Bend, Ore. — Moises Aldape won his first race of the season Saturday while scoring Team Type 1’s second stage win at the Bend Memorial Clinic Cascade Cycling Classic.
Aldape won the 83-mile (133.5 km) Cascade Lakes Road Race by out-sprinting five breakaway companions in the final few hundred meters of the mountainous finish of the Cascade Lakes Road Race at the Mount Bachelor Ski Resort. The 26-year-old also took the lead in the King of the Mountains classification and will wear the polka-dot jersey for the final stage Sunday.
Perhaps most impressive was Aldape’s ability to wait for the right moment to launch a vicious sprint, which quickly closed a huge gap that Blake Caldwell (Team Garmin-Chipotle) had opened up with an attack of his own in the final 500 meters.
Team Type 1 Sport Director Ed Beamon said he second-guessed Aldape’s decision to wait for the final sprint.
“It looked like Caldwell was going to win the stage at 200 meters, but at 150 meters Moises went flying by,” Beamon said. “He just stayed so calm and collected and composed, it was driving me nuts.”
The decision to remain patient for the most decisive moment of the 83-mile (133.5 km) race was an easy one, Aldape said. Caldwell first launched an attack with six miles (10 km) to go that gained him 20 seconds on the breakaway, which at that time included eight riders.
“When Caldwell attacked, Ed told me to ‘go, go, go,’ but I felt confident I could jump across,” Aldape said. “So I just waited. I was counting on a little difficulty in the terrain in the last kilometer. As long as I could see him (Caldwell) ahead of me in the last 500 meters, I was confident I could win.”
Caldwell faded to finish sixth, while Chad Beyer (Team USA) was second and Bradley White (Successful Living presented by Parkpre) was third.
Aldape has been on a tear of late, scoring the team’s best finish (seventh) at the Commerce Bank Philadelphia International Classic and winning the points classification at the Tour de Beauce in Canada. Next month, he heads to Beijing to represent Mexico in the Summer Olympic Games.
Saturday’s victory added to the emotion first raised by Team Type 1’s Matt Wilson, who won the second stage of the race Thursday. He dedicated his victory to teammate Ben Brooks, who was critically injured Wednesday in a high-speed crash.
Brooks has since shown signs of recovery, Beamon said, and is awake and conscious of his surroundings. The full extent of his injuries, which include head trauma, will not be immediately known.
Sunday’s final stage of the six-stage, five-day event is the Deschutes Brewery-Awbrey Butte Circuit Race, another 83-mile (133.5 km) race. Wilson is fifth overall, but only 25 seconds out of second place. Levi Leipheimer (Astana) remains the race leader by two minutes and 30 seconds over Jeff Louder (BMC).
Photo: Copyright Kurt Jambretz (www.actionimages.cc)
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