NorCal Cycling News – Cycling and Racing in Northern California

It started with a bang for the hosting Webcor/SportVelo women, with Jane Wolcott taking the first prime and holding the field off over the first bump in Stage road.   The first descent dropped a rider or two, and then the climb over the next bump dropped one more. The grind up 84 commenced and somehow the group of 20-some women decided to rotate for no apparent reason.

The pattern was set and pretty much continued through the rest of the race.

Haley Juno-Galdes won the second prime for Webcor/SportVelo.   On the grind up 84 on the second lap only 10 riders were left, with four Metromints and singeltons otherwise.   But, with everyone working the roatation, the Metromints did not work the group over.  One more rider popped off on Haskins, and the final group of 9 was set.

Rinse, rotate-for-no-apparent-reason, repeat — and the group reached the bottom of Haskins for the last time.   It was tranquillo over the first steeps with Lucia Mokres (Los Gatos) setting stong tempo as she did on almost every climb of the day.   After the flatter part, Molly Van Houweling (Metromint) put pressure on… some others followed for a bit… and then they didn’t anymore.     As it flattened a little, Tibco’s Carlee Taylor brought the gap down but did not manage to close it.   Rikke Preisler and Rebecca Rising of Metromint acted as anchors on Taylor, slowing down the chase for the sake of their teammate up the road and waiting for the sprint.

Van Houweling then rode to her second district championship in as many weeks.  Preisler accelerated at the end, and with her characteristic determination, rode to second.   Taylor, outnumbered, was third.   Fourth was a resiliant Katherine Hall (UC Berkeley) who had seemed to struggle at some points earlier but was strong at the finish.  Fifth was Rising, sixth was Kim Fong (Michael David Winery), seventh was Lauren Catlin (a not-total-interloper from Durango, CO who has roots in the Bay Area), eighth was Mokres, and ninth was Julie Bellerose (Metromint).