ING Capital Criterium, Sunday 9/21

[aicabsolut]

Vandevelde and Danny Pate put out a lot of attacks. V was OTF for quite a while solo after shelling Rock Racing's Bahati. Pate blocked well for V by himeself somehow. Later on, Pate took a flyer with a small group. After several laps, they started playing cat and mouse and got swallowed up by the field.

Towards the end, Time launched attack after attack. A couple of guys got more than 10 seconds on the field for a while. Kelly Benefit was doing their usual thing of leading most of the chase efforts in the main field. They had a full train going for most of the final, oh, 10 laps. Garmin was right behind them. A few of the Harley boys were in good position, and Russ Langley found his way into a few break efforts. Ultimately, all of the breaks were caught. The last one looked fairly dangerous, but a late prime spurred on the pace (3 place primes, with $1k, $500 and $250). The pack started getting broken up at the U-turn approaching the S/F for the final lap when a Kelly rider who had taken a flyer sat up. He pulled off to the side, but too many people got confused in the close quarters and got stuck behind him. Most of the team organization was still intact when they came across the line, but a crash in turn 1 blew a lot of it up leading into the hill. At the end, I thought it was going to be Fast Freddie for the win, because he'd been sitting at 3rd to 5th wheel in the pack for at least the last 25km. Bahati I guess had given up his sprint after his break attempt, because he was sitting in the rear third most of the time after he got caught. The mad sprinters on Toyota United came out of nowhere and stole the show, I believe taking 1-2. Freddie was gritting his teeth, but couldn't quite catch them.

*edit: Freddie did get 2nd, and the other Toyota guy 3rd. I was standing at an ING tent (the one for account holders not VIPs) behind the S/F, so I couldn't quite see the line with riders in the way.

http://cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=r.../capitalcrit08

[Kalidurga]

Your race report was way better than the one at cyclingnews. Makes me really wish I had been there.