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Meijer Grand Cycling Classic
Grand Rapids, MI |
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Zirbel Dominates on Sponsor's Home Turf
The third annual Meijer Grand Cycling Classic started off under threatening skies, but by the time the Men’s Pros Race rolled around, the rain (and most of the clouds) had vanished. From the start of the race, BISSELL’s Tim Farnham took a flyer off the front and stayed off for the first couple of laps. All came back together and Ben Jacques-Maynes launched a counter attack and controlled the action for the next few laps. This set the tone for the entire race, with the BISSELL riders being the ones to watch. Also adding to the excitement were attacks from Graham Howard and Shelden Deeny. About half way into the 90-minute crit, BISSELL’s Tom Zirbel broke away from the main group followed by Kenda’s Jake Rytlewski. The duo stayed in front for the rest of the race and quickly built of a gap of 17 seconds. Ben Jacques-Maynes sat in a chase group with 5 other riders, until about 7 laps to go, when they were finally caught by the group. BJM spoke of his action in the break, "An integral part of team work is defense from behind. If the break had caught Tom, we would have been in a perfect spot to launch a counter attack." The duo stayed away for the remainder of the race, and Tom launched the definitive attack. This sealed the victory for Tom and delivered the win for team BISSELL. Rytlewski came in second, and Hayden Godfrey (Subway) won the field sprint to take third. The team’s outstanding race tactics were responsible for achieving the win in the sponsor’s home town of Grand Rapids.
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