Race Report: Tour De Nez Criterium
by Lucas Binder, SKLZ/Pista Palace
The last NRC race on the west coast this year is the Tour de Nez Criterium in Reno, Nevada. The race was originally scheduled on the NRC calendar as a 5-day stage race but was changed to a one-day criterium. I had been planning to do the race for a while though so I still headed up to the race along with my teammates Rahsaan Bahati and Eric Marcotte. With a lot of teams racing the NRC race on the east coast, or just worn out from the craziness of Cascade, not much more than 50 riders started the Tour de Nez Crit, making it the smallest NRC field so far this year. Nevertheless $15,000 in prize money was still up for grabs and with a challenging, technical course the race was sure to be hard.
The two biggest teams represented were Cal Giant (of course) and the Clif Bar team. But the real teams to watch out for were not the biggest and included Daniel Ramsey and Ricky Escuela from Full Circle, Reno native Alex Candelario and USPRO Crit Champ Daniel Holloway and their two other Kelly Benefits teammates, and the Bissell and Exergy teams, each with about four riders.
After a few somewhat pointless call ups (since the field was so small and the road was so wide at the start) we started our 90 minute race. A Kelly Benefits rider set tempo at the front from the gun and we all stayed together for the first lap and got a feel for the course at race pace. The circuit goes over the Truckee river and is about a mile and a half long, with ten turns per lap, including a few fast "cobbled" turns. The best part of the course is the short climb which snakes through two quick turns before flattening off for a while before coming to the fast descent, which also features two quick turns right before the finish line. The course really grows on you after a while and makes you want more.
After we had all gotten comfortable on the course the attacks started to come. After a few short break attempts, Eric Marcotte found himself alone off the front. The peloton hesitated to see who would bring him back, knowing that they had time to let him hang out there. He was off the front for about 5 laps before a few teams finally put in a chase. There were a lot of attacks after that but were not effective besides causing riders to fall off the back and dwindle the field down to about 30 riders. Eric was in most of the moves, and anything that he wasn't in I was able to help to work to bring back with other teams that also missed the move. At 4,500 feet the race is at just about what is considered altitude, and I think a lot of the riders started to feel it.
After a series of attacks and catches the field was all together about half way through the race and everyone seemed to be catching their breath when a big and threatening break got up the road. Their gap grew pretty big, and then stayed the same, and eventually came down. But before it was shut down a few riders from the field were able to bridge up, including Rahsaan, with what looked like a really big effort. After that the gap slowly went back up before the field slowed a lot and decided to let that break go. Both Eric and Rahsaan were up in the 11 man break so I sat in and tried to cover any bridge attempts. However it wasn't long before the break was out of sight and it looked pretty certain they would stay away and the field began to think about racing for themselves again. The first rider to attack was Jesse Anthony from the Kelly Benefits team but his moves were almost always covered. A Cal-Giant rider had a go too before being yelled at by a Bissell rider saying "Why are you attacking? You have a man in the break!". But with less than 20 minutes left of racing the break was long gone and the attacks continued.
Up ahead in the break things were starting to fall apart. With 10 laps to go Daniel Ramsey (Full Circle) put in a solo attack and was going for the win. Behind him was the next group of about 3 riders that included Rahsaan Bahati (SKLZ/Pista Palace), Alex Candelario (KBS), and Jeremy Vinnell (Bissell). Rahsaan attacked them and tried to bridge up to Ramsey on his own in the last 5 laps. However he was brought back by the two other riders and they were all together with two laps to go.
Daniel Ramsey put in a very fast final 3 laps and held on to take the win solo, a good 25 seconds ahead of the break. The sprint for 2nd came down to the three riders from Bissell, SKLZ/Pista Palace, and Kelly Benefits, with Rahsaan Bahati (SKLZ/Pista Palace) just barely edging out the other two riders in the final 50 meters to take a very close 2nd place, followed by the Bissell rider. A few more seconds back came in Ricky Escuela (Full Circle) and Eric Marcotte (SKLZ/Pista Palace) to get 5th and 6th.
Back in the field things were a little more anticlimactic. We were rolling around the course with 10 minutes to go in the race when we were suddenly given the 1 lap to go card. However half of the field (including myself) didn't see this and were unaware that we were racing our last lap. I was in the middle of the group when a few riders started to pass me and I didn't know why, and then after the finish line they all pulled off, leaving most of us confused. I guess instead of letting the break lap us the officials decided to have us finish early. I'm not sure why. In every other USAC race I have done the field does not get pulled when it is about to be lapped by a rider. Maybe it was because the course was slightly technical. Either way it left a lot of the field feeling pretty frustrated, like myself, who unknowingly rolled in for 29th place instead of getting in on the sprint for a top 15. But with Rahsaan on the podium and another teammate in the top 10, and 29th still being in the money, it was a very good race overall, and nice to see once again that SoCal riders were in the top spots of a race that was otherwise dominated with riders from Northern California and Nevada. After the race it was cool to see that nearly 15 riders were pulled for doping control. Someone said that they were testing riders now because of the big UCI stage races coming up in Utah and Colorado. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it.
A couple days later and I am still missing that downhill chicane from the Tour de Nez course and wanting some more of it. Fortunately, Brentwood is this weekend and I know that that race will satisfy any remaining hunger for a fast and fun course.
