Driscoll, McConneloug win day 2 at Cycle-Smart
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Mary McConneloug and Jamey Driscoll won round two of the 19th annual Cycle-Smart International on Sunday in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Blue skies and a fast, hard packed course greeted racers for the 10th round of the Verge New England Championship Cyclo-Cross Series. As has become tradition, much of Saturday’s course was reversed, with an off-camber descent turned into a difficult run- or ride-up and the steep ride-up becoming a fast drop-off into a raised track crossing.
The elite women featured a tough battle between McConneloug (Kenda-Seven-NoTubes), Laura Van Gilder (C3-Athletes Serving Athletes), Natasha Elliott (Garneau-Club Chaussure-Ogilvy) and Andrea Smith (Minuteman Road Club).
On the first lap, McConneloug used the mountain biking prowess that brought her to the Olympics to begin to pull away on the ride-up, then soloed to another victory in front of an enthusiastic home crowd.
Behind her, Van Gilder and Elliott were neck and neck the whole race, with Van Gilder taking the lead on the power sections and Elliott leading through the sinuous roots on the upper level of the course.
Elliott’s tactic of keeping the pressure up in hopes of forcing the competition to make a mistake did not work — Van Gilder was able to hold tight until the last lap, then attacked on the final pass through the sand pit to take second. Elliott was close behind in third.
Series leader Maureen Bruno-Roy (MM Racing) finished seventh, but retained the series lead.
Another smashing start
For the second day of the weekend, carnage marked the beginning of the elite men’s race. This time, the crash came only 25 meters into the race, an enormous pile-up that took down nearly half the field.
Most of the noteworthy racers made it through cleanly with the exception of Adam Craig (Giant), who emerged with a flat tire and broken shifter at the back of the field. Forced for the second day to fight back from a mechanical issue, Craig would eventually chase his way back to ninth.
At the front of the race, Jamey Driscoll (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com) Dan Timmerman (Richard Sachs-RGM-Radix) and race promoter Adam Myerson (Cycle-Smart) took an early lead. Driscoll led after the first lap but held only a few seconds on Myerson and Timmerman.
Driscoll’s pursuers both came to grief, however. Timmerman rolled a tire on the second lap, but would claw his way back to finish seventh and defend his series leader’s jersey. Myerson flatted far from the pit and had to ride conservatively to stay in the game, eventually rolling through in 14th place.
Up front, meanwhile, Driscoll rode smoothly and efficiently, stretching his lead over a four-man chase group to more than 30 seconds. As it became clear that the chase was not going to succeed, Nicholas Weighall (California Giant Berry Farms-Specialized) attacked, followed only by Derrick St. John (Garneau-Club Chassure-Ogilvy).
Going into the bell lap, Weighall closed to within 10 seconds of the leader, but that was as close as he would get. Driscoll picked up his first victory since CrossVegas, with Weighall second and St. John third.
The Verge NECCS will resume in two weeks with the return of the Bay State Cyclocross Weekend November 28-29 in Sterling, Massachusetts.
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