Numainville scores on Redlands stage 3

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Bissell's Paddy Bevin scored his second consecutive win Saturday at the stage 2 downtown Redlands criterium, while Joelle Numainville (Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies) avoided a last-lap crash in the women's race to take the win in front of overall leader Megan Guarnier (Tibco to the Top) and Specialized-Lululemon's Loren Rowney.

The women's 60-minute race started out fast and furious as the early pace strung out the 66-rider field over the 1.6-kilometre nine-corner figure-eight course. Several early escape attempts gained small gaps as riders sprinted for primes or time bonuses, but nothing stuck until Kristen LaSasso (Primal-Map My Ride) and Denise Ramsden (Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies) got off the front with nine laps remaining. Two laps later the pair had a 17-second gap and were being pursued by Alison Powers (Now and Novartis for MS) and Tibco's Lauren Hall.

The two-rider bridge attempt was short-lived, and the effort to bring the chasing duo back also cut into the leaders' advantage, which dwindled to just six seconds with three laps remaining. The next time the race passed through the start/finish area, the two leaders were back in the peloton and the race reshuffled for the finish. Several teams struggled to control the front over the final lap, but none of them were able to dominate, and the final lap was a mad scramble.

As the favorites lined up near the front toward the end of the lap, near disaster struck when the Primal rider who was driving the train went down in the second-to-last corner. Fortunately, most of the riders behind avoided the carnage and continued their dash for the line, where sprint-points leader Numainville used her considerable top-end speed to take the win by more than a bike length.

“I managed to get around her,” Numainville said of the melee in the second-to-last corner. “And I knew that If I could get around her and come first through the last corner I could win that race.”

The stage 2 winner also heaped praise on teammate Ramsden.

“Denise rode so well all race,” Numainville said. “She was there for the lead out, she was off the front. She was really strong.”

Numainville's 10 second time bonus moved her into fourth overall, while Powers grabbed a three second mid-race time bonus and overtook Amber Neben (Specialized-Lululemon) for the second overall spot. Guarnier remains in the race lead and says she's looking forward to Sunday's final stage, the hilly and technical Sunset Road Race.

“It puts pressure on me,” she said of her opponents' time gains. “But I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It should be a good, really hard race. And everybody's going to be going for those bonus seconds because it's such a close race. (Sunset) is a race of attrition, and I like those kind of races, the harder the better.”

Confident Bevin Adds Another Win

After his stage win Friday at the Beaumont Circuit Race, Bissell's Bevin was extremely confident his team would add another victory at Saturday's 90-minute criterium. The 21-year-old Kiwi made sure his faith wasn't wasted, using his powerful sprint to to take over from leadout man Frank Pipp with three corners remaining, holding off a charging Alex Candelario (Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies) and Team Exergy's Carlos Alzate by more than three bike lengths.

Just like the women's race, the 159-rider men's field hit the early laps hard behind a Kenda/5-Hour Energy squad that was determined to keep the pace high to protect race leader Phil Gaimon's yellow jersey. With Kenda lined out on the front, breakaways were few and far between until Optum's Mike Creed and Cameron Peterson (Eclipse-ATC) headed off for an escape with about 42 minutes of racing remaining. Ten minutes later the lead duo's advantage peaked at 17 seconds before Creed's Optum team hit the front and started reeling the escapees back.

“Our plan was to take the front to lead it our for (Alex) Candelario and Mike Freidman,” said Optum team director Jonas Carney. “Creed was just having some fun. He felt really good, and I think he just saw an opportunity to jump away and take a prime.”

Carney said the team was waiting to see if any other riders would bridge up to the leaders and add more horsepower to the breakaway effort. When that didn't happen, the team decided to stick with the original plan.

“There's no way that two guys are gonna make it,” Carney said. “You've got the whole Bissell team looking for a field sprint, and the whole Exergy team looking for a field sprint. There's just no way two guys are gonna ride away from the peloton with that many laps to go. I told Creed we were going to stick to the plan, and once the guys got lined up we sent him back to help them out.”

With just nine laps to go, Creed was back in the field, and Peterson was just a few seconds ahead of the pack. Optum continued to put on the pressure at the tip of the race until Bissell started moving its sprint train to the front with six laps to go.

“We figured everyone would be thinking five,” said Bissell director Omer Kem. “So we went up a little early.”

The red-and-white Bissell team sent the entire squad forward but lost two riders when Ben Jacques-Maynes skipped a tire and flatted, and Andy Baker took a corner wide and went down. Despite the setbacks, the team maintained its grip on the race. Covering the penultimate lap at 31 mph, Bissell delivered Bevin and Pipp into the last lap with a long train of suffering behind them. But that wasn't the original plan.

“We came under a little fire, and the guys just changed the plan on the fly,” Bevin said of his team's leadout effort. “I had (national criterium champion) Eric Young with me, but he got swamped with about a lap-and-a-half to go and we lost him. So the guys really stepped up.”

Bevin also stepped up for his second stage win in as many days and his fourth win of the young season.

“I've got good sprinting legs, and the job is made so easy by the Bissell team,” he said. “They just put the work down. I'm not gonna have the guys work from six laps out and think I'm going to run second.”

The top of the overall classification remained unchanged after the criterium, with Kenda's Phil Gaimon hanging onto yellow. Exergy's Alzate earned enough sprint points during the criterium to take the green points jersey off Jelly Belly's Luis Davila.

Sunday's Sunset Road Race throws 156 kilometres of winding, twisting residential roads at the men, who will finish with several circuits around a downtown course. The women will hit the course first in the morning for a 113 kilometre test.