McCabe and Stephens strike in Menomonie

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Travis McCabe (Elbowz Racing) and Lauren Stephens (TIBCO) took the wins during the stage 5 road race at the Nature Valley Grand Prix Saturday in Menomonie, Wisconsin.

McCabe, who spent much of the day in a breakaway that got pulled back late in the race, got away again with four other riders on the closing circuits through the small college town and outsprinted his breakaway companions to take his first National Race Calendar win ahead of stage 1 winner Serghei Tvetcov (Jelly Belly) and Jamis-Hagens Berman's Guido Palma. Optum's Mike Friedman held onto the race leader's jersey for another day.

McCabe, 24, has been racing since 2007 and credited his move to Elbowz this season with helping him finally breakthrough with a win after several podium finishes, including second place in Friday night's Uptown Minneapolis criterium.

“It was a great day and a great day for Elbowz, too,” he said. “It's been a huge jump getting onto the Elbowz team and having Heath Blackgrove and all the guys who mesh really well together. It's made a huge difference. We race as a team everyday, and it doesn't always work out, but when it does, man, it feels great.”

Stephen strikes for TIBCO

In the women's race, Stephens bridged to Specialized-lululemon's Olivia Dillon after the Irish national time trial champion spent most of the day off the front. Stephens then dropped Dillon after the third QOM of the day and soloed across the line 32 seconds ahead of teammate Shelley Olds and Colavita's Kimberly Wells. Overall leader Jade Wilcoxson (Optum) finished fourth and now sits just one second ahead of Olds in the GC battle.

Stephens, a 27-year-old high school math teacher who just recently signed with TIBCO and taught class in Dallas the day before the stage race started, said a teammate prompted her winning move.

“Claudia [Häusler] told me to go, and I went,” she said. “It was on a little hill, so I went across to Olivia Dillon because she was up the road. I worked with her a little bit and then decided on one of the hills to go solo, and I just kept going.”

Men's breakaway rolls early, but Optum keeps control

The men's 162km race took shape early as an eight-rider breakaway rolled off the front about 12km into the race. McCabe made the split, along with Ruben Campanioni (Jamis-Hagens Berman), Ricardo Van Der Velde (Jelly Belly), Chris Barton (CashCall Mortgage), Jared Barrilleaux (California Giant-Specialized), Connor McCutcheon (Get Crackin'), Dennis Mejia (Get Crackin') and Chris Winn (Horizon Organic-Panache).

Van der Velde was the best-placed rider on GC, just 1:39 down on Friedman, but Optum director Jonas Carney said the team was never overly concerned about his presence in the move. The real worry was the number and quality of riders up the road.

“We decided to keep it at four minutes or less,” Carney said. “We knew we could bring it back, and we didn't really care whether we caught it or not, as long as we could bring it back within one minute we would have been happy to let the break go all the way.”

The leaders built a maximum gap of 3:35 before Mejia fell off the pace 61km in. Barton, who was only interested in the KOM points, won two KOM spots and placed second in another before suffering cramps and falling back into the group after having earned enough points to take the jersey from Jamis' Janier Acevedo.

The six remaining riders held their lead until just before the final KOM, when the all-day chase by Optum pulled them back and the peloton reshuffled. Attacks went up the road, but nothing stuck, and the peloton reached Menomonie mostly intact to start four laps of a 4.3km finishing circuit.

That's when McCabe jumped again and brought Palma, Kit Recca (Horizon Organic) and Alexander Meyer (ISCorp-Intelligentsia) with him. Meyer soon fell off the pace, but he was replaced by Tvetcov, who bridged to the group on the second of the four loops.

The group built a lead of 25 seconds, and with Optum once again not concerned about the stage win or nay of the riders up the road, a winner from the group looked assured. McCabe was determined to make sure he was that winner. The Elbowz rider jumped away in the back straight before the last corner and got enough of a gap to hold off a quickly closing Tvetcov at the line.

“I know Serghei can do it all, sprint and time trial,” McCabe said. “But I knew I still had something left, so I made the jump on the back side coming into that last corner and just pushed it. I knew he was closing pretty quick, but I had enough time to make it.”

Friedman came across the line in fifth and now sits 37 seconds ahead of his teammate Scott Zwizanski and 38 seconds ahead of Elbowz rider Andres Diaz. Eric Marcotte (Elbowz) is fourth, 44 seconds down.

TIBCO, Specialized pressure Optum

The Optum women's team of overall leader Jade Wilcoxson found itself under a bit of pressure for most of the day from runner-up Shelley Olds' TIBCO team and third-placed Carmen Small's Specialized-lululemon squad.

Specialized put Optum under the gun early when Olivia Dillon, who normally rides for NOW and Novartis for MS but is guest riding for Specialized this week, jumped away after the first QOM and built a good lead before Optum took over the front and started chasing her down.

“We were really happy to leave a rider out there at three minutes or so,” said Optum team director Rachel Heal. “But she got five minutes, and so we then started working to close the gap a bit.”

Birchwood Cycling's Anne Perry tried in vain to bridge up to Dillon, and she was soon joined by Amanda Miller (TIBCO), Leah Guloien (Colavita) and Amy McGuire (FCS-Zngine). But that move didn't last. A seven-rider group tried next, including Birchwood's Flavia Oliveira; Specialized-lululemon's Tayler Wiles; TIBCO's Claudia Häusler, Amanda Miller and Shelley Olds; and Optum's Joelle Numainville and Jade Wilcoxson. Specialized's Small and Gillian Carlton also bridged to the first chase group with Optum's Lauren Hall.

That group eventually caught Dillon, but she immediately jumped away again about 88km into the race and started building another gap. The peloton soon caught the chasing group, but not before Stephens attacked after the third QOM. Stephens quickly bridged to Dillon and then dropped her breakaway companion to set off on her own.

“I was really wanting the car to come up and tell me if I needed to do this or not,” Stephens said. “And so the car came up, and [team director] Manel [Lacambra] said, 'Go. You can win the tour.' So I kept going. He said: 'Time trial.' And I time trialed.”

Stephens “time trialed” her way into a gap of over 25 seconds with just 11km remaining. By the time she entered Menomonie for the first of four finishing circuits, Stephens had 1:05 on the peloton. But she wasn't finished adding to her advantage yet, and Optum was willing to let her go even deeper.

“We were happy for her to take the 12-second time bonus,” Heal said. “Because either Olds or Small needed the time bonus to take yellow. So if that was taken away we were guaranteed to maintain yellow if Jade finished on the same time.”

Stephens had a 1:30 advantage starting her second circuit, and her win seemed to be in the bag. Her advantage was 1:20 with two to go, and she started the final loop with a 1:10 gap. But Optum seriously picked up the pace on the final circuit, hoping to lead out Wilcoxson to another podium finish and the time bonus that would come with it. But Olds and her TIBCO team had their own plan.

“I had a lot of help today from my teammate, Joanne Kiesanowski, keeping me out of the Optum train and in my own little space so I didn't have to fight with any body else,” said Olds, who lost two consecutive sprints to Wilcoxson on stages three and four. “Jade jumped early before the corner, and I was able to get on her wheel and come around her. When we make our own sprint, I think we are capable of winning.”

Olds grabbed second place ahead of Colavita's Kimberly Wells, knocking Wilcoxson down to fourth and out of the time bonuses.

Olds' eight-second time bump moved her to just one-second behind the leader heading into Sunday's final criterium stage in Stillwater. The difficult course includes the climb of Chilkoot Hill, which features grades of 17 percent.

“There's no time bonuses tomorrow, so it all comes down to times across the line,” said Optum director Heal. “We either have Jade finishing with Shelley, or we send riders up the rode. We're still stacked in the top 10, so we have still have options to play there. The gap couldn't be any closer, so tomorrow's going to be a fun race.

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