Jensen claims sprint for Battenkill title

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Brian Jensen (TradeWind Energy-Trek Stores) captured a hard-fought victory at the Tour of Battenkill Pro-Am race held in Cambridge, New York. The Kansas City native outpaced a late-race breakaway that included Daniel Zmolik (AXA Equitable Cycling Team-CRCA) and William Dugan (Team Type 1), who took second and third respectively.

“I didn’t come here expecting to win that’s for sure,” Jensen told Cyclingnews. “I really didn’t know about the other guys because I’ve never really ridden out east. I had no idea what to expect so when I won the race I was pretty surprised.

“A lot of guys were getting tired and with one kilometre to go there was attacking,” he said. “I pulled through with 500 metres to go and two guys caught back. When we took the last turn, I jumped out of the corner and nobody went with me. I looked back and I had a gap.”

Anna Barensfeld (Ladies First powered by Milton Cat) won the women’s 100-kilometre race ahead of Silke Wunderwald (Team Kenda) and Arielle Fiberti (Specialized Women’s Team).

“It’s a dream,” Barensfeld told Cyclingdirt. “I had built this up to more than it was supposed to be. I told myself that I had a chance to win it but I wasn’t supposed to have the chance to win this, I couldn’t believe it just happened.

“I got worried, nobody else was worried but I was,” Barensfeld said about an early solo breakaway rider. “I chased her down at one point and almost caught her but didn’t. No one else was chasing but we caught her on the hill. I’m new to road racing so this is all new to me. All the selections happened on the hill.”

Strong winds, steep climbs and dirt roads...

The sixth annual Tour of Battenkill was designed to appeal to the one-day classic riders, held on the eve of the legendary Paris-Roubaix. Last year the event attracted thousands of starters and this year the registration doubled. Racers were treated to a pure classics-style course that boasted nearly 25 per cent, eight sections, of dirt roads through the rolling and steep hillsides of the Battenkill Valley. The Pro-Am men took on 133 kilometres and the Pro-Elite women raced for just over 100 kilometres.

Jensen relied on the efforts and experience of his teammate Steve Tilford, who ended up in an early breakaway that included four other riders Cameron Cogburn (CCB-Wheelworks), Justin Lindine (BikeReg.com-Cannondale) and Arnaud Papillon. The group rolled off the front near the race’s halfway point, working well as they took on one hard-packed dirt road section at a time.

“We came out here because we heard in was a great classic,” Tilford said. “The gravel was hard packed dirt, other than some holes in the road the dirt sections were really smooth. I wanted to make sure we got to the last dirt climb ahead of the group. It was pretty long climb, hard and steep. We were working really well together. It was really windy today but not windy for Kansas standards and that’s where Brian and I are from. There was a fair amount of riding but the fields were splitting up on the climbs.

“I was off the front for about 45-miles,” he added. “When we got to the last climb I could see the field behind us was about 25 riders but it must have shattered over the last climb and the next small group came across to us obviously those were the strongest guys left from the main field.”

The breakaway hit the final climb in tact over Stage Road. The main field shattered over the steep dirt section and several riders emerged in pursuit of the breakaway. Those riders included Jensen, Jamey Driscoll (Jamis-Sutter Home), William Dugan (Team Type 1), Daniel Zmolik (AXA Equitable Cycling team-CRCA) and Josh Dillon (BikeReg.com-Cannondale).

Some riders fell off pace in the breakaway and new riders joined the front group. “I was surprised we caught them because the field was going really slow at times,” Jensen said.

The front group swelled to nine riders with five kilometres to the finish line. The pace was high and the attacks continued one after another through the final few kilometres. Four strong men snapped the break to include Jensen, Zmolik, Dugan, Cogburn and Dillon.

“It was an attack-fest coming into the finish,” Tilford said. “Brian got in a group of about four or five riders and then there were about five of us in the second group. Brian timed his attack perfectly. They kept attacking each other. Brian came out of the last corner, 300 metres to the finish, first and he went straight through and won by a pretty good margin. I won the next group sprint for sixth place.”

Bobby Lea (Bahati Foundation) won the bunch sprint for 10th place.

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