Redlands Classic: Cole Davis claims surprise mountaintop win on stage 2

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Cole Davis (Ribble Rebellion) surprised everyone, including himself by taking the win atop  Onyx Summit on stage 2 of the Redlands Bicycle Classic on Thursday. Davis attacked in the final kilometre out of a large group and sprinted to the line for victory ahead of Nicholas Narraway (Team California) and Stephen Bassett (Denver Disruptors).

“I love going from one K to go but on a mountain top, it's way different. I've never won a mountain top finish in my career and to do it on a crit team full of sprinters and it's just not expected for us,” Davis said.

“I just can't thank the team enough. It's been a tough year and a half. I thought about hanging it up and this team gave me an opportunity to continue my career and I'm just so thankful for that. I have to apologize to my parents today because I told them why bother coming out here, I'm just gonna roll and make time cut best day, maybe top 20. So I've got some phone calls to make sorry guys love you.”

Winner of stage 1 in 2022, Davis had targetted a repeat victory this year but a flat in the first lap on Wednesday derailed his plans. He finished over 18 minutes behind the winner that day.

Tyler Stites (Project Echelon Racing) crossed the line three seconds later, in eighth place, and retained the yellow leader’s jersey. The two-time Redlands Bicycle Classic was quick to thank his team.

“They rode amazing. We controlled the riders up the road, brought them back and then at the end there, there were a lot of attacks in the final few Ks that I had to cover and then the last one kind of slipped away and I was just happy to be in that little group on the same time. Hopefully kept a hold of the jersey going forward,” Stites stated.

The men raced 50.8 miles with the majority of the stage spent on the 33-mile climb with an average gradient of 3.9% to the Onyx Summit, 8,443 feet (2,573m) of elevation. Following the first intermediate sprint, the race suddenly took a wrong turn off course, forcing a neutralization for roughly two miles as officials scrambled to get the peloton back on course safely. 

Stephen Schaefer (Landis Cyclery-Trek) launched the break of the day on the lower slope of the climb, quickly establishing a gap of two minutes on the field.  Lone chaser Efren Santos (Canel's-Java) caught and soon after dropped Schaffer but his attack was stopped by a flat tyre. 

The field was back together with 10 kilometres to go. Numerous attacks followed with Davis successfully countering a move in the final kilometre to go for victory.

“It was pretty tough,” Stites stated of the Onyx Summit climb. “It was a bit more of a grind because it's so gradual, just a lot of pedaling at kind of at a tempo pace and then only really got into the high-intensity stuff there in the last few Ks.”

For Davis, the climb was not as difficult as first anticipated.  “I think we had a strong headwind all day which made it really easy to sit in a wheel. So we just sat between like 10 and 30th wheel and when the surges would come, we would just let him go, save the effort, keep the heart rate down to this altitude.”

Unexpectedly, stage 2 summit finish did not deliver a major shakeup in the general classification. The top 21 riders are separated by less than one minute.

Stites has a slim five-second lead on Bassett, and 10 seconds on Narraway. Owen Wright (CS Velo Racing) is in third place, a further four seconds back. Tied at 16 seconds, are Aevolo Cycling teammates Quinn Felton in fifth, Gavin Hlady in sixth, Torbjørn Røed (Above + Beyond Cancer Cycling) in seventh and Kyle Murphy (Williams Racing Development) in eighth place.

Friday’s Toyota of Redlands Lake Perris individual time trial will take place in a new location in 2024. The relatively flat 11.7-mile technical loop includes two sections offering elevation change,  a sharp pitch after 2.5 miles and a gradual 1.25-mile ascent leaving 2 miles to the finish.

Stites won the individual time trial stage the past two years, and stated prior to the start of Redlands Bicycle Classic that he was looking forwards to having a “technical TT”. 

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