Allar takes out Tour de Grove

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As day two dawned on the MoPro Cycling Series, the second stop brought crystal clear skies and windy conditions as the pro men’s and women’s fields set out to contest the most recent round of the USA Crits series. A revised course to cope with road construction meant long, drag strip straightaways and a reduction in attacking opportunities from years past, promising a renewed choke hold on the field from the sprinters’ teams.

With the highest payout on offer over the MoPro weekend, the Tour de Grove hoped to bring the best out of the racers making up the pro fields. Not for lack of trying, each field faced a demanding headwind on the long opening straightaway that stymied attacks and kept opportunists from gaining any ground over a flat out field in search of control and a sprint finish.

The women’s race stayed together for the duration of the 60-minute event as the steady 18 MPH headwind through the race’s opening straightaway shut down any attempts to move clear. Despite the adversity, Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies continued their aggressive ways and sent several riders to the front, only to be forced back into the fray.

With uncooperative conditions, the women’s race stayed together until the finish with last year’s winner and USA Crits series leader Erica Allar of Care4Cycling taking the win ahead of Coryn Rivera and Kimberley Wells, Friday night’s winner.

Into the driving wind, the men’s fields faired little better on the three-corner course and no breakaways were given more than a token handful of seconds throughout the race. The most notable, a two-man break, lasted five laps at the race’s halfway point and from then on, it was all business in the tightly grouped field.

Coming into 10 laps to go, Team SmartStop p/b Mountain Khakis took charge, shadowed by Jelly Belly in an attempt to control the field for their respective sprinters. Lying in wait, however, was the powerhouse UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling team who only made their presence know with a lap and a half remaining when they took the front and never let go. In the end, Carlos Alzate took the win in front of teammates Luke Keough and Hilton Clarke for a UnitedHealthcare sweep of the podium.

With his win, Alzate takes over second in the USA Crits series with Hilton Clarke taking the lead and Shane Kline of Team SmartStop p/b Mountain Khakis rounding out the top three.

On the women’s end, Erica Allar has extended her advantage and reasserted her dominance for the second consecutive year ahead of Morgan Patton and teammate Lenore Pipes. The USA Crits series heads to the Glencoe neighborhood outside of Chicago for its next round on June 1st.

With two days down in the MoPro cycling series, the field looks to tomorrow’s Dutchtown Classic and a more technical, punchy course in the hopes of breaking the stranglehold of the big teams and leveraging more opportunistic riders clear.