The Bulletin, Bend / Central Oregon News
FEBRUARY 09, 2010 11:37 AM
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Kristin Armstrong, left, of Boise, Idaho, and Dotsie Bausch of Irvine, Calif., battle for third place during the final stretch of the women's elite race on McKenzie Pass. Armstrong outsprinted the group to claim the third-place podium spot.
Rob Kerr / The Bulletin
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An opportunistic group of four riders held off the elite women's field for nearly 70 miles, but it was Kristen LaSasso who had enough kick on the final climb to seal the stage win during Thursday's Cascade Cycling Classic.
Riding for Team Lipton, LaSasso, of Belvedere, Calif., stormed up the final 10-kilometers of the 81-mile McKenzie Pass Road Race, reaching the finish at Dee Wright Observatory in 3 hours, 53 minutes, and 51 seconds.
Canadian Kirsten Robbins, a Victory Brewing rider from Kleinburg, Ontario, took second, 2:10 minutes back, and Lipton's Kristin Armstrong of Boise, Idaho, outsprinted a group of 10 riders to claim third, 2:23 back.
"Once the climb started, I was on my terrain," said LaSasso, whose victory on Thursday was her first-ever National Racing Calendar stage win. "I went my own pace, but I knew I could ride the girls off my wheel."
On a post-card perfect Central Oregon day, Kele Murdin of Velo Bella-Kona made the first move, dashing away from the main pack of 66 riders at mile 10, with Webcor's Amber Rais close behind.
The two were soon chased down by LaSasso, Robbins, and Velo Bella's Hiroko Shimada. After dropping Murdin, the four-woman breakaway maintained a two-minute advantage over the field for most of the day while racing on backroads of northern Deschutes County.
"Everybody worked really well together," said LLaSasso of four-rider group. "It came down to the climb, but everybody did their share to get there."
Working efficiently together to stay in front of the peloton, the lead riders managed to increase their time gap by more than five minutes as they whizzed past Sisters High School on state Highway 242. But that's also where the strong climbers made their move.
Rais and Shimada quickly dropped back and were later swallowed up by the strong climbers from the fast-closing peloton.
Robbins was able to hang with LaSasso the longest before she too fell back with 6 kilometers to go.
"This is the perfect course for someone like me," said Robbins. "I'm not a sprinter. A course (of attrition) is better suited to my style of riding. (LaSasso) was just so much stronger than me on the climbs. She eventually rode away from me."
With four stages remaining, including today's Cascade Lakes Road Race, Robbins said it's too early to predict who will be the favorite to win the overall title.
"There's a lot of racing to go," said Robbins. "Tomorrow is a pretty big stage, and it starts on a climb."
With all the top-level women's teams at the CCC represented in the break group, Armstrong, the Cycling Classic's 2005 women's champion, said there was little motivation in the pack to chase the leaders down.
"There wasn't a lot of pressure on us today," said Armstrong, noting that the smaller teams and individual riders didn't have the firepower to rein in the break. "We (Team Lipton) have our work cut out for us tomorrow because Kirsten has a nice lead. There's going to be a lot of attacking from the other teams. It's going to be tough."
The elite women tackle today's 75-mile stage, which begins at 10 a.m. at Wanoga Sno-Park on Century Drive west of Bend. A mountaintop finish near Mt. Bachelor's Sunrise Lodge will again favor the climbers.
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