Steamboat Springs Stage Race

Report by Eddie Clark

Stetina and Longo take hard fought gc victories.

(Sept 3, 4, 5, and 6, 2010) STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo—The second annual Steamboat Springs Stage Race offered local, national, and even international racers alike plenty of great courses, climbing, excellent weather, and cowboy hospitality for four days of Rocky Mountain road racing.  Considering that Steamboat Springs is also home to Moots Cycles and Honey Stinger among many other top outdoor and cycling centric businesses, it’s no surprise that this stage race ran like a well tuned athlete.

Starting on Friday, all racers contested the Aspire Performance 10k time trial which finished with a final finishing climb up Mt Werner Road.  After a quick look at the finish results, it was obvious a pure time trial bike was a real benefit for taking the prologue TT win.  Riding on a fully aero Felt TT bike, Garmin-Transitions Peter Stetina crossed the finish line with the days fastest time of 12:19.83.  For the pro women, a mildly jet-lagged 57 time national French Champion, Jeannie Longo, eeked out the fastest women’s, and gave her field a glimpse of what was to come in the following days.

For Saturday’s second day of racing, the Marabou Circuit Race gave racers a formidable climb that created many of the time splits which leaders built upon for the rest of the stage race.  Covering 4.5 miles of flat to rolling country roads, the courses one main climb was where the real racing took place.  A common sentiment from racers was the course was excellent and the race deciding climb was brutal, especially for the pro men who made ten trips up it before finishing. 

45+ men’s overall general classification winner Wayne Watson noted, “The circuit race was a real race of attrition, after every lap up the climb there would be a few less riders left in the lead group until finally it was me and two Mix1 racers who worked me over pretty good but were unable to drop me until the end.”  Watson stayed close to the Mix1 racers in the next day’s road race, and then used some smart tactics to take the win in the criterium.  Watson, a 59 year old Denver resident, took a flyer on the last lap to steal the sprinters thunder in the criterium.  “I’m not much of a sprinter so it suited me to attack on the last lap, and I was lucky enough to catch the pack flat-footed to get the win”, said Watson.

 Early Sunday morning the pro men, cat3 and 35+ men contested a two pronged out and back type course which featured close to 5700’ of climbing over 70 miles of rural country roads west of Steamboat Springs for the Moots Road Race stage.  It was the second out and back leg of the course which saw a breakaway containing Groove Subaru’s Jonathan Baker and two other riders dangling ahead of the racers until returning to a wind slept rolling section before the races final climb.  Once in the open rollers, the trio was quickly caught by the peloton for a final drag race to the finish line.  Again, it was Garmin Transition’s Peter Stetina who took the win over a charging United Healthcare racers Chris Baldwin and current US Road Racing champ Marc de Maar.  Cyclocross pro strongman Jake Wells noted, “There wasn’t one flat mile in today’s course!”   

Although riding on a shortened course which didn’t include the second out-and-back section of climbing, the rest of the racers were hammered by stiff headwinds across open prairie and farmland.  After cresting the first real climb and descending to the wind exposed prairie, France’s Jeannie Longo schooled the women on how to ride in the wind by riding at the front and putting the rest of the pack in the gutter with a cruel cross wind.  Longo quickly got a gap over the field, and only New Zealand’s Toni Bradshaw of Team Vera Bradley Foundation-Specialized and Megan Hottman of Treads/DFT were able to hold her wheel.  On the return to the finish, Bradshaw slowed ever too slightly for a railroad crossing which opened a gap that Longo hammered on until crossing the finish in first place.

Using her time in Colorado to train for the upcoming master’s world championships, Longo noted, “The course parcours were very good with lots of climbing, and the race organization was also very good.  This is a great race for my preparations.”

On Labor Day, the final stage of racing was held near downtown with a rectangle shaped four-corner crit that featured one mild climb which many racers used as a launch pad for their attacks.  As with the previous days, racers had another day of perfect sunny mild weather to race in.  After numerous hot laps and furious attacks, Dirk Friel took the pro men’s crit victory while Stetina finished safely in the pack to take the overall general classification win.  The pro women’s race was won again by Longo who finished with a 5 second gap over her competitors in the crit to also take the overall general classification victory.

Visit the Steamboat Springs Stage Race for full race results.

More photos here.

Greg Krause of Groove Subaru took a speedy second place in the Pro time trial.	Garmin-Transitions racer Peter Stetina set the fastest time of the day with a blistering time of 12:19.83.	Jake Wells on a Discovery Channel TT bike.
Steamboat local Brett Denney took the cat4 victory for the hometeam.	Pro Men make their way along rolling country roads before the dreaded Marabou Ranch climb.	Up, up, and up. It was a battle of attrition to see who could hang at the front for all ten laps up the Marabou climb.
The Garmin team was active at the front of the chase group trhoughout the circuit race.	Peter Stetina and Marc de Maar descent the backside of the Marabou climb.	Yannick Eckman of Hot Tubes has finished his time in the junior classes, and is now hanging tough with the pro men in the circuit race.  Pro cyclocross'ers should take note since he'll now be staging with them for the coming cross season.
Some of the hard men on the pro scene looking knackered after finishing the Marabou climb during the circuit race.	Gazzillion times French national champion and world champion Jeannie Longo leads the pro ladies up the Marabou climb during the early laps of the circuit race.	Senior women's cat 4 Amy Charity of Steamboat Velo won several stages and the overall in her first go at road racing.
Sundays road race provided plenty of climbing for the pro men.	CU Cycling's James Nabours perfectly timed his attack to overcome Mike Freidberg for the cat 3 road race victory	Jeannie Longo and Toni Richards broke away from the pro women's field for a long day in the wind during the road race.
Jeannie Longo took the road race victory on her "training vacation".	35+ Cat4 men make their way up the mild hill climb during the criterium.	Gregory Auld gives a well earned victory salute in the 35+ Cat4 men's crit.
Cat 4 men race up the Oak St climb with Mt Werner in the background.	Dennis Farrell took an impressive solo victory over the 35+ field which saw him off the front on the very first lap of the crit.