Huff fights back for Dutchtown win

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On the final day of the 2013 MoPro Cycling series, clear skies and beautiful weather greeted the fields that took to the technical course through South St. Louis’s Dutchtown neighborhood. Six corners and a finishing hill provided opportunities for attacking riders shut out after Saturday’s windy drag race and aggressive riding set the tone for each field.

After a Saturday spent gruppo compacto at the Tour de Grove, the women’s field wasted no time in lighting up the technical circuit with attack after attack seeking some leash over the demanding course. Halfway in to the sixty minute race, Leah Kirchmann of Optum p/b Kelly Benefits Strategies continued the team’s tommy gun approach to the weekend and set out with two other riders in the shape of Lauren Stephens and Jacquelyn Crowell. A lap later, Theresa Cliff-Ryan of Fearless Femme saw the danger and bridged the gap to bring the lead group to four. Behind, a lap of inattention let the gap go out to twenty seconds, before Erica Allar and Coryn Rivera, Saturday’s first and second, personally took to the head of the field to try and bring the escapees back to heel. Their efforts were for naught, however, and despite the gap being trimmed to 15 seconds with three laps to go; the break was not seen again. Switching over to tactical shadow boxing inside the two-lap countdown, USA national crit champion Cliff-Ryan dominated the sprint ahead of Kirchmann and Stephens. Fearless Femme teammate and Friday night winner Kimberly Wells took out the field sprint leaving the other big names and teams to scrap it out for lesser placings.

In the men’s race, there was no less aggression, but much less payoff for riders looking to take their opportunities on the challenging Dutchtown course. Despite a favorable course for attacking, small groups would gain a handful of seconds before being brought back into the fold by the big teams of SmartStop Mountain Khakis and Jelly Belly. Still wincing from the drubbing at the hands of United Health Care the previous day, the two biggest teams in the race made their presence felt in a concerted effort to dictate a sprint finish on the uphill drag to the line. Notably, Joe Schmaltz of Elbowz Racing attacked fifty minutes in, taking Qdoba p/b Bushwhacker’s Devin Clark clear for two laps before Friday night podium finisher Adam Leibowitz of Texas Roadhouse instigated a three man counter attack. The move looked to have some traction before SmartStop Mountain Khakis massed at the head of the chase with three to go to bring it back together for a field sprint. From there, Jelly Belly and SmartStop traded blows into the white knuckle sprint where Missouri native Brad Huff edged out Nicolai Brochner of Bissell-ABG-Giant by a wheel with teammate Ricardo Van der Velde in third. By finishing off his teammates’ hard work, Huff continued his streak of top Missouri race finishes and took Jelly Belly’s second win on the weekend after Saturday’s disappointment.

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With another year in the books for the MoPro cycling series, the weekend’s races keep growing and continue to provide dynamic racing for the Midwest as part of the USA Crits series.

Pro men results

Pro women results