With an 11th-hour burst of speed, Frank Travieso placed a commandingfootprint on the 2007 AT&T Downtown Austin Criterium which went downon Saturday, June 16th. Coming out of the final turn of the four corner,1KM circuit Travieso clearly demonstrated that he had gotten the betterof his competition.

“I said to myself that I had to do it. I attacked on the last lap toget the breakaway. Things were going really fast, but when I go to thelast corner I looked back and I had got a real big gap.”50 meters big actually. Travieso went after the remains of a three-manbreakaway that consisted of Healthcoach's Phil Wikoff, Mark Hekman (Abercrombie& Fitch), and Toyota-United's Sean Sullivan. But Travieso almost lostit all when his particularly violent burst of speed almost unseated himfrom his ride.“I almost crashed because  I took that (first) corner too fastand almost lost my rear wheel. But I got control of my bike, kept my sprint,and made it the whole way.”Travieso sustained a minor injury to his knee which he banged into thetop  tube of his bike during his intense last minute effort, but theblow wasn't enough to keep him from catching Hekman and Wikoff and eventuallySullivan who had managed to slightly gap his breakaway companions withtwo laps to go. Both Sullivan and Travieso were working with severely reducedsquads behind them, and Sullivan for one, thought he might have a shotto take it all."That was a fast race. (The breakaway) was riding really strong andsince we didn't have radios I had no way of knowing how the guys were feelingbehind me. I don't get a lot of opportunities to be in that position ina race. In the end I tried to have a go for myself and it almost came off,but I was a couple of corners to short."In the absence of teammate Ivan Dominguez (still recovering from injuries...),Toyota-United's Ivan Stevic once again found himself in the position ofanimating the early part of the race. But once the breakaway had gone upthe road it fell to Travieso's teammate Alex Hagman, and members of theMercy Elite Cycling team to help bring the field within striking distance.This ultimately gave Travieso the positioning he needed for the win,as well as setting up Health Net's Frank Pipp for second and Stevic whotook third.The AT&T Downtown Austin Criterium, which is now in its fourth year,is part of the Keep Austin Weird festival and stop number four on the USACrits national criterium series. Travieso's win moved him into second placeoverall in the series, but Mark Hekman's continued string of strong performancessince his win at the Athens Twilight race in April still has him comfortablyin the series lead. Hekman now also sits atop the series' laps led competition.

Because many riders in the pro women's field had opted to stay on theeast coast for this year's Crystal City race in Virginia, those who showedup to the Austin event rode in the men's Cat 3 event. The race turned outto be a near complete 1,2,3, replay of this year's Tulsa Tough race withAdvil-Chapstick rider Jen McCrae beating out Team Ultralink's ShontelleGauthier. Third place this time, however, went to Healthcoach's Ally Brandt.Brandt now leads the women's laps led competition, and Gauthier has movedinto second place in the overall standings.

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2007 AT&T Downtown Austin Criterium
Pro Men
1. Frank Travieso, AEG-Toshiba-Jet Network
2. Frank Pipp, Health Net
3. Ivan Stevic, Toyota-UnitedPro Women
1. Jen McCrae, Advil-Chapstick
2. Shontelle Gauthier, Team Ultralink
3. Ally Brandt, Healthcoach