Navigators rider then explained why he moved to the front of that group on lap 7.
“I big-ringed the climb to soften them up a bit,” he said, “and then the next lap I just gave it everything on the climb. Absolutely everything. And I was lucky that Ben Brooks was in the break; he dropped back and helped me close that last 20 meters. I didn’t want to finish fifth in another stage race, so I just wanted to lay it out there and give it everything.”
England was a frontline witness of Zajicek’s amazing performance.
“We’d just made that left turn at the bottom and he attacked so hard that nobody could even get on his wheel,” England recalled. “I honestly think Zajicek was the strongest guy in the race today. He went across to the break and apparently when he was up there, Baldwin and Wherry were telling me, that he was just pulling like a madman.”
It took the inspired Zajicek less than five minutes to cross a gap that stood at 1:20 at the foot of the 3km-long hill. “But that’s at full gas,” he added modestly. It was an impressive ride by anyone’s standards, and Zajicek immediately became Bajadali’s closest contender, only 10 seconds back on GC.
The Navigators rider’s success inspired others, and 11 riders soon split from the main pack in strong pursuit of the break. None of Moninger’s three teammates made it into this chase, which was being powered by England, Colby and the race leader. Midway up the climb on lap 9, with 46km to race, these chasers had closed to just 20 seconds on what was now a 16-man break. It looked that everything was about to come together.
But that’s not what Bajadali’s bearded teammate Candelario wanted. “I realized they were close .. you could see ’em back there, so you got to put the pressure on,” he said. “We knew if we could get Andy up the road and get a good gap, he could go and stay away. That was the plan.”
It was a good plan, and it was Candelario’s strong pull that made its success possible. That 20-second gap immediately opened up again over the false flats through the feed zone, continued on the fast, swishing descent through neighborhood streets, and stood at 1:45 a lap later.
“By the time Moninger got isolated without any teammates,” England said, “I think that was when then race was over. The break was never coming back after that point.”
He was right. With no one helping Moninger, the gap continued to grow. Especially when Candelario made his final contribution. “Alex just buried himself absolutely for me,” Bajadali said in admiration. “He just said, ‘Kill it,’ as he pulled off and I was like, ‘Man, I’ve gotta do this.’”
But with Zajicek and Jacques-Maynes both within 30 seconds on GC, Bajadali knew he would have to stay strong and alert in the final 20km, which included five laps of the downtown crit course. “Ben Jacques-Maynes was just hitting it really hard, going for it,” said the Jelly Belly team leader. “And then Phil [Zajicek] gave it everything, you know. I panicked here. He got a gap in the circuits, and there was still a 10-second bonus up for grabs, and I had to close the gap. Everybody made me do that and kind of earn it.”
Meanwhile, Sutherland was looking to score his second stage win in two days — on the exact same street, Citrus Avenue, in his newly adopted hometown of Redlands.
“I was pretty lucky today,” said the Aussie. “There wasn’t responsibility on our team shoulders to make the race. We could just follow wheels a little bit and do our work. And having two fantastic teammates there to pull their hearts out all the way to the finish [Johnson and Louder] was a huge benefit. I couldn’t have done it without those guys there.”
Just as he did in the criterium, Sutherland was second wheel through the fast final turn, and he pounded up to the line for a clear victory over Navigators’ Brooks and Toyota’s Wherry.
With none of his close rivals taking a bonus. Bajadali was home and dry. “I’m just so fired up,” said the dazed Jelly Belly rider. “I can’t believe it. This is great. I’ve done well here in the past … but we really needed a breakthrough. We’ve been on the backburner with results and I think this shows we deserve to do some of the big races.”
Not only “do” them, but perhaps win them, as well.
23RD REDLANDS BICYCLE CLASSIC
PRO MEN
Stage 3: Beaver Medical group Sunset Road Race
1. Rory Sutherland (Aus), HealthNet-Maxxis, 155.5km in 3:25:34 (45.386 kph)
2. Ben Brooks (Aus), Navigators Insurance
3. Chris Wherry, Toyota-United
4. Ben Jacques-Maynes, Priority Health
5. Eric Wohlberg (Can), Symmetrics.com
6. Jason Donald, Slipstream-Chipotle
7. Peter Hatton, Colavita-Sutter Home
8. Dan Bowman, Kelly Benefits
9. Tim Johnson, HealthNet-Maxxis
10. Christian Meier (Can), Symmetrics.com, all s.t.
22. Scott Moninger, Team BMC, at 3:55
FINAL GC
1. Andrew Bajadali, Jelly Belly, 386.8km in 9:12:55
2. Phil Zajicek, Navigators Insurance, at 0:10
3. Ben Jacques-Maynes, Priority Health, at 0:30
4. Chris Wherry, Toyota-United, at 0:58
5. Tom Peterson, Slipstream-Chipotle, at 1:00
6. Rory Sutherland (Aus), HealthNet-Maxxis, at 1:23
7. Dan Bowman, Kelly Benefits, at 1:31
8. Peter Hatton, Colavita-Sutter Home, at 1:36
9. Scott Moninger, Team BMC, at 3:26
10. Jason Donald, Slipstream-Chipotle, at 3:27
