Enumclaw Stage Report

 Here's a short team report of what went down on the weekend:

May long weekend brought the 17^th edition of the inaugural Enumclaw stage race in beautiful Enumclaw, Washington. The men’s Red Truck crew loaded up the trailer and van for the first time with the entire team and headed south hoping to add some results to an already impressive start of season.

Saturday brought forth an early morning time trial followed by the famous Enumclaw downtown Crit in the evening. Without any noticeable success in the very short time trial, the team had to race aggressively in the afternoon crit. The gun went off and Red Truck had a strong presence at the front of the race with someone in every early race move. A successful attack was launched 20 minutes into the race by Bailey and 3 riders followed. With the gap continuing to increase throughout the race, the rest of the team sat comfortably in the field waiting to see what would happen. With H&R block holding on to the GC lead after the time trial, it was up to them to real in the break. The 4 riders slowly increased the time between them and the rest of the field and with only 3 laps to go, the break (now down to 3 riders) had opened up a gap of 25 seconds. Bailey was ousted on the final lap but managed to grab a podium spot with Cody, Tyler and Adam snipping fifth, seventh and eighth respectively.

With Sunday came the rain and the rolling road race of 86 miles. A strong field of  81 riders started the race but only 31 made it to the finish line. The course, which saw the riders navigate 6 laps of 15 miles, included a 2km climb. Every lap, riders seemed to feel the pain of the incline and the pack slowly started to dwindle as the lap counter counted down. A select group of 15 riders, which included Cody, Adam and Tyler made it to the final climb. Tyler dug deep and surged off the front with one other rider. With a considerable gap opening between the 2 riders and what remained of the field, things were looking good for a stage win. The last 10km saw Tyler and his breakaway companion stay clear of the field with Tyler eventually outsprinting the other rider for the stage win. With Adam and Cody following in the chase group, Adam was able to launch Cody to the line taking third place.

I was nice to keep the ball rolling with another stage win and the boys will try again in a couple weeks with the famous Victoria cycling weekend which will be host to BC road provincials.

Video of the Crit: http://vimeo.com/42512821