The Webcor women came out in full force today for their club's fun and challenging race! The course consists of two main climbs – Stage Rd., which is broken into two sections, and the finishing climb up Haskins. In between is a lot of false flat too. To spice it up, the race has hot sprints each of the three 25-mile laps. In the first lap the sprint was "in the first couple miles" (guess we won't be going off our speedometers for that one!).
The neutral start gave way to Katheryn, fresh off her National Championship win, giving a long lead-out to the first sprint. Alas, after several attacks, we were unable to get the sprint. The remainder of the first lap consisted of tempo riding from Katheryn and Cat. Up Haskins, things did split up a little bit; however we didn't work too hard because we agreed that if people got dropped up Haskins that time, it didn't really matter if they got caught because they'd be dropped the next time anyway!
Katheryn, or as Stefanie like to call her now, "the stars and stripes express," conitinued to set a strong pace for us until we hit the sprint line again. Both Felicia and Cat jumped with Tait Saito of Los Gatos Bicycle Racing Club on their wheel. Tait seemed to be surging ahead, but Cat went again and out-sprinted her right at the line! Tait sat up, but Felicia and Cat had a gap and kept going. This was perfect for the rest of us, because we sat on as Touchstone Climbing riders slowly pulled them back. At this point we had crested the top of the first Stage Rd. hill.
Up the next hill, Felicia and Katheryn put in some strong surges. Stefanie made it to the front and sort of slipped ahead of the group and crested the climb alone and did her best to descend at a fast pace! A mile or so out on HWY 84, Stefanie was caught and Katheryn immediately countered and she was briefly off with Pat Ross of Touchstone and Felicia. When Pat wouldn't work, the girls sat up, and the pack caught back on. Penny Avril of Touchstone took this moment to attack and Felicia immediately covered it. Maria Monica of Left Coast followed and Stefanie got on her wheel. Soon after Barbara Howe from Velo Bella bridged and a solid break was established with all major teams represented.
They set a fast pace until it seemed clear that they had a comfortable margin. Not much happened up Haskins though it seemed evident that Maria was uncomfortable with the climbing tempo. They continued working well together on the other side of the hill and Felicia and Stefanie decided to let one of the other girls take the prime. The first bump on Stage Rd., Barb and Maria began to be gapped off. At first Felicia suggested they slow for them, but Stefanie didn't really want to go into the finish with Barb, since she is pretty powerful and might be able to out-sprint them. Penny also pointed out that she might out-descend them as well! Up the second bump, they kind of put down the hammer a little bit and lost Maria and Barb for good.
Penny, Felicia, and Stefanie rotated together at a slower than usual pace for what seemed like a longer than usual stretch of road. As they turned right onto Haskins, Ted Huang came flying by them, which, of course, egged Felicia and Stefanie on to climb a little faster and they quickly lost Penny, who admitted to being quite tired.
Finally the interesting part of the race began – who would win between the two Webcor climbers? There are various stories which describe what transpired in those final kilometers. Some say Stefanie paid off Felicia to have the win. Others believe it was an extremely slow motion sprint that could only be observed if you looked really close (we are climbers after all, not sprinters!). Still others claim to have seen Felicia using her unknown Madison skills as the two crossed the line together hand in hand, Stefanie being flung by her teammate across the line as she yelled, "You're winning so I don't have to write the race report!!" I guess the truth is in the eye of the beholder (is that the wrong expression?).
Katheryn and Betina came in together 6th and 7th dropping the rest of the chasers in the final climb and Cat came in for a top ten as well! Great racing, great team work! Thank you Alto Velo for putting on a really fun and well organized race!
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