This week finds me in the Minneapolis – St Paul area where I am the Guest Sport Director for Team SmartStop. The team consists of current NRC Leader Travis McCabe, the newly crowned US Professional Road Race Champion Eric Marcotte, Adam Meyerson, Flavio Alejandro and Travis Livermon.
Here is a race report from tonight’s Stage 4 Criterium in Uptown Minneapolis:
Marcotte Second at the Uptown Criterium of NSBF
Team SmartStop took to the streets of Uptown Minneapolis for the Stage 4 criterium of the North Star Bicycle Festival. The Uptown Crit is a huge crowd favorite as thousands of people make their way to the Uptown neighborhood to revel in the party atmosphere and watch the races.
A massive crash in the women’s race earlier caused a delay in the start of the men’s race. The men finally got underway 20 minutes late. As a result of the delay the race was shortened from 40 to 35 laps which meant things got hot immediately with a time bonus sprint coming a mere 3 laps into the race.
The team plan was to be aggressive and try to force a move off the front knowing that Optum would probably be content to allow some rope to a small group of riders who weren’t a threat to the overall. Both McCabe and Marcotte were aggressive following the first time bonus sprint. Within a few laps after the time sprint Marcotte found his way into a small group the proved to be just the right combination of riders. Initially it was Marcotte, Ortenblad of Cal-Giant and Santos of KHS with Stevens of the Belgian 3M team and Dahlheim of Athlete Octane joining shortly after. The gap hovered at 10-15 seconds for a few laps then held steady at 25-30 seconds as Jamis kept trying to send solo riders across. Finally the elastic snapped and the break was able to extend their lead to 50 seconds with 10 to go. The field never got any closer.
On the last lap it became a game of cat and mouse with Marcotte finally jumping from a long way out. He was first wheel into the last corner with the young Ortenblad right on his wheel. It became a drag race to the line with the youngster from Cal-Giant narrowly edging Marcotte at the line.
The rest of the team rolled in safely with the main field.
It will be an early morning on Saturday as the team travels to Wisconsin for the Menomonie Road Race. With a chance of rain and more wind in the forecast it could prove to be another hard day in the saddle similar to Canon Falls yesterday.
