McNicholas on song again on final day

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Dylan McNicholas did it the hard way on day two, but still proved he's a level at the moment, putting a poor start behind him to take a classy victory.

Jerome Townsend (SmartStop/MOB p/b Ridley) was the early aggressor and initiated the selection. After the first lap, the group had been whittled down to Townsend, his teammate Adam Myerson, McNicholas, Justin Lindine (bikereg.com/Joe’s Garage) and Canadian mountain biker Raphael Gagne (Rocky Mountain Factory) with a chasing group led by JAM Fund/NCC teammates Jeremy Durrin and Alec Donahue.

Though they appeared isolated, a determined chase from Donahue and Durrin did managed to get them to the leaders around the half-way mark.

With five laps to go, McNicholas put in a hard attack and very quickly picked up a ten second advantage, catching Lindine napping and drove the pace solo at the front. McNicholas's quickly grew to 20 seconds, and the pace saw Townsend fall off the chase, leaving a group of Myerson, Gagne, Durrin and Lindine to fight it out.

Lindine was often setting the pace, but being surrounded by quality sprinters, he knew not to do too much of the work. The group clearly had strong legs, but McNicholas took advantage of being able to dictate his rhythm and powered away to his second win of the weekend. The victory was McNicholas’s first UCI win of the season, in the wake of numerous podiums.

Gagne pulled in second, clearly pleased with his position. Durrin’s third-place is a great result heading into his European campaign which begins next weekend in Igorre, Spain.