Stepping Onto New Turf: The San Rafael Twilight GP and Lodi Crit
By Lucas Binder, SKLZ/Pista Palace
After nearly six months of racing in over six different states across the US our SKLZ/Pista Palace Team and others from teams like Full Circle racing, NOW-MS, RB4U, and Surf City finally headed up to northern California for the first time this year to compete in the San Rafael Twilight Criterium and Lodi Cyclefest.
With a prize purse of $2000 and a reg fee higher than even that of Ontario the SRGP doesn’t have much money appeal, instead racers come to get the exciting experience that only a twilight criterium can offer.
The San Rafael Twilight
Over 120 riders started the San Rafael Twilight and despite some initial scorn for the small prize purse it was great to see so many riders come from all over California for a race with a great venue and atmosphere; as well as a race that offered equal prize purses for the men and women, something which is too rare cycling.
The biggest team was Full Circle (8), followed by NorCal’s Cal Giant Strawberries (7 riders-Giant refers to the size of their strawberries as well as the size of their team), and my team, SKLZ/Pista Palace (5). There were a lot of other NorCal based teams that were well represented like Webcor, Yahoo!, and Mike’s Bikes. The Big Names in the field included SoCal fast men Rahsaan Bahati (on the podium at this race for the last 2 years) and Ricky Escuela (Full Circle), Bissell’s Andy Jacques-Maynes, Jesse Anthony of Kelly Benefits, Kenda’s Roman Kilun, Wonderful Pistachio’s Sterling Magnell, Exergy’s Fast Freddie Rodriguez, and Chris Jones of UCI Pro Contintental team United Healthcare.
The race is a rectangle with a gradual drag up to the line and a fast and slightly off-camber final 2 corners and was scheduled to last for 60 minutes, which for a race with so much hype seemed even weaker than the prize purse. Fortunately race duration is a little more malleable than prize purse and with some heckling from the riders towards the officials (cycling officials are the lowest on the totem pole of heckling) we were able to make it a satisfactory 70-minute race.
The race started off fast and tense. I was able to start near the front and cover a few of the first attacks, which were put down by a rider on the Chipotle U23 team. After only 4 laps of racing a crash happened on the fourth corner that took out a Yahoo rider. Soon after we were neutralized as the hurt riders were helped off the course. I was in a break when we were neutralized and was swarmed by an uneasy field. Riding in the neutral field was way sketchier than riding in the racing field and with all of the jostling for position I somehow went from the front to the middle of the pack. A few laps later we were racing again and I was able to get back near the front.
Not too many threatening breaks got away in the race, and we wanted a field sprint. Some big solo moves came from the Kelly Benefits rider, as well as Steve Reaney (Cal Giant) and Eric Marcotte (SKLZ/Pista Palace) who were off the front solo for a handful of laps. Annoyingly, there was no race clock and the race announcers were not very good at telling us how much more time was left. But finally the lap cards were given with 10 laps to go and we began moving to the front to keep it fast for our lead out train. Inside of 5 laps to go the field slowed a bit going through the finish line and I felt another wheel rubbing against my rear. I didn’t have time to look behind me but a second later I heard the sound of a big crash. It happened in the middle of the pack and although it didn’t take out too many riders it cut off about half of the field.
Coming through with 3 laps to go I got to the front and pulled hard through the finishing straight. Jesse Anthony (Kelly Benefits) gave one more hard attack. I gave it a little more effort to keep his gap small before pulling off and letting a Cal Giant rider finish the job. Jesse Anthony dangled just off the front for the next lap before it was all back together with one lap to go. Chris DeMarchi (SKLZ/Pista Palace) and Full Circle meshed together and lead it out for the last lap. Going into the final corner first was Eric Marcotte (SKLZ/Pista Palace) with Fast Freddie (Exergy), Rahsaan Bahati (SKLZ/Pista Palace) and Ricky Escuela (Full Circle) on his wheel. Freddie kind of sat up and Escuela was the quickest and best positioned and took the win for Full Circle, with Rahsaan close behind in 2nd and Eric holding off the rest for 3rd. After working so hard and having everything looking perfectly set up it was disappointing to not get the win, but getting both of the next best spots wasn’t too bad of a consolation.
Lodi Cyclefest
The next day was the Lodi Cyclefest, a race with an interesting figure-8 course that goes over some easy cobbles for many of the turns. Most of the same teams from the night before showed up for the second round of racing.
Our plan for this race was to race a little more loosely, trying to get Eric Marcotte or Chris DeMarchi into a break while letting the rest of us work together to get the field primes. That is almost exactly what happened. Rahsaan surprised everyone and strung it out from the gun, putting everyone on the rivet, including myself, who started near the back (Thanks Rahsaan, didn’t remember that in the pre-race talk!) and showing everyone who was going to control the race. Quite a few riders were off the back after the first two laps as the attacks started from Full Circle and Cal Giant.
After about 8 laps I pulled hard through the long backstretch trying to string it out and pull back a small break that was just up the road. Right as I pulled off DeMarchi (SKLZ/Pista Palace) attacked off of my wheel and took about 10 others with him that included Eric Marcotte (SKLZ/Pista Palace), Steve Reaney (Cal Giant), Roman Kilun (Kenda/GearGrinder) and Mike Tettletona and Eric Barlevav from Full Circle. The gap oscillated for a while, with one or two riders making successful bridges, before the field finally slowed and the gap grew to 20 and eventually 30 seconds. Vince Owens (Pacific Cycling) attacked and pulled like crazy to bring back the break, with some help from Eric Riggs and Ian Moir of Yahoo!, but were unsuccessful. Full Circle has two guys in the break but seemed unsure if they liked it or not. All 6 of their remaining riders in the field got to the front and kept a slight tempo before finally deciding that they would take their chances with the break and began to cover moves instead of chasing. There were enough attacks and primes to keep the field moving and keep the gap right around 25 seconds.
I sat in the top ten and let those who wanted to work take their pulls and covering anyone else who tried to bridge. So when a $50 field prime was announced it was pretty easy to jump off the front for half a lap and snatch it. A few laps later another prime was announced, this time for wine. A NorCal rider was chasing before my teammate John Abate came around him and lead it through the last corner for the prime. A Full Circle rider and me went head to head for the last 75 meters and I got him by a track throw to get the prime, before reabsorbing back into the field. Up ahead the break was still rolling strong, with Eric taking a $100 prime from the break.
In the last part of the race, the home team, Delta Velo, put all of their riders on the front and was a real threat to pull back the break. There were at least 6 of them stringing out the field and doing damage to the break’s gap, bringing it down just under 20 seconds, before they began to fade and the gap started creeping back up.
With 5 laps to go it was certain that the break would stay away. The Full Circle riders in the field began attacking. Rahsaan and me worked pretty well to cover a lot of the late attacks from the field. Daniel Ramsey (Full Circle) was the closest to staying away but he was caught in the last half lap.
Up in the break DeMarchi and Marcotte were taking turns attacking the break, with Roman Kilun doing his best to neutralize what he could. Finally in the last couple laps Marcotte put down a move that stuck, taking only 3 other riders with him that included Barlevav (Full Circle) and Steve Reaney (Cal Giant), two other good sprinters. Eric was able to get rid of Barlevav on the last lap, but coming into the final corner he was still with 2010 elite crit champ Steve Reaney of Cal Giant. The two sprinted it out with Eric Marcotte taking the win by a few centimeters in the finale that had the announcer thinking Reaney had won until seeing the finish photo. Eric Barlevav barely held off the rest of the break to take 4th for Full Circle, with Chris Demarchi winning the sprint from the break for 5th.
Back in the field Rahsaan pulled back Daniel Ramsey (Full Circle) and was trying to lead out John Abate, who took 5th in the field sprint to get one of the last money spots.
It was a great and dramatic way to end our first weekend of racing in NorCal, and even though we didn’t get the Twilight win it was good to at least see a SoCal team represented on the top step. Hopefully we will have a few more races up around there this year, like Tour de Nez and San Ardo.
