Green Mountain Stage Race: Stage 3 - Criterium
Burlington, VT – The final day of racing was a challenging 6 corner criterium through downtown Burlington, Vermont. The course is tight with a small hill that slowly wears riders down lap after lap, the race includes the famous brick-paved pedestrian-only Church Street, flanked on both sides by restaurants with sidewalk seating.
Just 86 riders started the crit of the original 93 in the Category 3 field; John Broussard, Scott Brooks, Justin Howe, and Mark Theeman lined up near the front for what would be a hotly contested hole shot. Broussard spent much of the early laps going for Sprint points and the GC Sprints, picking up a 3 second GC Time Bonus; energy well spent. After a few laps of recovery the field watched four riders launch off the front, but the field seemed to hesitate as none of the GC contenders seemed too worried about the riders off the front posing a real threat to the top of the classification.
Broussard took advantage of the opportunity and bridged the gap with another rider to make the break 6 riders strong and really start to put time into the field gaining an advantage of nearly 40 seconds with help from the remaining NEBC/Cycle Loft/Devonshire Dental riders still in the field. With one to go Chris Hamlin (Bliss Racing) attacked the break of 6 through the start-finish line and no one responded, Broussard moved his way up to 2nd wheel on the twisty back side of the course, before taking the lead on the downhill coming into the final corner. John was able to hold off all but one of his remaining break away companions for 2nd in the sprint and 3rd overall! The entire team was able to finish in the front half of remaining field Brooks was 18th, Theeman was 29th, and Howe was 33rd. With the results from the Crit, Broussard moved up to 22nd in GC, and 5th in the Sprint classification.
The NEBC/Cycle Loft/Devonshire Dental Cat 2 team had a simple goal: get Peter Bradshaw through the entire race. If Peter could finish with the front group in the crit then he’d be assured of a good GC, and so Roy Van Cleef would do whatever he could to keep Peter safe and toward the front.
And that’s how it played out: lap after lap of Roy leading Peter, reconnecting when they got separated. There was a tense moment when a crash held up a chunk of the field, including Peter, but free laps were taken and everyone got back into the peloton. The rest of the race was fast and exciting but safe enough, and Roy and Peter both saw the finish line and the same time as the field, finishing 39th and 48th out of 95 finishers respectively. Due to large numbers of riders being shelled or gapped off, Peter’s GC climbed to 26th, and Roy’s to 91st.
Photos courtesy of Geoff Martin