Elliot's Rocky Mountain Roubaix Race Report Men 4/5- straight from the horses mouth

On sunday the winning break away was formed within 60 seconds of hitting dirt.  My teammates Brendan Halpin and Adam Jensen were in our group of five.  Toby (with unspellable last name) and Brian from Bozeman rounded out the group.  Halpin road hard.  By hard I mean he did 90% of the work to make the gap and the first time I looked back I couldn't see the peleton.  Up the road was another teammate Erik Digby who wins major points in my book for killing himself the first 15 miles and still hanging in for a solid finish.  We took turns pulling but for the most part we were a disorganized break.  Someone would just ride hard, the rest of us would follow.  Toby, Adam, Brendan and I ride mountain bikes together quite a bit, so it felt like a hard group ride.  We had no intentions of attacking each other.  We road thru the first lap really relaxed on the dirt.  I had a feeling it was going to get ugly the last 10 miles so I fueled up well and ate all the gu I could.  When we had 20 miles left we all new we could stay away.  That is when we decided to make Toby and Brian work a bit.  Brendan, Adam and I traded turns putting in half hearted attacks.  Then we all eased up on a decent.  I tucked a bit and got about 30 meters without trying, they were not exactly chasing.  I rode tempo for about 30 seconds, looked back, no one near.  Then I rode as hard as I could til the end of the dirt heading back to frenchtown.  When I looked back there was no one insight.  This may have been a solo ride of 15 miles to the finish, but I still feel like it was a complete team race.  I had two teammates in the break, who sat in once I was off the front, along with another 8ish guys in the peleton staying fresh.  Just look at the finish results.  It was an orange and blue landslide.  I had a guy from spokane tell me he kept trying to organize a chase but all he could find was 5vv guys smiling and resting up.    
Well that's it.  Maybe now I can move up to the big boy race's.  

ROCKY MOUNTAIN ROUBAIX RESULTS 2008

SR MEN 1/2

 1    Eric Anderson               Vertical Earth

2    Clint Muhlfeld               Sportsman Ski Haus

3    Josh Tack                     Northern Rockies Cycling 

4    Matt Butterfield            Sportsman Ski Haus

5    Jared Nelson                Park City Jeep

6    Eric Greenburg             Flathead Cycling

7    John Curry                   GAS/Intrinsik

8    Mark Knokey                Vertical Earth

9    Mike Gaertner              Vertical Earth

10   Scott Herzig                Montana Velo

11   Brad Morgan               GAS/ Intrinsik

12   Andy Fischer               Hagens Berman

13   Mike Longmire            Northern Rockies Cycling

14   John Weyhrich            5 Valley Velo

15   David Hill                   Vertical Earth

16   Shawn Howard           Vertical Earth

17   Ethan Harrison            Vertical Earth

DNF Justin Hofoldt            Vertical Earth

 SR MEN 3

 1     Gabe Varela              Vertical Earth

2     Ben Parsons             Sportsman Ski Haus

3     Anthony Alelo           EMDE

4     Tim Eylar                 Mountain View Cyclery

5     Marshall Opel           Hammer Nutrition

6     Bill Cochran             Rad Racing

7     Jenni Gaertner         Vertical Earth

8     Bob Presta               Northern Rockies Cycling

9     Tomas Dumbrovsky  GAS/Intrinsik

10   Sabastian White        GAS/Intrinsik

11   Tim Gaertner            Flathead Cycling

12   Michael Sirott       Spokane Rocket Velo

13   Russ Schneider         Flathead Cycling

14   Jason Hobson           Vertical Earth

15   Shaun Radley           Northern Rockies Cycling   

SR MEN 4

1    Elliott Bassett          5 Valley Velo

2    Brendan Halpin          5 Valley Velo

3    Brian Frykman           GAS/Intrinsik

4    Kyle Shannon            5 Valley Velo

5    Erik Digby                 5 Valley Velo

6    Scott Cooley              Spokane Rocket Velo

7    Howard Williams        Great Northern Cycling

8    Jeff Twohig                5 Valley Velo

9    Mikes Key                  5 Valley Velo

10    Toby Meirerbachtol    Northern Rockies Cycling

11    Rick Mattis              Mountain View

12    Alan Jacob               Spokane Rocket Velo

13    Ely Wilkinson           5 Valley Velo

14    Steve Zellmer          Northern Rockies Cycling

15    Willy Zellmer           5 Valley Velo

16    Justin Duke             unattached

17    Lucca Scariano        MJCF

18    Doug Shryock          Northern Rockies Cycling 

19    Don Ruesch             Rimrock United

20    Bill Westphal           Flathead Cycling

21    Dan Gager              5 Valley Velo

22    Corey Hardy           Muletero

DNF  Jesse Ayotte           Emde Sports

SR MEN 5

1    Robert Gillespie         5 Valley Velo

2    Kenton Crook            Vertical Earth

3    Kyle Johnson             unattached

4    Cameron Johnson      unattached

5    Craig Prather             Great Northern Cycling

6    Adam Jensen             5 Valley Velo

7    Tom Sullivan             5 Valley Velo

8    Tyler Smith               unattached

9    Chris Hostetter          R U Racing

10   Greg Larson             5 Valley Velo

11   Pete Thomas            Flathead Cycling

12   Jeremy Dunphy        Northern Rockies Cycling

13   Erik Horn                 Muletero

14   Tim Killea                 unattached

15   Robert Funk            unattached

16   Anthony Purviance    unattached

17   Seth Meyer              Muletero 

18   David Ellenberger     GAS/Intrinsik

DNF  Travis Howard        5 Valley Velo

DNF  James Lainsbury     unattached

DNF  Lonnie Veatch        Spokane Rocket Velo

MASTERS

1     John Fiore                 Montana Velo

2     Drew Schoening        Ridley

3     Rich Graves              Flathead Cycling

4     Albert Pendergrass    Bozeman Masters

5     Mitchell Robinson      GAS/Intrinsik

6     Sten Hertsens           Muletero

7     Reed Gergerson         Flathead Cycling

8     Scott Lenaburg         Northern Rockies Cycling

9     Blair Fisher               Northern Rockies Cycling

10    Richard Strong          Flathead Cycling

11    Bruce Purviance         unattached

12    Kevin Detwiler           5 Valley Velo

DNF  Robert Ray                Team Great Divide

JUNOIRS

1    Travis Monroe             Vertical Earth

2    Joel Kramer                MJCF

3    Chris Cordingley          Montana Velo

WOMEN 1/2/3

1    Lisa Curry                 GAS/Intrinsik

2    Geraldine Carter        Northern Rockies Cycling

DNF  Jessie Ham              unattached

WOMEN 4

1    Danyel Longmire       Northern Rockies Cycling

2    Marjolein Schat          Team Delphine

3    Nadia White              Northern Rockies Cycling

4    Courtney Hill             Vertical Earth

5    Kelly Grove               Northern Rockies Cycling

6    Lara Schulz               Team Delphine

7    Patricia Dowd            Team Delphine

8    Julie Zickovich           Muleltero

9    Jenny Zickovich         Muleltero

10   Sheli Thomas            Flathead Cycling

11   Anna Dingman          Team Delphine

12   Heidi Gaskill             Northern Rockies Cycling 

Rocky Mountain Roubaix - Most Agressive Rider Competition

As a wrap-up to the RM Roubaix we will be having a most aggresive rider award.  The rider can be from any category.  To vote simply click the comment button below this post and write in who you think should win.  You can write the name, or give a couple sentences of why you think this person should win (I'm sure everyone wants to hear a little background story). The winner gets a MT cyclocross t-shirt.  The voting will end this Friday.  Remember the winner could technically win with 2 or 3 votes, so don't pass up the opportunity to recognize a well deserved effort.

Rocky Mountain Roubaix Wrap-Up

Today's race had great weather, and awesome racing. The 1,2,3 race was filled with attacks. Vertical Earth brought a full compliment of riders. They animated the race all day, and eventually took the win with Erik Anderson. He won out of a small group comprised of Clint Muhlfeld, Josh Tack, and one other rider (?). The group got away on the 4th lap and never looked back. GAS chased hard but was unable to the close the gap. As usual flats were prevelant. I flatted on the 3rd lap, and never recovered. With 200 meters left no one could follow Anderson's attack. Muhlfeld and Tack jumped but didn't have anything left. There were lots of good performances. I thought Vertical Earth as a team rode a solid tactical event. Matt Butterfield and Ben Parsons snatched the sprint out of the second group on the road giving the Sportsman's Ski Haus crew a solid day in the dust. One of the youngest riders in the bunch, Gabe from Vertical Earth took the cat 3 prize. I was impressed at Frozen Flatlands and even more impressed today.

In the 4/5 race the triathletes ruled the day. Elliot B broke away for a long awaited solo victory and Brendan Halpin fresh off 3rd at the Griz took 2nd.

Lisa Curry continued her reign from cross season and took the 1,2,3 race, and NRO's Danyel Longmire snatched the cat 4 crown.

John Fiore won the masters race.

With the folks from Spokane and Idaho coming out the turnout was amazing. I don't know the number yet, but it was great to see so many folks. In the end Mulhfeld took home the Montana Leaders Jersey, but has Josh hot on his heels. It should be a good battle.

John Sieber (link on the right), will post photos ASAP. I will let ya'll know when they're up. Also, Tom R took photos and I'll see if I can get hands on those.

Walla Walla is the next weekend.

Check out the latest Velonews. MT Cross was choosen as the feature editorial.

Thanks for the great weekend. Stay tuned for Paris Roubaix wrap-up and thoughts tomorrow.