Hilton Clarke, Chloe Hosking win NVGP stage 2 in St Paul

Hilton Clarke won the St. Paul Criterium by multiple bike lengths ahead of UnitedHealthcare teammate Karl Menzies and the Kenda-Geargrinder duo of Luca Damiani and Rob Bush. Playing conductor to the Kelly Benefit Strategies train that drove the front of the race until the final six laps, Scott Zwizanski retained his leader’s jersey.

In the women’s race, HTC-Columbia’s Chloe Hosking jumped around Theresa Cliff-Ryan (Colavita) to take the stage win in downtown St. Paul. Shelley Evans (Peanut Butter & Co.-2012) finished third after winning all three intermediate sprints. The cumulative 21 bonus seconds moved Evans up into second overall behind the morning’s time trial winner Alison Starnes (TIBCO).

The downtown lowdown

The Nature Valley Grand Prix features a time trial, three criteriums and two road races. With the exception of the time trial, all the weekday races are held late in the evening, which in St. Paul made for big crowds.

The men’s race ran 7:45-9:15 p.m., with the evening light fading fast towards the end. With Zwizanski in the jersey and teammate Zach Bell in third, Kelly Benefit Strategies went right to the front and drilled the peloton singlefile for nearly the entirety of the race.

“My teammates were great,” Zwizanski said. “They make it so easy to ride in the yellow jersey.”

When a single Kelly rider lagged back out of the rotation, team director Jonas Carney barked at him from the sidelines to move back up. Without race radio, directors are trying various communication tactics.

“It’s a lot different. We’re still learning how to deal with it,” said Zwizanksi, referring to the relatively new rule where radios are banned at national-level races. “We’re yelling at each other a lot. We’re looking at our director on the sidelines, who is screaming or doing crazy hand signals sometimes. It makes it a lot different. It makes you really have to pay attention and communicate with each other out there.”

Anyone paying attention to the criterium noticed two things: Kelly on the front all evening, and two big crashes — one early and one late — that delayed more than 20 riders each time but didn’t affect any of the favorites.

With 11 laps to go, the action heated up. Jamis-Sutter Home’s Luis Amaran took a flyer and held his advantage to cross the line for 5 bonus second at 10 to go. Then Team Type 1 mustered its train up to the front, and as they battled for supremacy with Kelly and UnitedHealthcare, the increased speed manifested itself in large groups of riders getting spit out of the back of the field.

With seven laps to go, UnitedHealthcare took over and didn’t ease off until Clarke came across the finish line first.

Clarke clearly won. But what happened behind him wasn’t so clear. UnitedHealthcare’s Jake Keogh was on Clarke’s wheel coming into the final turn. He tangled with Jamis’ Alejandro Borrajo and Fly V Australia’s Aaron Kemps. Borrajo went down, and Kemps and Keogh were taken out of contention for the sprint.

“I think Jake had someone come in on him at the finish,” Clarke said. “They braked and it created a big gap there. And we have three fast sprinters, so it’s our advantage. I didn’t see it, but something happened behind me and they hit the brakes.”

VeloNews was unable to immediately contact Borrajo, Kemps or Keogh.

Kenda’s Damiani steered clear of the jostling.

“It was a bike race, there was some contact,” Damiani said. “Everybody wanted to go inside on that corner. It helped me a bit to keep the position I had. My teammate was there in fourth. It’s not like one/two, but every race we are doing better and better.”

And another HTC sprinter

In the women’s race, Tibco, Peanut Butter, HTC-Columbia and Colavita were all active throughout the evening. Evans stamped her authority on all three intermediate sprints, grabbing five bonus seconds each time.

“The plan was to try to get up as far in the GC as I could,” Evans said.

A few riders got caught up in an early crash, but none were seriously injured. Coryn Rivera (Peanut Butter) was one of about eight women making their way to the wheel pit.

“A lot of people went wide on that first corner, and I got caught right up against the curb,” Rivera said. “Both my wheels were hitting (the curb), my pedal hit and I almost endo’ed, but I caught it just in time.”

A few short-lived breakaways tested the field, but with 5 laps to go it was all togethere, and Peanut Butter and TIBCO began battling for the front.

“Both TIBCO and Peanut Butter had really strong sprinters in Brooke Miller and Shelley Evans,” Hosking said. “So it was clear in the last three laps they were looking to take control of the race. The team we have here, we have more GC hopes, so I was more just trying to look of for myself. It worked out perfectly. I was on Theresa (Cliff-Ryan)’s wheel, third wheel into that corner. I just kicked at the right moment and crossed the line with my arms in the air. It felt pretty good.”

Cliff-Ryan said she was on a TIBCO rider’s wheel coming through the final corner.

“I was second wheel, and I messed up the last corner,” she said. “Instead of letting her go and getting a run, I had to hit the brakes and pretty much do a standing start. I screwed it up. But Chloe had a good run today, so congratulations to her for the win.”

Click here for full results

Quick results:

Men

• 1. Hilton Clarke United Healthcare P/b Maxxis in 1.14:04
• 2. Karl Menzies United Healthcare P/b Maxxis
• 3. Luca Damiani Kenda Pro Cycling P/b Geargrinder
• 4. Robert Bush Kenda Pro Cycling P/b Geargrinder
• 5. Luis Romero Amaran Jamis/Sutter Home P/b Colavita, all same time

Women

• 1. Chloe Hosking Htc Columbia in 57:12
• 2. Theresa Cliff-Ryan Colavita/baci Pro Cycling Team
• 3. Shelley Evans Peanut Butter & Co Twenty12
• 4. Brooke Miller Team Tibco
• 5. Joelle Numainville Webcor Builders, all same time

The Nature Valley Grand Prix continues Thursday with the Cannon Falls Road Race.

FILED UNDER: News / Race Report / Road TAGS: Nature Valley Grand Prix

Ben Delaney

Delaney is the former editor in chief for Velo and VeloNews.com. A journalism graduate of the University of New Mexico, Delaney is responsible for all editorial content online and in the magazine. He's a former (but never very good) Cat. 1 racer. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife and two children. He can be found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ben_delaney

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