Redmond, OR – The first stage of the 2009 Cascade Classic was billed as a stage for the sprinters, with the battle for the overall classification not heating up until Wednesday’s first climbing stage. However, warm, windy conditions and some odd race dynamics served to split the field and narrow the list of contenders after the first stage to little more than 10 riders, with all but 21 members of the field nearly five minutes back.

In the end, Chris Baldwin of the OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis took the top points on the day’s one King of the Mountains climb to earn the first KoM jersey of the race. Rory Sutherland finished 5th on the day behind stage winner Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell), who dedicated the win to close friend Chris Hipp, who passed away a week ago when he suffered a pulmonary embolism during a ride.

Baldwin, who finished 8th on the stage, was part of the first move that finally stuck, about a third of the way through the 114km stage.

“Tim (Johnson), Brad (White), Pinner (Andrew Pinfold) and Cam (Evans) had all been following moves the first part of the race,” Baldwin said. “Tim told me to follow one as well, so I jumped on the next move that went and it stuck.”

The group of eight never got too far off the front, holding a gap of around 30 seconds on the peloton over the top of the climb. Despite being represented in the break, BMC didn’t like the makeup of the front group and took up the chase to bring the break back.

Instead, they shattered the peloton, bringing a group of 15 up to the break, including Sutherland and Evans, and creating the winning move.

“It was chaos back there,” Baldwin said. “A lot happened coming through the feed zone. Basically, if you got a feed bag, you didn’t make the split.”

Despite the presence of some top flight sprinters in the winning move, they never got the chance to have a go at it. With 5 km remaining, the group started attacking each other, with the break splintering and reforming.

“Mike (Tamayo, the team directeur sportif) had scouted the finish beforehand, and there was a roller with about 5 km to go,” Baldwin explained. “We planned to attack there. I gave it a nudge, but there was a block headwind and I didn’t get too far. There were a lot of counterattacks., and we really didn’t have a chance to regroup for the finish.”

With 1 km to go, Jacques-Maynes escaped solo and held off the remnants of the break by a handful of seconds. Both Baldwin and Sutherland were in the first group of nine riders just behind Jacques-Maynes, and site 0:20 behind the Bissell rider in the overall standings. Evans came in with the second group and is at 0:38. The peloton arrived nearly five minutes behind the stage winner.

“Overall, I think we got a really good shake out of this one,” Baldwin said. “We have three of us up here. Rory is riding well. I’m feeling good. We’ll see how things go tomorrow.”

The Cascade Classic continues with the 80-mile Three Creeks Road Race, which finishes with a long climb to the Three Creeks Snow Park, gaining more than 2,000 feet of elevation along the way.

Photo: Jonathan Devich