Johan Lindgren had a 23-second advantage with two to go.
Johan Lindgren made it two in a row for the Cykelcity team at the Univest Grand Prix when he soloed away from a battered field six laps from the finish to take the win in the Doylestown Criterium Sunday. Lindgren finished off a Swedish sweep at Univest while Karl Menzies (UnitedHealthcare-Maxxis) took the field sprint ahead of 2008-09 winner Yuriy Metlushenko (Amore Vita).
Cykelcity, Kelly Benefit Strategies, Bissell and UHC were among the teams making the racing chippy on rain-slickened roads from the start. “We went out to ride hard and make it a hard race today,” said Lindgren, covered in road grime after the race. “We were trying to break up the field. It’s a lot easier to beat 20 riders than it is to beat 40.”
Only 45 of 108 riders made it through the crash-marred 50-mile race. KBS director Jonas Carney was disappointed afterward that one of the countless breaks his team jumped into couldn’t shake the dead weight of an Amore stowaway. “Our goal was to go to the front and smash the field,” said Carney. “We did, but there were guys who didn’t want to work. We had guys in every break but there was always an Amore Vita guy sitting in. They wanted to set things up for Metlushenko but in the end they couldn’t pull (Lindgren) back.”
UnitedHealthcare helped in the late race chase of the Swede, but, shorthanded after losing riders to the pavement, Menzies had to settle for second. “It was full-on,” he said of the pace. “The problem was we lost guys in crashes, but I credit Tim (Johnson) and Johnny (Clarke) — they got me in there.”
With his win, Lindgren locked up the two-day omnium overall victories for Cykelcity and teammate Jonas Ahlstrand, who won the Univest Grand Prix road race Saturday in Souderton.
