THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Simms, Wells take Frisco 'cross
Four top cyclo-cross racers celebrated victories Sunday night after the Crank Brothers U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclo-cross series finale in San Francisco’s renowned Golden Gate Park. Two riders, Todd Wells and Wendy Simms, enjoyed victories at the scenic Clark Natwick Grand Prix, while two others, Barry Wicks and Lyne Bessette, were awarded overall series titles.
Perhaps the biggest winner of the day was the Kona Cyclocross team, which scored both the elite men’s overall series win with 24-year-old sensation Wicks and also took an upset race victory when Simms became the first woman this season to defeat series winner Bessette. Wicks finished second in a two-man sprint behind Wells (GT-Hyundai) to take the series ahead of Tim Johnson (Cyclocrossworld.com-Louis Garneau). Bessette, who saw her streak of 13 straight wins this season come to an end, had already clinched the series title with her win in Watsonville, California, on Saturday.
American series winners in the junior, under 23, elite women and elite men categories were awarded an automatic selection to the U.S. national team for the upcoming world cyclo-cross championships in Zeddam, The Netherlands, January 28-29, 2006. With both Bessette and second-placed series finisher Simms both Canadian citizens, Velo Bella’s Barb Howe was awarded the spot on the world’s team as first American. TIAA-CREF-Clif Bar’s Danny Summerhill took the junior series and worlds spot over Bjorn Selander (Alan), while Jesse Anthony (Clif Bar) took the U-23 spot ahead of TIAA-CREF’s Troy Wells.
Dry and dusty
Warm sunshine and dry, dusty trails greeted racers at Golden Gate Park’s famed polo fields on a fast clover-leaf shaped course that many called a mountain biker’s paradise. Tight, twisting singletrack on loose silt weaved through the park’s eucalyptus groves, offering little room to pass other than on the course’s paved start/finish area.
Spectators accustomed to Bessette’s early-race domination knew something was awry when the Canadian national champion came through the start/finish area in third place after the opening lap. Bessette acknowledged that she knew things weren’t in place after her narrow win on Saturday in the heat in Watsonville.
“I had no legs at all today,” Bessette said. “On the start I didn’t feel snappy. I think yesterday I went over my limit with dehydration. Even if you try to drink a lot after that, it’s kind of too late. Today I rode with a water bottle, and I tried to take a sip but I was so smoked already it didn’t make any difference.”
Instead it was Simms who took a page from Bessette’s playbook, attacking from the gun and never looking back.
“Yesterday I was riding my own race, trying to be smooth and not dying at the end,” Simms said. “Lyne was only five seconds away, so I knew if I worked hard I could possibly close that five. I didn’t think that I would be ahead of her for that first lap today, so when I was I was just like, ‘Okay Wendy go with it.’ I just tried to ride a smooth race.”
The course’s demanding technical sections didn’t help Bessette, who admitted Simms, a pro-level mountain biker, holds the advantage on certain types of terrain. “Wendy rode really well this weekend,” Bessette said. “She was really close to beating me yesterday and I know for me when I do beat her it’s good because she’s strong technically. She has mountain-bike skills I don’t quite have, so that was a good course for her. There were a lot of corners, it was sandy, a lot of sliding, the kind of stuff where she excels.”
Simms wasn’t the only woman to beat Bessette Sunday. After spending much of the day in the first chase group with Bessette and Howe, Simms’ Kona teammate Ann Knapp took advantage of Bessette’s momentary bobble on the final lap to finish second, 20 seconds behind Simms and four seconds ahead of the series winner. “Lyne was tired,” Knapp said. “I know she was tired. But I’ll take it. I’ll have to take it.” Howe took fourth to edge out Knapp for the worlds team selection by just three points, 170 to 167.
Bessette made few excuses, admitting that she simply didn’t have the legs. “I made a lot of mistakes today,” she said. “I’m human. I didn’t have the legs. I had no legs at all today. On the start I didn’t feel snappy. I made a lot of mistakes on the first lap that opened the gap right away. I was hurting on the second lap, but then started to feel better on the third lap. I unclipped in one of the corners and that was all Anne needed because the finishing straight was kind of short. It’s good for me that I got beat. It shows me that there are other women that are strong too. I know I can be better than I was today. It was just one of those days.”
Wells, Wicks winners
Coming into the series finale, Johnson wore the series leader’s white jersey. But Wicks, tied for second in the series with Mark McCormack (Clif Bar), had reason to feel confident. Though Johnson’s point total was higher than Wicks’s, the series rule of counting the five best of six results worked in the Kona rider’s favor. Wicks’s worst result was a DNF in the snow of Gloucester in October, while Johnson’s fifth place finishes in both Portland and Watsonville meant that Wicks actually held a ten-point lead once the lowest scores were tossed out. As long as Johnson didn’t win the race and Wicks rode a top-five finish, the lanky Kona rider was assured the series overall.
“With the drop I’m ten points ahead,” Wicks explained. “Basically Tim can’t win the race. If I’m one place behind him I’m okay. Mark and I are tied without the drop, so he’d have to win and I’d have to be pretty far back. I’m just going to try and ride solid. Ideally, me and Todd would be off the front together and we could just drill it. I wouldn’t mind if Todd won. If he and I can get off, … he likes to get off the front and I do, and I think we can work well together.”
Johnson didn’t help his case with a terrible start that saw him lose 20 places immediately after he pulled out of both pedals within the first minute. “My first pedal stroke was good,” Johnson said, “but on my third pedal stroke I blew out of my left foot, put it back in, then I blew out of my right foot again and ended up like 15 seconds back.”
And Johnson admitted that his efforts in the heat in Watsonville had left him taxed and questioning what he could accomplish in San Francisco. “I felt like I had done a four-hour road race yesterday,” Johnson said. “I spent all night sweating. It was almost easier to race today, because I felt like I had no shot. I was asking myself, ‘How am I going to do anything?’ When I slipped my pedal it was sort of the breaking point, where I thought, ‘Shoot, I have nothing to lose now.’”
Ahead, Wicks, Wells and McCormack had taken the race lead. True to Wicks’s prediction, the two pro mountain bikers were able to shed McCormack in the slippery, twisty singletrack, and once alone worked together for individual interests.
“Mark wasn’t going to do any work, so I forced him to go to the front and chase Todd down, and then I attacked,” Wicks said. “I didn’t want to drag Mark around for the sprint. Todd came with me — I knew he’d be able to — and I told him I was just going for the series, so if he worked with me we could duke it out for the finish.”
Wicks attempted to escape on the penultimate lap, but to no avail, and Wells, who had tallied three consecutive second place finishes coming into San Francisco, powered through the final corners to cross the line just ahead of the series winner. “I was riding with Wicks, and he was strong,” Wells said. “McCormack isn’t as good in the technical stuff, but he watches and learns the lines. But then we started hitting him and I only had Wicks to deal with.”
Behind a valiant Johnson had clawed his way on to McCormack, edging the veteran roadie out in a controversial non-photo finish. McCormack was initially called the third-place finisher, but race commissaries later reversed the decision, albeit without a photo to prove the result to a less-than-pleased McCormack.
“Tim and I worked well together, until I lost it in a corner,” McCormack said. “I finally chased back to Tim, and in the end I got third but they gave me fourth. It’s hard to believe a series like this can’t afford a camera, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Improving on his 13th-place finish in Watsonville was ‘cross newbie Chris Horner (Saunier Duval-Prodir), who took 11th and, with both his face and yellow team kit covered in silt, crossed the line looking more like a coal miner than a bike racer. Horner looked poised to pass Andy Jacques-Maynes (Cal Giant Strawberries-Specialized) for a top-10 finish, but ran into tough luck in the final lap.
“I did catch Jacques-Maynes, but I threw my chain twice,” Horner said through a mouthful of dirt and dust. “They are just out-handling me out there. I’m going to need to change the bike around a little more, tweak it, and learn to ride it a little bit better too. I started 25th, crashed twice and dropped my chain twice. I’m happy with where I am. I’m just a little lost on the knowledge area and the bike-handling skills. I don’t think I am lacking the fitness. I see the way the other guys are feeling around me, and I think if I felt that bad I’d be a little further up, but I can’t bring myself to feel that bad yet for 10th. That’s a problem too. If you’re used to winning and you’re sitting at 10th, you’re thinking how bad do you want to suffer for 10th?”
Summerhill, Anthony headed to world’s
In something of a bold anti-climax, young Californian Chance Noble pulled off a shocker by dashing away from series favorites Bjorn Selander (Alan) and Summerhill to win the junior men’s race. But with the overall series title hanging in the balance, Summerhill managed to stay ahead of Selander for the overall win. Troy Wells (TIAA-CREF-Clif Bar) took the day’s under-23 honors with an impressive eighth-place finish, but Anthony claimed the U-23 series title for the second consecutive year.
