With just 10km remaining of the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic’s hilly stage 3 Cooper Spur Circuit Race, Navigators Insurance rider Glen Chadwick was the virtual race leader on the road, nursing a 45-second lead over a dwindling peloton. But the final climb proved to be a few kilometers too long for Chadwick to take the yellow jersey from Ben Jacques-Maynes (Priority Health-Bissell) — and almost a bit too long for Chadwick to take the stage win.

Chadwick entered the day seventh on GC, 24 seconds behind Jacques-Maynes. Three and a half hours later, the Aussie attacked off the front of a dwindled field at the end of a hot 87-mile stage and climbed up to the Cooper Spur Mountain Resort alone, barely holding off a hard-charging peloton by a matter of meters. Jacques-Maynes won the bunch sprint for second place, just one second behind Chadwick, whose teammate Phil Zajicek finished directly behind Jacques-Maynes in a bunch kick for the second consecutive day to round out the day’s podium.

Between the start and finish tempers flared as racers faced the second consecutive day of racing in eastern Oregon’s dry summer heat. Following the stage Jacques-Maynes and Health Net-Maxxis Ryder Hesjedal exchanged words about a spitting incident, and Zajicek and Jacques-Maynes both claimed that defending race champion Nathan O’Neill (Health Net-Maxxis) had ridden them into the barriers in the bunch sprint. However, race officials didn’t see anything unusual, and no riders were relegated or otherwise penalized.

O’Neill was nonplussed upon hearing the race’s top two riders’ complaints.

Carroll took the stage and the leader's jersey

Photo: Ted Turner

“Last time I checked, they finished second and third, and I finished fourth,” O’Neill said. “The road curves left, and I had to hit out early to ensure I got Chadwick by the line, so I was running out of gas. Understandably, I’m not going to just lead first and third overall and dump them out with 25 meters to go. Given that the road turned left it probably exaggerated the circumstances.”

With the 15-second time bonus awarded to the stage winner, Chadwick moved into fourth overall, 18 seconds behind Jacques-Maynes. Zajicek earned a five-second time bonus and sits second overall, 13 seconds down. O’Neill finished fourth on the stage, out of the time bonuses, and now sits third overall, 17 seconds down.

Friday’s time trial will be held over 18.5 miles of smooth pavement that faces directly into the infamous winds that funnel down the Columbia River Gorge. O’Neill is the overwhelming favorite, with Jacques-Maynes, Baldwin and Zajicek all expected to also perform well.

Should O’Neill finish the stage with more than one minute’s lead, Saturday’s epic 90-mile road race, with nearly 10,000 feet of elevation gain, might be all but a formality, as O’Neill proved at the Tour of the Gila that he can climb with the best climbers in America.

But should any of the GC favorites stay within one minute of O’Neill heading into Saturday, the 2007 Mt. Hood Cycling Classic could have an epic showdown that could lead into Sunday’s Downtown Hood River Criterium.

In women’s racing, GC leader Katie Mactier (ValueAct Capital) was isolated and put into trouble on the day’s final climb when two-time Mt. Hood overall winner Leah Goldstein (Symmetrics) attacked a select group in the final kilometers of the women’s 66-mile race. Aaron’s teammates Katherine Carroll and Felicia Gomez took advantage of the move and upped the pace, shelling Goldstein in the process and finishing 1-2 on the stage.

Toyota stacks a break

Photo: Kurt Jambretz/Action Images

Carroll was placed higher on GC, so Gomez allowed her teammate to take the stage win and its 15-second time bonus; Mactier crossed the line 42 seconds later. Carroll now sits 26 seconds ahead of Gomez and 38 seconds ahead of Mactier, with Goldstein in fourth overall, 43 seconds down.

Toyota, United
Thursday’s stage, an 18.7-mile down-and-up circuit on roads cut into the north side of Mt. Hood, began in sharp contrast to the dry heat and slower pace that marked stage 2. Higher elevation and an earlier start time made for cooler temperatures, while an aggressive race plan from Toyota-United made for a blazing fast start. Back-of-the-pack riders were dropped during the first 10 miles of the 87-mile stage, which saw the 132-deep pro-1-2 field complete 4.5 circuits, climbing up to Cooper Spur Mountain Resort five times.

With the team’s top rider Chris Baldwin sitting fourth on GC, 18 seconds behind O’Neill, Toyota-United went on the offensive early, sending Stefano Barberi and Burke Swindlehurst into the day’s first move along with Michael Wolf (Navigators Insurance), Cameron Wurf (Priority Health-Bissell), Jeff Louder (Health Net-Maxxis) and triathlon star Chris Lieto (California Giant Strawberries-Specialized).

Priority Health rode a hard tempo on the front during the gradual ascent up Highway 35, and the gap to the leaders never exceeded 30 seconds. Three more riders — Barry Wicks (Kona), Aaron Tuckerman (Rubicon) and Darren Lill (Navigators Insurance) bridged across to make it a dangerous group of nine, but the once strung-out field was back together by 10 miles into the stage.

Louder navigates the twisty backside descent

Photo: Kurt Jambretz/Action Images

“That’s not really the type of break we were after,” said Priority Health team director Glen Mitchell. “We were hoping for a few amateur riders, or lower-placed pros. We couldn’t let a group like that get more than two minutes.”

But on the twisting descent down the mountain five riders slipped off the front, and they were familiar names: Swindlehurst, Barberi, Louder and Wicks. Toyota had stacked the breakaway; the surprise name in the break was Baldwin, the team’s GC leader.

“I told [team director] Kirk [Willett] this morning that I wanted to try something unorthodox, because I feel like every NRC race has followed the same pattern, just bike racing 101,” Baldwin said. “O’Neill is 10 percent stronger than the next guy, and Jacques-Maynes is probably right there with him. You can sit back and wait for them to win the time trial, or you can try something different.”

The leaders gained 20 seconds by mile 19 and had stretched the lead to 1:15 by mile 27. Mitchell and Navigators DS Vassili Davidenko were spotted chatting in the race caravan, with Davidenko agreeing to put Wolf, Matt Cooke, Bernard Van Ulden and David Rodriguez on the front to keep the gap under two minutes. With no Navigators or Priority Health riders represented, the day’s dynamic was set — Toyota drove the break, Priority and Navigators drove the chase, and Health Net, exhausted from defending O’Neill’s lead in the heat on Wednesday, was given a free ride.

Ahead in the breakaway, Baldwin and Louder pulled through only sporadically while Wicks, Swindlehurst and Barberi rotated through.

“I definitely burned some matches,” said Baldwin, who pulled through initially to help establish the break. “I wanted to at least do a little bit to show my boys I believed in what we were doing. I sat on during the last laps, but you can’t go back and get that energy back.”

At mile 33 Toyota’s Heath Blackgrove, returning to racing after a knee injury knocked him out of the Tour of California, bridged across and brought extra horsepower. At mile 49 the six-man lead group crossed the finish line with a 1:50 advantage; two laps remained.

At the front of the field Priority Health’s arsenal was beginning to thin out. After setting tempo for hours, first to drop out of the group was Garrett Peltonen, followed by Rolando Gonzalez and Omer Kem. Soon Jacques-Maynes only had Wurf and Morgan Schmitt remaining, and Schmitt was barely hanging on to the back of the main group. Like riders had done all day, Kem gapped off on the fourth time up the climb, but he managed to find a group and fight his way back onto the back of the field during the descent.

Wicks also dropped back, out of the break, on the fourth time over the climb. With the gap dropping below one minute, Chadwick and Tuckerman bridged across, but it was too little, too late. Blackgrove was next to drop out of the lead group, and at the finish line with one 18.7-mile lap remaining the thinned-out field was back together.

Though they had primarily sat on the break, Baldwin and Louder had nevertheless spent the day working harder than Zajicek, O’Neill and Jacques-Maynes, while Tuckerman and Chadwick had been relatively fresh until bridging across. A twisting descent and one final climb remained.

Top three on the stage

Photo: Kurt Jambretz/Action Images

Hot day, heated exchanges
Looking to give Zajicek a free ride to the finish, Chadwick attacked on the final lap, drawing out Toyota-United’s Bobby Lea. The pair opened a 50-second lead by mile 80, while Lieto attempted to bridge but instead found himself stuck in no-man’s land.

With Health Net finally chipping in to bring back Chadwick, the pace up Highway 35 saw previous breakaways Wicks and Barberi drop out of the bunch, followed by Blackgrove and Swindlehurst. Lea, who had been dropped on the fourth climb but rejoined the group on the descent, was soon of no use to Chadwick, and the Navigators’ Aussie found himself alone with a 47-second lead and 3 miles remaining.

As the peloton made the final right turn off of Highway 35 and onto Cooper Spur Road for the last time, a resilient Louder again attacked the bunch. Wurf set the pace for Jacques-Maynes while Zajicek bridged across, forcing O’Neill to close the gap. As it closed in on Chadwick, the 25-man field was strung out nearly single file.

“Those guys were sprinting behind me,” Chadwick said. “It wasn’t until one meter out that I knew I had it.”

Jacques-Maynes finished second, one second down, with Zajicek third. The biggest loser was Baldwin, who finished 22 seconds down and now sits 10th, 49 seconds behind Jacques-Maynes.

“I’m not unhappy,” Baldwin said. “I feel like we took the bull by the horns. There are always little mistakes that we could have improved upon, but I felt like we raced well as a team. We coordinated well. I had fun playing chess. If Navigators could just step up and be in one of these breakaways, there would be a lot less impetus behind, and it might work.”

Following the stage Hesjedal approached Jacques-Maynes at the Priority Health team car and demanded that the race leader apologize for a spitting incident that had occurred earlier in the stage. Though Hesjedal hadn’t directly been spat upon, the Health Net rider took issue with Jacques-Maynes’s initial reluctance to apologize. After a round of heated exchanges, Jacques-Maynes relented and apologized, and Hesjedal accepted and moved on. But soon after, both Zajicek and Jacques-Maynes were complaining about O’Neill’s erratic sprint, claiming the Aussie had veered right and nearly driven them both into the barriers.

“I know I had to brake with 50 meters to go,” Jacques-Maynes said. “I was just hoping not to crash, and fortunately I was able to reaccelerate. I talked to the officials. We’ll see what comes out of it.”

Sanders sails solo

Photo: Kurt Jambretz/Action Images

O’Neill was not penalized, however. And while he’d had a few incidents with Health Net and seen his team decimated, Jacques-Maynes also kept the jersey, added to his NRC individual standings lead and saw Baldwin lose time.

“Navigators rode a perfect race, they saw the need to defend and then sealed the deal. My hat is off to them,” Jacques-Maynes said. “And Toyota-United rode aggressively, they really took the race by the horns. It was a good, hard, aggressive race and my nerves were on edge all day. We were a little underpowered but it worked out. Luckily other teams saw the need to pitch in, and together we got the job done.”

Asked about the other major pro team, Jacques-Maynes said, “I would have liked to see them work a little more, but I’m done talking about Health Net.”

Mactier isolated, Carroll with company
Heading into stage 3 the biggest question in the women’s race surrounded Mactier’s ValueAct Capital team, with whom she is guest riding. Though Mactier had won both the first and second stages, her teammates had worked hard to defend her lead Wednesday.

Sensing a lack of depth within the ValueAct Capital team, Aaron’s sent Kristin Sanders, up the road on the second of 3.5 laps. Sanders, fifth on GC coming into the stage at 24 seconds, held a gap that hovered between 30 and 90 seconds, and wasn’t brought in until 2km from the finish. After driving the chase alone, Mactier eventually found some help from Symmetrics riders Goldstein and Marni Hambleton.

“I was isolated,” Mactier said. “I sat on front and tried to coerce the other GC contenders to help me. As [Sanders’] lead grew I tried to bring it back and asked [Goldstein and Suz Weldon of Wines of Washington, third on GC] why they weren’t working. It was surprising. I thought the other teams would have been more proactive. Leah helped out a bit towards the end.”

But Goldstein’s attack in the closing kilometers finally cracked Mactier, and the Aussie had dropped off the leaders by the time they had caught Sanders with 2km remaining. From there Carroll and Gomez attacked what was left of the front group to cross the line together. The team took the stage win, the overall lead, and landed Gomez in the Queen of the Mountains jersey.

“I can’t say enough about Kristin Sanders’ ride,” Carroll said. “She was fantastic.”

The Aaron’s riders’ 1-2 spots on GC, and Carroll’s 38-second lead over Mactier will open an interesting dynamic heading into Friday’s time trial, where Mactier is the stage favorite. Even if Mactier is able to put 1:30 into Carroll over the hilly 18.5 miles, it might not be enough to fend off a Carroll-Gomez tag-team effort on Saturday’s 89-mile final climbing stage. Gomez, Carroll said, is the team’s top climber.

Carroll, winner of the overall at the Joe Martin Stage Race earlier this month, said she has been working on her time trial but didn’t know what to expect from Friday’s time trial. As for Mactier, she said she hoped to take back her race lead, but made no promises.

“I will go out there and give it everything I have,” Mactier said. “I haven’t done a time trial over that distance in a long time. But I’ll come out guns blazing. I’m also looking forward Saturday’s climbing stage. We won’t go down easily.”

Mt. Hood Cycling Classic
Stage 3 — Cooper Spur Circuit Race
Men
1. Glen Chadwick, Navigators Insurance, 3:35:54
2. Ben Jacques-Maynes, Priority Health-Bissell, at 0:01
3. Phil Zajicek, Navigators Insurance, same time
4. Nathan O' Neill, Health Net Maxxis, s.t.
5. Justin England, Toyota-United, at 0:03
6. Josh Dillon, Fiordifrutta, at 0:06
7. Ryder Hesjedal, Health Net-Maxxis, at 0:07
8. Aaron Tuckerman, Team Rubicon, s.t.
9. Matthew Johnson, Team 5 Star Fish, s.t.
10. Mark Santurbane, Team Bobs-Bicycles.com, s.t.

Women
1. Katharine Carroll, Aaron's, 3:28:45
2. Felicia Gomez, Aaron's, at 0:06
3. Julie Beveridge, Bicisport, at 0:24
4. Flavia Oliveira, Team TIBCO, same time
5. Leah Goldstein, Symmetrics, s.t.
6. Marg Fedyna, Bicycle John's Serious Cycling, s.t.
7. Jill McLaughlin, Touchstone Climbing, at 0:42
8. Beverley Harper, Webcor Builders, s.t.
9. Katie Mactier, ValueAct Capital, s.t.
10. Maria Monica, Touchstone Climbing, s.t.

Overall
Men
1. Ben Jacques-Maynes, Priority Health-Bissell, 8:20:02
2. Phil Zajicek, Navigators Insurance, at 0:13
3. Nathan O' Neill, Health Net-Maxxis, at 0:17
4. Glen Chadwick, Navigators Insurance, at 0:18
5. Jeff Louder, Health Net-Maxxis, at 0:41
6. Aaron Tuckerman, Team Rubicon, s.t.
7. Justin England, Toyota-United Pro, at 0:44
8. Josh Dillon, Fiordifrutta, at 0:48
9. Ryder Hesjedal, Health Net-Maxxis, at 0:49
10. Chris Baldwin, Toyota-United Pro, at 0:49

Women
1. Katharine Carroll, Aaron's, 7:42:52
2. Felicia Gomez, Aaron's, at 0:26
3. Katie Mactier, ValueAct Capital, at 0:38
4. Leah Goldstein, Symmetrics, at 0:43
5. Julie Beveridge, Bicisport, at 0:51
6. Kristin Sanders, Aaron's, at 1:02
7. Flavia Oliveira, Team TIBCO, at 1:05
8. Suz Weldon, Wines of Washington, at 1:07
9. Jill McLaughlin, Touchstone Climbing, at 1:15
10. Beverley Harper, Webcor Builders, at 1:16