Two climbers from Boulder, Colorado, won the pro men’s and pro women’s Oak Glen stage of the Redlands Classic on Friday afternoon. But that’s where the similarity ends.

Men’s winner (and new race leader) Scott Moninger is 40 years old and has won about 250 races in his 18 seasons as a professional. Mara Abbott is 21, still at college, and in only her second season as a road racer. Her victory over prologue winner (and still race leader) Amber Neben moved Abbott into second place overall.

After he out-kicked Toyota-United’s Justin England for the stage win, the omnipotent Moninger (BMC) said, “Had there been no [time] bonuses I would probably have let him have the stage, but this race always comes down to seconds, so it’s too early to be giving anything away.”

Team Webcor’s Abbott, who’s trained by Moninger’s former rival Mike Engleman, wasn’t giving anything away. She was ready to grab any glory she could take. In fact, when she was asked this past winter what she would most like to achieve in 2007, Abbott replied, “I want to win a race that I get flowers for!” On achieving that goal Friday — she was presented with a posy of yellow daffodils and other spring flowers — the Whitman College student literally skipped with delight and said breathlessly, “It’s my first big win!”

Men: Moninger emerged from a chaotic stage
This opening road stage charted a new route that featured Cat. 2 climbs at San Timoteo Canyon (13km), Lambs Canyon (116km) and Indian Bluff (130km) before the grueling ascent to the Oak Glen finish. When the 189-strong men’s field left Redlands on a day of warm sunshine and blustery winds, overnight leader Svein Tuft (Symmetrics) was hopeful his Canadian-based squad could help him retain the yellow jersey.

“For us it’s another day,” he told VeloNews. “We’re gonna do everything we can to come to the [final] climbs fresh. And we’ll have a guy in the [breakaway] group, for sure.”

Sure enough, when a four-man break eventually emerged after 52km of nervous racing, a Symmetrics man, Christian Meier, helped make it go, along with Toyota-United’s Cuban Ivan Dominguez, Health Net-Maxxis’s Brit Russell Downing and Team BMC’s Scott Nydam. This quartet never had more than a three-minute lead, but their 75km-long effort helped earn Dominguez the green jersey of points leader and Nydam the red KoM jersey at the end of the day.

Behind them, on the course’s long, flat southern loop through Hemet before turning north to the hills, there was a succession of flat tires and minor crashes. Unfortunately, a pileup on the winding, dusty approach to Lambs Canyon saw the on-form Cesar Grajales (Jittery Joe’s), who was lying third overall, fall heavily and sustain a suspected broken collarbone. “It’s really a shame he was unable to contend the stage [win],” Moninger said later.

Slipstream-Chipotle’s Taylor Tolleson forced the pace on the wide-open Lambs Canyon ascent and split the race into three or four parts, before the main group caught the break partway up the penultimate climb. Here, Toyota-United put Sean Sullivan into a two-man attack with Colavita-Sutter Home’s Italian Davide Frattini, who took a minute’s lead on the rolling approach roads to Oak Glen.

The Mavic wheelmen were busy at Oak Glen

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

Climbing 1690 feet in about 8km at an average grade of 6.7 percent (with a couple of 11-percent pitches near the top), Oak Glen is a hard climb for March.

Slipstream’s Pat McCarty (who raced for Phonak last year) was the first rider to join breakaways Sullivan and Frattini, jumping across a 30-second gap with about 6km to go.

“Right up to when I attacked, I felt real good,” said McCarty. “I was real comfortable the whole way. But when I went, I think that was everything I had, and I blew up, and got worse and worse and worse. The leaders came by and I was with them maybe for a K, and then nothing.”

There were just 20 riders in the group that passed McCarty with 4km to go. Race leader Tuft was still there, but another 500 meters on, the Canadian couldn’t follow an acceleration by six men: Moninger, England, Navigators Insurance’s Phil Zajicek, Successfulliving.com’s Argentinean climber Ricardo Escuela, Jelly Belly’s Andrew Bajadali, and Colavita’s Anthony Colby.

Once this sextet was clear, “we were all swapping off, kind of riding a good tempo,” said England. But Moninger, who has ridden this climb more than 15 times, knew that it would need more than just a good tempo to win the yellow jersey.

“I attacked a number of times in the last K, because I could see the group was breaking up behind us,” said the veteran. “You’re sort of caught between a rock and a hard place; you’re wanting to put time on the race leader, on Ben Jacques-Maynes and some guys that have good sprints, and at the same time there’s a 10-second bonus to win the stage. So I was kind of attacking myself a couple of times the last kilometer.

Say, is that Steven Spielberg over there?

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

“Justin put in a good move with about 300 [meters] to go, but it’s kind of like slow motion that last little bit. He gave it everything he had, but it levels out and I was just able to get by him.”

Moninger then added: “I’ve won this stage [over Oak Glen] two times, but I’ve never actually won on top; in ’95 I had 20 seconds here and managed to hold it on a wet, technical descent to the finish in the town below.”

Moninger managed to push Priority Health’s dangerous Jacques-Maynes to a minute back on GC; but with the 90-minute Redlands criterium Saturday and the always-selective Sunset Road Race on Sunday, Moninger’s BMC teammates will have their work cut out for them if they are to give him his third overall victory, after those in 1989 (yes, 18 years ago!) and 1995.

Women: Webcor made Neben work for the jersey
The women’s stage, which covered the same final 115km of the men’s course, was a battle of nerves between race leader Neben (and her Stahl-SC Velo teammates) and the much stronger teams (on paper) of Webcor, Colavita-Sutter Home and T-Mobile. And when a crucial break emerged with 40km to go, it was powered by T-Mobile’s Chantal Beltman, Webcor’s Katheryn Curi, Colavita’s Tina Pic, Team Cheerwine’s Leigh Hobson and Expresscopy.com’s Anne Samplonius.

Chasing Curi

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

With Curi in the break, Abbott and Thorburn could simply follow the moves, while Neben’s team had to go back to the grindstone after riding tempo earlier in the stage.

“It was a lot of work. But I knew going in it was going to be,” said Neben. “I mean, just looking at the [prologue] results, you could see Webcor, with four girls in the top 10, you know, are a super strong team. Colavita had a strong team. T-Mobile has a strong team, but I had to protect the yellow, so you kinda have to protect and race a little at the end, but, yeah, I did what I could… [My teammate] Tracy [Kubas] was awesome today, everybody did a bit of work.”

Thorburn observed: “Amber Neben chased for quite a while…. That was totally in the team plan. We had to make Amber work, obviously, so that worked out perfectly. She did get a little help from Aaron’s because they had missed the break too.”

Neben kept her cool — and her jersey

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

By the foot of Oak Glen, the five leaders were two minutes clear. T-Mobile’s Australian leader Oenone Wood said she thought that gap would be enough, and she was content to let teammate Beltman shoot for the win. But that was underestimating the power of Neben, who despite riding only her first race of the season, already looks on course to have a better year than 2006, when she won the Tour de l’Aude, one of many other fine performances in Europe.

“Amber took off on the bottom of Oak Glen,” said Thorburn, “and I was on her wheel, and [Colavita’s] Dotsie [Bausch] said, ‘Goodbye, wheel!” With Bausch gapped, Abbott smartly came around her and joined up with Thorburn on Neben’s wheel.

That two-minute gap soon became a minute, which was the cue for Webcor’s Curi to take off solo at the front. Again, Neben didn’t panic.

“Katheryn was out there,” said the race leader, “and I brought Katheryn back, and then at that point, you know, I had Christine and Mara sitting on me all day, and you know what’s gonna happen. So it’s kind of trying to minimize your losses. I didn’t want Christine to go up the road since she was closest to me on the GC. And I figured it would be Mara…. I wasn’t worried about winning the stage. I was just trying to keep the GC. I’d ridden hard a lot. That was fine. Mara rode awesome, she had a good attack.”

At the line, Abbott had an 18-second gap on Neben, while Thorburn was another 25 seconds behind. The two Webcor women are still a big threat to Neben’s effort to repeat her 2006 overall victory. But for now, Abbott is just happy to bask in the glory of her excellent first victory with flowers.

“I feel awesome,” she told VeloNews. “That was great. Today was a wonderful day and I’m gonna live so many other days to be wonderful. So, yay!”

Former VeloNews editorial intern Kathie Reid contributed to this report.

23RD Redlands Bicycle Classic
Pro men
Stage 1: Redlands to Oak Glen
1. Scott Moninger, Team BMC, 155.5km in 4:05:04 (38.071 kph)
2. Justin England, Toyota-United, s.t.
3. Anthony Colby, Colavita-Sutter Home, at 0:05
4. Andrew Bajadali, Jelly Belly, at 0:10
5. Ricardo Escuela (Arg), Successfulliving.com, at 0:21

Overall
1. Moninger, 4:14:36
2. England, at 0:07
3. Colby, at 0:12
4. Bajadali, at 0:29
5. Phil Zajicek, Navigators Insurance

Pro women
Stage 1: Perris to Oak Glen
1. Mara Abbott, Webcor Builders, 115.2km in 3:30:41 (32.807 kph)
2. Amber Neben. Stahl-SC Velo, at 0:18
3. Christine Thorburn, Webcor, at 0:43
4. Katheryn Curi, Webcor, at 0:49
5. Leigh Hobson, Cheerwine, at 1:30

Overall
1.Neben, 3:41:45
2. Abbott, at 0:32
3. Thorburn, at 1:00
4. Curi, at 1:38
5. Dotsie Bausch, Colavita-Sutter Home, at 2:20