On a new uphill 5km prologue course, which was made tougher by strong SantaAnna winds Thursday, defending Redlands Classic champion Amben Neben (Stahl-SCVelo) took out a strong option on a repeat victory with a resounding 33-secondwin over runner-up Christine Thorburn (Webcor Builders). Race favoriteOenone Wood (T-Mobile) placed only eighth, with a 1:07 deficit on Neben.
At the Redlands Bicycle Classic road race Sunday, Amber Neben (SC Velo), Health Net-Maxxis and Toyota-United demonstrated three of the myriad ways to win. In the 100km women’s race, Neben launched a solo attack on the second of nine technical laps and never looked back. In the 148km men’s competition, Health Net-Maxxis used its full team to successfully defend Nathan O’Neill overall lead. And Toyota-United’s Juan Jose Haedo — well, he just sprinted like hell. Scroll down for a gallery of Casey Gibson photos The road race began on Saturday’s criterium course, then climbed up out of
Health Net-Maxxis successfully defended Nathan O’Neill’s lead in the Redlands Bicycle Classic criterium Saturday, taking the stage and the sprinter’s jersey in the process. With four competitors less than 30 seconds behind O’Neill after Friday’s time trial — and 44 seconds of bonuses up for grabs — Health Net-Maxxis had one objective in the 90-minute competition: defend. And defend the team did, riding as a compact eight-man unit at or near the front for nearly the entire race, taking most of the inter-race time bonuses and handily reeling in all attacks. And once the defensive objective
Despite having a good excuse for a bad ride, Health Net-Maxxis’s Nathan O’Neill put in the day’s best performance in the opening 5km time trial of the Redlands Bicycle Classic. Fresh off a plane from Australia, where he won the Commonwealth Games time trial, O’Neill smoked the opening section of the 680-vertical-foot course and kept a big gear going over the steeper final part for the winning time of 9:17.82. It may have been California, but it wasn’t exactly a day at the beach — not after that long flight from Oz, right after winning a 40km time trial. "I got off the bike 10 meters after
USPRO national road champion Chris Wherry and Christine Thorburn, winners of the 2005 Redlands Bicycle Classic, will take the start Friday as the 22nd edition of the California NRC race gets under way. Last year, both riders won the opening 1200-vertical-foot, 5km Mt. Rubidoux time trial and barely held onto their leads through the four-stage event. This year, the race consists of the 680-vertical-feet, 5km Centennial Bank time trial, a circuit road race and a criterium in downtown Redlands. Having won last year’s event for Health Net-Maxxis by just seven seconds over Trent Lowe (Jittery
It wasn’t easy, but after fending off serious challenges in Sunday’s Sunset road race, both Webcor’s Christine Thorburn and Health Net’s Chris Wherry held on to the leaders’ jerseys they’d won in the opening prologue to take the overall titles at California’s Redlands Bicycle Classic. Despite heading a team weakened by illness, injury or plain old attrition, Wherry managed to protect a slim seven second advantage over Australian Trent Lowe of Jittery Joes/Kalahari to earn his first overall title in two years. After marking a late move by Lowe, Wherry threw his arm up in victory as he
Coming into Saturday’s Beaver Medical Group downtown criterium, the day’s objective for both the men’s Health Net squad and the Webcor Builder’s women’s team was not to gun it out for glory points, but to protect the yellow jersey at all costs. With that in mind, the tactic opened the door up for more opportunistic teams to light up the 1.6-km course that winds its way through downtown Redlands. The day did not disappoint. Early in the women’s race it appeared the duel would be between the sprint-heavy Quark and T-Mobile teams. On the second lap T-Mobile’s Laura Kroepsch attacked down the
Health Net-Maxxis rolled into stage 2 of the Redlands Bicycle Classic as the clear favorites for a stage win. After putting four riders into the top 10 at Thursday’s time trial up Mt. Rubidoux, Health Net seemed a sure bet to defend Chris Wherry’s 12-second overall lead, and even extend its dominance over the Redlands field, in Friday’s 107-mile Oak Glen road race. That is, until luck and Trent Lowe (Jittery Joe’s-Kalahari) took a hand. The former left Health Net bruised, battered and ill, and the latter took the stage win. Scroll down for a photo gallery from Casey Gibson Luck launched
Green will likely be the dominant color at the 21st edition of the Redlands Bicycle Classic, as it kicks off Thursday and runs though Sunday in and around Southern California’s “Inland Empire,” the San Bernadino Valley. The usually brown valley – normally dried out by dry Santa Ana winds and the burning SoCal sun – shows something of an emerald tint this year, largely a result of the wettest California spring in recent memory, with more than double the region’s usual annual precipitation in just three months. But green hills aside, the moisture has brought unwelcome hardships to the race
Rising like a rocky turret from the flat floor of Riverside Valley, Mt. Rubidoux – site of Thursday’s Redlands prologue – was battered by constant westerly winds that gusted up to 50 mph. It took a combination of strength, perseverance and the right equipment to give Health Net’s Chris Wherry and Webcor’s Christine Thorburn the honors on a more-than-blustery day in Southern California. For the nearly 200 riders who worked their way up the 5km asphalt corkscrew to Rubidoux’s summit, the trip up the mountain was like rolling into a sandy tornado. Riders were initially greeted by a strong