April 15/03 8:13 am - Harris Roubaix Results, Phoenix Velo Rides, Cheseau in Europe, McQuaid Reports from Sea Otter

Posted by Editoress on 04/15/03
 

Harris Roubaix Classic Pitt Meadows BC
Courtesy Geoff Rice

April 13th

Men's Cat 1/2
1. Larry Zimich (Campione)
2. Matt Usborne (Symmetrics)
3. Brian Ecker (Recycled Cycles)
4. Steve Colborne (Symmetrics)
5. Paul Blanchette (Rocky Mountain)
6. Derek McMaster (Part 1 International)
7. Andrew Pinfold (Atlas Cold Italpasta)
8. James Neil (Trek/Volkswagen)
9. Shawn Bunnin (Kona)
10. Warren Ellis (Bike Barn)

23. Chris White (CDN) (Trek/Volkswagen)

Men's Cat  3/4/5/Junior
1. Carey Squires (Campione)
2. Bradley Fairall (Rocky Mountain)
3. Gavin Forsyth (Escape Velocity)
4. Jim Tsilemos (Campione)
5. Mark Cunningham (Symmetrics)
6. Doug Jenson (Escape Velocity)
7. Brian Griffin (Independent)
8. Paul Beard (Atomic)
9. Martin Bojensen (Escape Velocity)
10. Blake Bowell (Escape Velocity)

Women's Category 1/2/3/4
1. Marni Prazsky (Trek/Volkswagen)
2. Lisa Sweeney (Kappa Alfatech)
3. Sarah Noble (Bike Barn)
4. Heather Parrote (Team Opus)
5. Sara Neil (Trek/Volkswagen)
6. Barb Zimich (Dizzy Cycles)
7. Moriah MacGregor (Dizzy Cycles)


Training Rides Resume in Mission BC
Courtesy Peg Wenting

The Phoenix Velo Training Group have resumed their Wed. Training Sessions at the Mission, B.C. Raceway. This is an ideal venue. It consists of an interesting 1k circuit with absolutely no traffic, for race preparation, training, and coaching.

Season Membership is cheap: for unlicensed riders $40.00 , Licensed riders $25.00, Juniors and Associates $15.00 and guests are welcome at $4.00. Call Wentings Cycle & Mountain Shop for details 604-826-1411


Grand Prix de Lancy Lancy GE
Courtesy Marc-Wayne Addison

Andreas Dietziker a signé sa première victoire de la saison à l'occasion du Grand Prix de Lancy. Le coureur thurgovien s'est imposé au sprint d'un groupe de huit coureurs qui s'étaient dégagés à quarante kilomètres de l'arrivée.

Christophe Cheseau (Morteau/Espoir Laval) était dans le groupe de 14 cyclistes en chasse sur les échappés, il termine 16ieme de la course à 2"17'de Dietziker.

177 km

1. Andreas Dietziker (Aadorf) 4:10:31 (42,390 km/h).
2. Frazer McMaster (Delémont/NZ)
3. Jan Brunner (Dübendorf),both s.t.
4. Dennis Tichenko (Rus) at 0:02
5. Sascha Urweider (Innertkirchen) 0:05
6. Sylvain Lavergne (Fr)
7. Kurt Bühler (Winterthour), both s.t.
8. Florian Stalder (Zweisimmen) 0:07
9. Damien Grauser (Genève) 2:17
10. Marco Hartmann (Flawil)

16. Christophe Cheseau (Morteau/Espoirs Laval) s.t.


Seo Otter Classic - Melanie McQuaid Reports

Well I just finished a week of raising my own expectations. With a career ride at the Sea Otter Classic, I surprised myself with where I am already in my training, and it has SO motivated me and encouraged me in my campaign for an Olympic spot and some kick-ass Xterra results this year.

The Sea Otter Classic is a huge trade show/festival/mtb cross country stage race/downhill stage race/road race. There is over 100,000 square feet of expo space. It is the biggest race by far in the spring, and in terms of turnout, it is the show. They describe themselves as the "debutante ball" of cycling.

The format of the cross country stage race, which is what my team, Ford Outfitters, came to compete in was 5km Time Trial on Thursday, Road Criterium on mountainbikes Friday, XC Short Track (20 min + 3 laps) on Saturday and the long XC on Sunday.

So the time trial, which wasn't very technical and was basically pin it and go as freaking hard as you could without looking back. Which is essentially what every time trial is. When I rolled in I had no idea what had been happening because people were finishing all over the place, but when the results were finally out, I realized I had finished 8th. I was happy with that (and happy for Chrissy Redden (Gary Fisher) for winning the thing) because not only is top 10 pretty good at this race, but 3rd to 8th were about 5 seconds apart! So that was even better.

The next day was the road crit, and it was pretty scary riding on slicks on the pavement, on mtb, with so many girls, and there were some really gnarly crashes. So I just rode around at the front to try and stay safe, and nothing really happened until the last lap, where teams started attacking. Alison Dunlap (Luna) had the perfect attack going into the last corner, and two girls edged me off her wheel going into the corner, and she was away. I ended up 4th in the sprint. And I was happy with that, given that was my first podium at a big mtb event.

Then we went into the short track, which, like the time trial, is an all out suffering psycho 20 minutes. When we started elbows were flying and people were constantly jostling for position. Sue Haywood (Trek-VW) set a really hard pace, and people kept trying to knock me out of the top five and out of frustration I just attacked as hard as I could. When I looked back, there were three, me, Alison Dunlap and her Luna teammate Katrina Hanusova. So that was it, we were gone. I fought to stay with Dunlap and not get worked over by the teammates and with 2 laps to go we lost Hanusova, and on the very last climb I cracked and couldn't get around Dunlap, but took 2nd 2 seconds behind, and second overall in the General Classification. And I was happy with that, because that was pretty unreal for me.

So FINALLY, we got to the cross country and I was pretty excited about it, just to see if I could ride around with people like Dunlap this year (2001 World Champion, US multi-national championships, Olympian road and mountainbike, basically a superstar). It was cool being called to the line as an Xterra athlete, I was really proud to be on the front line, and a multisport person.... but that is an aside. Anyway, I rode super well for one of two laps - into lap 2 myself and Mary McConneloug were gapped only 30s on an attacking Dunlap and Blatter, but they lost us, and then I started to blow on the second lap, lost Mary, was caught by Kerry Barnholt (Sobe-Cannondale), rode with her through the lap, lost contact when I screwed up a downhill, and then on the last climb, Chrissy Redden caught up to me. At that point, Chrissy riding up that climb with me saved me from a backwards spiral, and together we worked to minimize the time gap and keep my GC position, and rode in together, her taking 5th and me 6th.

So I ended up 4th overall. The result of my mountainbike career, at this point!

I would like to thank my coach first, Houshang Amiri at the Pacificsport National Cycling center, because not only would I not be an athlete at this point had he not convinced me I was good, but it is because of his hard work in figuring out how I can do all this swimming and running and still ride fast.