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GROUP
A - WINNER DAVID STOCKWELL |
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I
went into the stage race with the intent to
work for Phil Lovaglio as he is a better climber
and has been riding very strongly in our ITT's.
Saturday morning the ITT went just about as
expected as Phil turned in a strong 17:54,
just over 8 seconds faster than my 18:02.
We did not anticipate Al Morrison destroying
the field with a 17:25! This changed our plan
for the Criterium that evening. Knowing that
we had a rider(Andy Glantz) from a different
team sitting in 2nd (17:34)and that he was
a very strong rider we set up a new strategy
of setting up Larry Knauss for the mid 10
second time bonus as he was out of the top
5, this worked out fine except Daryl ended
up leading Larry out! (He was supposed to
be with Todd on the first break attempt after
the bonus!) Since Daryl was a little tired
Doug Gilliard and Phil were supposed to attack
next when and if this attempt failed, Doug
went but Phil didn't then Phil went and Doug
missed him. The last attack was supposed to
be me and Al but Al dropped out and I was
covering a counter attack made by Kevin from
Specialized. I looked back and we had a gap
that we managed to make it work to the finish
as Kevin out sprinted me for the win, Larry
got the 3rd.
Going into the RR on Sunday I had a 39 second
lead on Kevin and 42 seconds on Andy with
the rest of the group more than a minute behind.
We decided that we needed to send someone
up the road to get the hill time bonuses just
as long as it wasn't Kevin or Andy since both
of them can out climb me. Phil made the first
attempt but was swallowed up by the pack half
way up the hill, but the time bonus was won
by another rider in the pack. On the second
Lap Kevin and Andy did allot of work to break
up the pack but to no avail, Daryl went up
the road at about half lap and stayed away
to the finish, this took away the hill bonus's
for the pack and kept me in the lead! As we
approached the finish we had Daryl insight,
Andy made an attempt to catch Daryl on the
final hill finish but blew and Mike Ma stopped
just short of Daryl to persevere his win with
Todd getting the 3rd, I finished 6th. The
break allowed Daryl to jump over a bunch of
riders and nip Andy for 3rd. Kevin held on
to 2nd and with the right bunch of guys working
to keep a TEAM SAN JOSE rider in the lead
I managed to win the event. A few of the riders
sacrificed there opportunity to place farther
up
the GC to make sure TEAM SAN JOSE won the
event. Props go out to Phil, Mike, Doug, and
Todd for there sacrifice.
Thanks and Good Job!!
--David Stockwell |
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