Beardsley wins PDX Twilight Crit

Aug 13, 2011 by editor

PORTLAND — Steven Beardsley beat an international field of elite amateurs, domestic pros and former pros Friday night on his way to adding the Portland Twilight Criterium to his long list of wins. The Gentle Lovers speedster celebrated his last day in the 2010 OBRA Criterium Champions jersey by winning the field sprint ahead of Canadian Adam Thuss (Trek-Red Truck) and Idaho’s Gabe Varela (Hagens Berman).

The lack of any dominant big teams to control the race made for a chaotic and quick day of attacks and counter attacks as the aggressive riders’ lack of success in making anything stick failed to keep them from trying. The fast pace also kept the racing safe as the number of crashes appeared to be greatly reduced from previous years.

Varela was often off the front pushing the pace and forcing the others to chase, but the fireworks initially started with a short-lived breakaway from Corsa Concepts’ Aaron Tuckerman and Hagens Berman’s Steve Fisher. Realizing the dangerous makeup of the early break, Beardsley reacted and brought the rest of the field along to put a quick end to the pair’s adventure. Hagens Berman also tried with Colin Gibson, the last of their trio of riders in the race. He was joined by William Laubernds (Team Oregon/Laurelwood), but the field chased them down immediately. Austin Arguello, riding for Team Oregon, tried his hand off the front, as did teammate Stephen Bedford, Word-RCB’s Jake Hansen and a slew of others.

Such was the pattern throughout the 60-minute race until Zack Garland (Team H&R Block) found himself with small advantage with about 10 laps remaining. The Canadian rider built an advantage of 12 seconds around the six-corner, L-shaped course and appeared for a brief while like he might have the legs to hold off the chase behind. But Team Oregon, Hagens Berman and the other Canadians in the race eventually made concerted chase efforts at the front of the field, ending Garland’s crowd-pleasing solo effort with just two laps to go.

“The Canadians seemed to not want to let any other Canadian win,” Beardsley said of the chase. “So that was playing in our favor. Then Hagens Berman got on the front with about four to go and kept things together. So that really helped me out.”

The Hagens Berman trio set up on the front to try and lead out Varela, the new teammate who recently moved from Yahoo! Cycling to the black and blue Seattle squad. Behind Varela sat Tuckerman and Bedford, whose squad had raced aggressively all evening and chased hard near the end, allowing him to conserve in the field for the last part of the race. Beardsley sat sixth as they headed into the final two laps, trailed by Thuss and Scott Laliberte (Westwood Cannondale). He moved ahead of Bedford and then Tuckerman on the penultimate lap, positioning himself third wheel at the bell behind the Hagens Berman lead out that was now down to just two riders. Then he sat there, waiting to pounce.

“I jumped them on the second-to-last straightaway going into the last corner,” Beardsley said. “I knew before the start of the race I wanted to be on the front going into the last corner. Then I just put my head down and figured that was the best I could do.”

His best proved good enough for the top twilight prize and another conquest he can add to his palmares, ending what has turned out to be a long pursuit.

“This has been my one race I’ve been chasing forever,” he said.

Category 3 Race: Dunn solos into winning column

Jeff Dunn of Seattle won the 45-minute Cat 3 race with a daring solo attack on the third-from-last lap. The Fare Start rider, who had never before won a mass-start race, said he was simply trying to close down an escape attempt when he unwittingly created gap and decided to see if he could make it work.

Dunn flew over the course and built a workable advantage until Ironclad Performance Wear’s Daniel Penner, who had been active the entire race along with Clint Culpepper (Embrocation Cycling), Alex Clemens (Team Oregon/Laurelwood Brewing) and others, chased furiously trying to bring Dunn back.

Penner’s effort ultimately fell just short, but he won the field sprint for second despite his closing chase. RGF/Felt’s William Henterley grabbed third ahead of Clemens in fourth and James Randall (bicycleattorney.com) in fifth. A late-race crash stunned the field briefly and knocked Culpepper, Justin Serna and others out of the race or contention.

Check out the PHOTO GALLERY for this race.

RESULTS
Portland Twilight Criterium
Aug. 12

Pro-1-2
1. Steven Beardsley (Gentle Lovers)
2. Adam Thuss (Trek-Red Truck)
3. Gabe Varela (Hagens Berman)
4. Scott Laliberte (Westwood Cannondale)
5. Stephen Bedford (Team Oregon/Laurelwood Brewing)
6. Aaron Tuckerman (Corsa Concepts)
7. Rocky Serna (West End Bikes/Specialized)
8. Josh Liberles (HPChiro/Alpine Mortgage)
9. Zac Kovalcik (Diamond Law Cycling)
10. Sam Nicoletti (Gentle Lovers)

Category 3
1. Jeff Dunn (Fare Start)
2. Daniel Penner (Ironclad Performance Wear)
3. William Henterley (RGF/Felt)
4. Alex Clemens (Team Oregon/Laurelwood Brewing)
5. James Randall (bicycleattorney.com)
6. Jeremy Dunn (Embrocation Cycling)
7. Mike Olson
8. Kevin Bernstein (Capitol Velo)
9. Brian Sullivan (Audi)
10. Rick Metz (bicycleattorney.com)