THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Wachovia week: Rodriguez takes Trenton
It was hard to believe Fred Rodriguez even made it to the finish in Trenton, New Jersey, let alone grabbed the win. The American spent much of late Thursday afternoon tinkering with misadjusted seat height, even getting off his bike twice to try to get things sorted out. Finally Rodriguez simply gave up and dealt with the problem, before flying down the final straightaway on West State Street to take the bunch sprint in the second leg of the Wachovia Cycling Series.
“I got on my bike this morning and it felt like the seat was a little low,” Rodriguez explained after taking his second win of the race in Trenton (2000 was the other). “I had the mechanic check it and it was a centimeter low, so I had them raise it up. But I guess I had gotten used to the difference in Lancaster because that didn’t feel right either.”
It was the second straight race in which the recent Giro stage winner had dealt with adversity. Two days earlier in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Rodriguez battled stomach problems throughout and nearly dropped out.
“He’s obviously on good form right now,” said Fraser of the man who beat him in Trenton. “To deal with those kinds of problems and still do well shows that.”
In the race to the finish on Thursday, it was Rodriguez (Acqua & Sapone), Lars Michaelsen (CSC) and Gord Fraser (Health Net-Maxxis) in a three-up battle. But without much help from his team (Fraser’s normal leadout man Greg Henderson dropped out before the finish), the Canadian was forced to latch onto Michaelsen’s wheel. But when the Dane slowed Fraser was left to go it alone, and by then it was too late.
“I was behind the whole time on Lars,” said Fraser, who was clearly dejected by what he saw as a blown opportunity. “I was hoping Lars would jump, but he was waiting and I left too late. I just wasn’t using my head.”
Meanwhile, Rodriguez got what he called a perfect set-up from his Acqua & Sapone team.
“The team kept the speed high through the park,” he said of the flat and fast 6.5-mile circuit that wound through Cadwalader Park before heading back into Trenton, past the cluster of the state’s capitol complex buildings. “On the straight I just clicked into my 54 and put my head down.” The early portions of the 91-mile race had the usual TV-time attacks, but nothing of real consequence formed until John Lieswyn (Health Net-Maxxis) and Rodoslaw Romanik (Hoop-CCC Polstat) jumped away on the eighth of 14 laps. That pair would grow their advantage up to 1:33, as Lieswyn earned his second straight sprint-points title (he took the same crown in Lancaster two days earlier).
“We caught another break and then the Polish guy took off at the top of the feed zone,” Lieswyn recalled. “I went with him and all of a sudden I looked back and we had a huge gap. It would have been a long way for two guys to go, but the gap went up so fast I thought it might have a chance.”
As always seems to be the case at this race, though, the peloton kept the deficit just within a manageable range, and the two would-be attackers were absorbed on the penultimate lap. That left the endgame to the sprinters’ teams, and none was better than Rodriguez's supporting cast.
“The guys got me in the right position,” he said, “and once I get up to speed I’m able to maintain it a lot longer than some people.”
Certainly that was the case in Trenton.
The Wachovia Cycling Series concludes Sunday with the 20th running of the USPRO Championship in Philadelphia. Check back to VeloNews.com then for a full report, results and photos.
Race notes
There were several pile-ups during the race, including one involving American Tim Johnson (Prodir-Saunier Duval) with four laps to go. Johnson said he was hit from behind as he made the turn into the park, and landed hard on his right knee. Afterwards VeloNews caught up with him as he sat in the front passenger seat of his team van with a big icepack on his kneecap.
“I don’t know who it was but he just took me into the barrier,” Johnson explained. “I hit my knee right on the metal. Now I’ve got a big black-and-blue circle on my kneecap. It blew up right away. I’m going to get an X-ray.” Former gold medalist Marty Nothstein showed up in Trenton, but didn’t factor up front in the final sprint, finishing outside the top 10 (full results were not immediately available).“I was good with two to go,” said the Navigators rider. “But at the end, with the speeds so high, there was no margin for error. There just wasn’t enough distance to make any mistakes.”Nothstein says he’ll now focus his attention on getting prepped for the Olympics, where he’ll go back to the track to compete in the keirin. “It’s gonna be difficult,” he said. “But I love that stage. The Olympics is the ultimate.”As for his chances come August in Athens, Nothstein says you never know. “The keirin is a roll of the dice,” he said. “I still have my top end. You’ve got to be strong, fast and lucky. If that all comes together you can make something happen.”
