Marcotte, Stephens win stage one of Cascade Classic

US pro champion Eric Marcottte (Team SmartStop) sprinted to victory Wednesday during stage 1 of the Cascade Cycling Classic in Bend, Oregon, and claimed the overall race lead from Optum Pro Cycling's Tom Zirbel.

"Honestly, without knowing the finish, it was really whoever got to that last corner first, and it was me, and nobody could come around," Marcotte said. "I'm not saying I was stronger than everybody, but that was such a tight corner that you couldn't really do anything after that, so I ended up holding it to the line. So it was pretty cool."

In the women's race, prologue winner Lauren Stephens (Tibco-To the Top) bridged to a late-race break on the final climb and soloed in for the win, consolidating her overall lead heading into Thursday's individual time trial. FCS/Zngine's Amber Neben was second, three seconds in arrears, followed by DNA Cycling's Breanne Nalder. Stepehens now leads Neben by 19 seconds in the overall. Tibco's Joanne Kiesanowski is third, 39 seconds down.

Wednesday's stage was a quick replacement for a planned stage on the Warm Spring Reservation north of Bend after wildfires caused by weekend lightning forced a change of venue and an alternate course. The men circled Mt. Bachelor west of Bend two times for a total of 155.2km. The women circled the mountain once for a total of 118.4km. The climb to Bachelor up Sparks Grade, which the men tackled twice, provided the main obstacle of the day.

The men wasted little time getting underway, with a six-rider breakaway peeling away from the 200-plus rider pack during the long opening descent. Smart Stop placed Rob Britton and Mike Torckler in the group, although Britton quickly flatted and dropped back to the peloton. The Smart Stop riders were joined by Bissell Development Team's Logan Owen, BMC Development Team's Tyler Williams, California-Giant's Torey Phillip and H&R Block's Stuart Wight.

Williams and Wight were soon jettisoned from the group, leaving Torckler, Owen and Phillip to soldier on with about one-and-a-half laps remaining. The gap went up to nearly four minutes before the chase, which was led by Optum in defense of Zirbel's jersey, started chipping away at the gap.

"We did 100 percent of the chasing today," Zirbel said. "There was a good break that we were happy with. So two of our guys did 95 percent of the work. It was an amazing team effort."

The orange-and-black crew timed the chase perfectly, bringing the leaders back at the bottom of the final trip up Sparks Grade about 10km from the finish. From there the attacks and counter attacks started to fly. Bissell's James Oram escaped with Smart Stop's Julian Kyer, and the pair opened up a gap of 20 seconds as riders in the peloton fought for position.

A lead group of about 40 riders eventually absorbed Oram and Kyer as the riders powered to the finish in the parking lot of the Mt. Bachelor Ski Area. In the finale, Marcotte came through the final corner first and held off late charges from Hincapie's Joe Lewis and Joey Rosskopf, who finished second and third.

The 10-second time bonus for the winner pushed Marcotte past Zirbel by just two seconds. Bissell's Ruben Zepuntke is third overall, four seconds down.

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