Hood River, OR – Chris Baldwin of the OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented came into the final stage of the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic Sunday needing to make up a 13-second gap to race leader Paul Mach (Bissell). But the tight, windy 1 km course provided little opportunity for the team’s newest member to escape and put time on Mach.

“It’s a bit frustrating not to capitalize on the small margin,” he said. Instead, Baldwin finished in the main pack and easily preserved 2nd place overall.

The day before, on the Wy’East Road Race, Hood’s queen stage, Baldwin was aggressive in trying to shake Mach to close down what was then a 15-second gap. Baldwin had help from teammate Roman Kilun in setting up attacks going into the final climb, but with the team’s third rider, Jonathan Chodroff, out of the race after being taken out in a crash, Baldwin was on the wrong end of a numbers game with Bissell. He put in several attacks near the end of the finishing climb trying to dislodge the young Bissell rider from his wheel. But at the stage’s end, he was unable to get away, settling for second place on the stage just ahead of Mach.

“They got a bit of time on me during the first road stage Thursday, and Mach was able to do a really strong time trial the next day,” Baldwin said. So strong that the two-time national time trial champion was only able to gain three seconds on the Bissell rider despite winning the stage. “On Saturday, all he had to do was follow my wheel. Give him credit. He rode a strong, smart race.”

Though he was frustrated with finishing 2nd, overall Baldwin was pleasantly surprised with how well the race went. He finished with one stage win, a 2nd place and a 3rd place, to go along with Chodroff’s 3rd place in the time trial.

“When I first talked to Mike (Tamayo, OUCH Presented by Maxxis directeur sportif), we looked at this race as more for training,” Baldwin said. “I didn’t know how I was going to feel with the new equipment. That’s a really personal thing. The first road stage was only the second ride I did on my new Kuota, and the first one was for about an hour the evening before. Some guys can get on a new bike and just go. I’m at the other end of the spectrum. I’ve very finicky.

“But I like adjusting to new stuff during a race,” he added. “You don’t think about it as much because you’re more focused on the racing. And as the race went on, we started thinking more about winning it. I think we were just outnumbered a bit.”

Pinfold takes 10th in Philly.

On the other end of the country, Andrew Pinfold of OUCH Presented by Maxxis sprinted to 10th place in the Philadelphia International Cycling Classic Sunday. Overall, the team rode a strong race despite incurring a bit of bad luck.

Two of the team’s top candidates to contest a sprint finish were taken down in a crash on just the second of the 10 full laps the race covered. Both Karl Menzies and John Murphy were caught up in the crash, with Menzies’ bike breaking.

Both riders got bike changes and Menzies was able to reintegrate into the back fairly quickly, but Murphy had to chase a bit longer to get back in.

“The crash happened when there was still over 100 miles left in the race,” said team directeur sportif Mike Tamayo. “They were both able to get back in but that can take a lot out of you at the end of over six hours of racing.”

The team was active throughout the race, with Floyd Landis finding himself in a 15-rider move that went off about a third of the way through the 156-mile race.

“Columbia-Highroad had four guys in the move with Floyd,” Tamayo said. “It was just too many guys so we sent Tim Johnson and Brad White to the front to help bring it back.”

A later break of three riders allowed the peloton to settle down a bit. But when the remnants of that move were finally reeled in during the first of the three short laps that included the climb over Lemon Hill, Columbia took control of the race.

Despite traversing the infamous Manayunk Wall 10 times and doing a lot of chasing work, OUCH Presented by Maxxis was still well-represented in the main bunch of 60 or so riders that came into the final lap together.

“We had Pinfold up there with Rory (Sutherland), Karl, Murph, Floyd and Pat (McCarty),” Tamayo said. “We were starting to line it up for Pinner coming into Logan Circle and there was another crash that disrupted things for us. It was just one of those days where we had more than our share of bad luck.”