Menomonie Road Race Women
Willock (Webcor Builders) Wins the Menomonie Road Race; Villumsen (HTC-Columbia) in Yellow
by Cynthia Lou
The two-woman breakaway of Erinne Willock (Webcor Builders) and Linda Melanie Villumsen (HTC-Columbia) held off an aggressive chase group to take first and second, respectively, at Nature Valley Grand Prix's first-ever Menomonie Road Race in Menomonie, Wisc. The two had enough of a gap off the chase group to put Villumsen first in general classification. Rounding out the podium was Team TIBCO’s Brooke Miller, who won the field sprint for third.
With racers less tired than they might otherwise have been due to the cancellation of the Thursday’s Cannon Falls Road Race, the stage was set to be an aggressive battle.
Riders lined up eight abroad during the opening 3.3 miles of neutral start and saw riders from HTC-Columbia, Team TIBCO, and Colavita-Baci heading the charge. Peanut Butter & Co TWENTY12 and Team Vera Bradley Foundation flanked the sides, ready to pounce.
But the pack stayed close together to the first QOM competition, where Team Vera Bradley Foundation rider Anne Samplonius made the first breakaway escape, gaining up to 40 seconds on the pack in a solo effort. She was joined by Rebecca Much (Team TIBCO), but both were eventually caught while climbing the second QOM.
By this time the field had been eyeing each other, testing each other’s strategies, and teams began to launch aggressive attacks.
“We wanted to have a really aggressive race and put riders up there that would put Peanut Butter in a position where they’d have to defend,” said Brooke Miller (Team TIBCO). “I think everyone in the peloton had that same strategy. It really was an aggressive race – the whole peloton was animated.”
“We wanted to wait and see how everybody else was going to deal with the course,” said René Wenzel, team director of HTC-Columbia. “It was going to be a very hard course if everyone was aggressive – and we wanted it to be aggressive – but we only have five riders on our team so we needed to wait a little bit before we went into action.”
Ruth Corset (Team TIBCO) attacked the peloton at the third QOM on Oak Ridge Hill.
“Ruth just flies up hills, and I won’t lie, that hurt!” laughed teammate Miller. “That’s when the first decisive separation of the day happened.”
A small break formed with Ruth Corset (Team TIBCO), Evelyn Stevens (HTC-Columbia), Mara Abbott (Peanut Butter & Co TWENTY12), and Catherine Cheatley (Colavita/Baci). They were quickly joined by defending yellow jersey wearer Shelley Evans (Peanut Butter & Co TWENTY12) and twelve other riders, including eventual leader Villumsen and stage winner Willock.
“There were some attacks going across the time and some cross wind there,” said Willock. “I attacked at the top and Linda bridged across and we worked together from then on.”
“I saw her [Erinne] go, and I thought, ‘Here’s my chance’,” said Villumsen. “It was hard to communicate with each other because we didn’t have the radios so we had to keep track of where everybody is and who’s going up the road. Today for us was perfect.”
”It’s a good course,“ said Willock. ”With the rolling hills and wind, it’s out-of-sight-out-of-mind, so it’s good for a breakaway.“
The gap opened up quickly and by approximately 10 miles was up to 1’ 45”. As the duo entered the technical circuit race for five laps and 11.6 miles of racing, the gap was down to 40 seconds from the chase.
Villumsen noted, ”They came closer and closer and we saw the bunch around some of the corners. We said, ‘OK, we have to give it everything, everything to the finish’, so it was all-out.“
“We pretty much didn’t know we would make it to the line [away] until about one lap to go,” said WIllock. “I sprinted but Linda pretty much gave me the stage. She was moving into yellow and it was a good stage win for us.”
A pack-sprint of the chase group followed.
“It was kind of crazy, we really didn’t expect a bunch sprint today,” said Miller. “We had a lot of different scenarios. For how technical the course was, it was hard to say ‘This is how we want to do the lead out’ so we improvised. I was just sitting on Meredith [Miller] and she did a great job of moving me around the corner. Emma Mackie [Team TIBCO] attacked, Meredith took off and took me to the last corner and I just took it from there.”
Villumsen enters the final stage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix, the Stillwater Criterium with its infamous Chilkoot Hill that boasts an average grade of 18%, with an 11 second lead over Evans. Corset and Willock move into third and fourth places in the general classification respectively, both at 34 seconds back.
Villumsen currently leads the Fruit By The Foot Best Young Rider Jersey, and Mara Abbott (Peanut Butter & Co TWENTY12) is the new Jelly Beans Sport Beans Queen of the Hills leader. Willock will wear the Freewheel Bike Most Aggressive Jersey into tomorrow’s stage. Evans still leads the Wheaties Sprinter competition, and Chloe Forsman (Specialized D4W/Bicycle Haus) remains in the Nature Valley Best Amateur Rider Jersey.