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Stage 4
Saturday, August 22
Park City to Snowbird
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The BISSELL Pro Cycling Team defined team racing as they delivered Burke Swindlehurst to a 2nd place finish at the Tour of Utah's Queen Stage from Park City to Snowbird. Right out of the neutral laps in Park City, it was evident that BISSELL had one goal for the day and that was to support Burke on the stage.
Morgan Schmitt was the first BISSELL to be involved in the early brief attacks. At 14k into the brutal 159k stage, 3 BISSELL riders, Burke Swindlehurst, Ben Jacques-Maynes, and Jeremy Vennell, made the move of the day and were followed by Alex Howes (Felt-Garmin), Glen Chadwick (Rock Racing), Dan Bowman (Kelly Benefits), Andy Guptill (Colavita), Ian McGregor (Team Type 1), and Ben King (Fly V). BISSELL drove the break and took advantage of a relatively apathetic peloton. Jeremy was on first watch and turned himself inside out as he motored the group up the Alpine Loop and into the base of the Sundance Climb. After his huge effort, Jeremy fell off the group as they ascended Sundance.
Back in the peloton, Rock was getting little help from other teams and the gap was able to grow to a maximum of 9 minutes. The lead group continued to drill down the very technical descent of Sundance and eventually to the base of the final climb up Little Cottonwood Canyon. BJM and Burke had two concerns in the break, Howes who was their main threat in the GC and Chadwick who was the strongest climber in the group. Keeping the threats in mind, BJM came to the front of the group and drove a monstrous tempo hoping to wear out Howes.
Meanwhile, Chadwick was a concern because he was relatively rested after having sat in the break all day due to Mancebo's (Rock Racing) position in the main group. BJM drilled the group and after his final sacrificial effort, he fell off 8k from the finish. However, Ben's efforts had succeeded in wearing down the group. Burke was left to mark Howes and Chadwick on his own.
At 7k from the finish, Howes made a schenanigans-type move where he grabbed a hot dog from a fan, took a bite, and attacked. This was the move that would deliver him victory. Before Burke could realize this was in fact a threat, it was too late. He tried to claw his way up to Howes to the huge cheers from his hometown fans; however, the youth of the move would prove too much. Howes went onto take the win with Burke finishing 37 seconds back for 2nd. Back in the chase, Mancebo hunted the leaders solo after having shed the support of his teammates, and he was able to overtake everyone from the origanal break except for Howes and Burke. Mancebo finished 3rd and maintained his lead in the GC.
Burke's 2nd place finish would bring him up to 6th in the GC; however, this was not his goal and he is disappointed to have narrowly missed out on the stage win. Eric Wohlberg, team director, says "no matter what the end result was today, this was an outstanding race by the whole BISSELL Team".
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Photo by veloimages/
Brian Hodes |
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Burke on the Podium
Photo by veloimages/
Brian Hodes
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