Gaimon wins McKenzie Pass Road Race to claim Cascade lead

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Bissell Pro Cycling and Exergy-Twenty16 stamped their authority all over the Cascade Cycling Classic Wednesday during the stage 1 McKenzie Pass Road Race. Bissell's Phil Gaimon took the stage win and the overall lead in the men's race, while Tibco's Claudia Häusler won the women's stage after making it into a three-rider break with Exergy's Mara Abbott and Kristin McGrath, who finished with Häusler to claim the overall lead from prologue winner Alison Powers (NOW and Novartis for MS). 

Bissell put four riders into the top five of the stage with Chris Baldwin, Carter Jones and Michael Torckler in third, fourth and fifth, respectively.

Gaimon, who recently signed a deal with Garmin-Sharp for the 2014 season, suggested his win should help quiet any doubters that he deserves his WorldTour ride.

"I have to make Vaughters look smart," he said of the stage win and race lead.

Exergy-Twenty16 not only seized the race lead on Wednesday, but also put three riders in the top five with McGrath and Abbott in second and third and Andrea Dvorak in fifth. McGrath said despite not winning the stage, the team is happy with the result and is ready to defend.

"She's got a good kick, and she got the stage win," McGrath said of Häusler. "But we'll take it one day at a time."

Bissell plays stage perfectly

For several years in a row the stage's fast downhill start led to early crashes. Optum's Chad Haga crashed while wearing the yellow jersey last year and eventually had to abandon the race. To avoid a repeat, officials extended the neutral section further into the race after the 200-rider men's peloton was well off the downhill section.

The change seemed to work as riders avoided early mishaps heading toward the bottom of the day's first major climb, the 35km ascent up the stage's namesake road. A breakaway of four riders that included Patrick Kos (D3Devo p/b Airgas), Baily McKnight (Hincapie Sportswear), Yannick Eckmann (California Giant-Specialized) and Bobby Lea (Smart Stop-Mountain Khakis) built a 2:15 lead by the time the race reached the bottom of the climb, but the steep, switchbacked slopes of McKenzie Pass quickly doomed their effort.

Eckmann, who said he had been planning to get into the breakaway on this stage as early as May, was the only rider to survive the chase led by the 5-hour Energy-Kenda team of race leader Bobby Sweeting.

Cashcall Mortgage's Michael Weicht joined Eckmann off the front as the two riders held a small advantage on the descent off the pass and into the town of Sisters. The duo had a 1:40 gap on the field when Weicht dropped Eckmann and headed off for the final climb on his own. Eckmann said he had hoped to go further up the climb before fading out of the lad group, but his daylong effort of the front had drained too much already.

"I cracked," he said. "Then going up the last 20km, one of the Cashcall guys was with me, and I told him I'm cracked. So he attacked and rode away."

But the finish was just too far away for Weicht to keep his advantage without any help. He was quickly brought back into submission as Bissell's Frank Pipp drilled it into the climb and opened a gap of about 10-12 seconds, providing a launch for 5-hour Energy's Nate English and Baldwin to jump away from the field. The pair had a 20-second gap with just 5km remaining, but English soon faded off Baldwin's pace, while back in the field Gaimon attacked and bridged to his teammate up the road.

"That's sort of what we were planning all day, to use our bigger guys – well, really just Pipp is the only guy here who's not a pure climber – to use him at the base to keep the pace high," Gaimon said. "Pretty much from there I didn't have to do much at all."

Haga tried to respond, but the Bissell tactic blew the race apart. Only two-time Cascade champion Francsico Mancebo (5-hour Energy) was able to claw his way near Gaimon. But Baldwin was burying himself with Gaimon in tow, eventually falling off the pace as his team leader headed for the line.

"Baldwin was up the road waiting for me to get across, so it was perfect, because when I got to him nobody else was there," Gaimon said. "He gave me a kilometer of as much as he could, and then I was able to hold it into the finish."

Mancebo continued to chase, but he was never able to make contact with Gaimon and had the three Bissell riders on this wheel as he crossed the finish line five seconds behind the leader. Bontrager's Gavin Mannion had joined the leaders in the final kilometers but crashed in the last kilometer and finished well down on the stage results.
Sweeting finished in a chase group 5:58 in arrears and surrendered his race lead.

Mancebo is now second overall, nine seconds behind Gaimon. Baldwin is third, followed by Haga. Gaimon, who signed with Bissell in the off-season, credited his new team with Wednesday's result.

"Last year I attacked with 4km to 5km to go, pretty much the same spot, but at that time I didn't have any teammates in the front group," he said. "Then Paco [Mancebo] came, and Bissell had two guys in the front group and they kind of shut me down in the stage win. So if you can beat 'em join 'em. It was the same guys in the front group, but this time they weren't racing to beat the crap out of me."

Trio decimates women's field

The women's race held together until the bottom of the McKenzie Pass climb before the trio of escapees blew the race apart. The NOW and Novartis for MS team of race leader Alison Powers kept the pace high leading up to the base of the climb, hoping to launch Powers into any breakaway groups that would go.

But the early efforts cost the team as Powers was isolated early on the climb after McGrath and Häusler initially rode away. McGrath praised her teammate Abbott for setting up the move and adding significant power to the breakaway once she bridged.

"Mara set it up beautifully, and I countered her attack and then Claudia came up to me," McGrath said. "It was the two of us and we isolated the yellow jersey, and then Mara came across. She was amazing, she worked really hard that whole stage to help me get time before the time trial tomorrow. The team was textbook."

Back in the field, Powers knew her chances for defending last year's win were riding away with the trio up the road.

"That was really strong riding from the three of them," Powers said. "When McGrath and Häusler went up the road I knew that was dangerous right away. Katie [Donovan] and I worked together to keep it close, but when Mara bridged it was game over. There was no way we were bringing that back, ever."

The chasers' chances of bringing the escapees back also took a hit as the leaders worked incredibly well together in order to gain as much time as possible on Powers and the other GC contenders. The lead ballooned to nearly six minutes before the chase started clawing back some time. But the trio hit it again hard after passing through Sisters and heading for the final ascent.

"There was a lot of harmony in our group," Häusler said. "Of course we wanted to try in the very final to kill each other a little bit, but actually the main goal for the three of us was for sure to make time on Powers."

With that main goal in sight, the trio poured on the coals after coming off the McKenzie descent and the gap began to grow again. After a long day of chasing, Powers and crew cracked a bit, and Abbott said isolating the yellow jersey also slowed the chase.

"Once she's isolated it makes the group behind difficult to get organized and work, and that makes it easier for us to gain time," the two-time Giro Rosa winner said. "So it's just a question of when that string breaks, and if that string breaks you're going to get a lot of time."

And that string broke on Wednesday after the leaders sailed up the final climb. Häusler launched her considerable finishing kick with 200 meters to go and crossed the line two seconds ahead of McGrath. Abbott came in nine seconds alter.

The leaders gained more than three and a half minutes on the first chase group, led across the line by Flavia Oliviera (DNA Cycling-Plan7). Powers finished 10th, 4:32 behind the winner. The day's effort knocked many of the contenders out of the GC battle. Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies may have had the worst day, with US pro rad race champion Jade Wilcoxson leading the Optum results with a 20th-place finish, 9:14 behind Häusler.

At the end of the day, McGrath climbed into yellow with a four-second lead over Häusler and 44 seconds over Abbott. Oliviera is fourth, 3:50 down. Dvorak is fifth overall, also 3:50 down.

The race continues Thursday with the stage 2 Crooked River Time Trial, a slightly lumpy 25.7km out-and-back route that features 183 meters of elevation gain.

Pro men - Full results

Pro women - Full results