Reijnen repeats as Philly Classic champion

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Kiel Reijnen (UnitedHealthcare) celebrated his birthday with a second consecutive win at the UCI 1.1 Philadelphia Cycling Classic on Sunday in Pennsylvania. He sprinted to the top of Manayunk Wall ahead of Jure Kocjan (Team SmartStop) and Dion Smith (Hincapie Sportswear Development).

"My teammates dragged me all the way round the last lap and dropped me off at the bottom of the climb," said Reijnen, who won the sprint to the top of the climb by multiple bike lengths. "I didn't know that I had won by such a big gap, I didn't look back. It's nice to win on my birthday but the goal coming into the race was to win for the team."

Joseph Rosskopf (HIncapie Sportswear Development) won the King of the Mountain (KOM) award, Joshua Berry (Team SmartStop) earned the sprint award and Jacob Rathe (Jelly Belly p/b Maxxis) the young rider competition.

Birthday boy wins on Manayunk Wall

Newly crowned national road champion, Eric Marcotte (Team SmartStop) rolled up to the Manayunk Wall start line in all smiles and wearing a brand new stars-and-stripes kit that he won a week prior at the USA Cycling Professional Championships in Chattanooga, positioning himself beside defending champion, Reijnen.

The men competed 10 laps of a 19.2km circuit for a total of 192km. The course included attractions such as Strawberry Mansion, Lemon Hill, Kelly Drive and the start-finish line on the wild Manayunk Wall.

An early breakaway set off that included Jonny Clarke (UnitedHealthcare), Rosskopf and Robin Carpenter (Hincapie Sportswear Development), Tom Zirbel (Optum presented by Kelly Benefit Strategies), Blaz Jarc (Team NetApp-Endura), Clay Murfet (Astellas), Alex Wohler (Team Budget ForkLifts), who later fell out of the breakaway, and David Williams (5-Hour Energy p/b Kenda).
The gap held at just under two minutes for the first five laps.

Rosskopf, who was third in the race last year and won the Redlands Bicycle Classic earlier this year, picked up the bulk of KOM points on Lemon Hill and Manayunk Wall on each lap and eventually locked up that award.

"I like Manayunk," Rosskopf said. "It's steep and good for my abilities. The first lap some people were thinking about points but I made it clear that I was going to do whatever I had to do to get the points. It was a good break to go for the KOM points because we didn't have any chance of staying away to the end, we didn't have the numbers and some teams were missing."

Temperatures started to rise mid-race and the peloton welcomed an annually featured watering hole on Manayunk Wall that sprayed over the riders. Fans crowded the sides of the streets and draped over the fencing with the race-symbolic plastic red beer cups in hand, ringing bells, many of them who had been cheering for the women's peloton earlier that morning.

The gap continuously drop from four laps to go, down to a minute and then 30 seconds as teams Drapac, Team SmartStop and Jamis-Hagens Berman set a quick pace from the front of the peloton while UnitedHealthcare sat close behind waiting for its moment in the finale.

The pace continued to pick up, and the main field shattered into smaller groups along the course each time over Manayunk and Lemon Hill. Rosskopf picked up his last KOM points on Manayunk before the breakaway was caught with two laps to go.

A counter move went on the "fall off the wall" with Isaac Bolivar (UnitedHealthcare), Joseph Smalz (Hincapie Sportswear Development), Serghei Tvetcov (Jelly Belly p/b Maxxis), Joshua Berry (Team SmartStop) and Bruno Langlois (5-Hour Energy p/b Kenda).

Langlois made the most of what was left of the late-race breakaway and attacked on Manayunk into the start of the last lap, though he thought it was the finish and threw his arms in the air in a mistaken victory salute, as the main field hurled themselves over the steep climb in pursuit.

A 40-rider main peloton approached the last climb over Lemon Hill intact and led by UnitedHealthcare. Jacob Kauffmann (Garneau-Quebecor) jumped ahead of the field for a short-lived move along Kelly Drive on the return to main street Manayunk. The field stormed into the base of Manayunk Wall all together with UnitedHealthcare working for Reijnen.

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