UnitedHealthcare Presented by Maxxis delivers one-two punch to Cascade peloton; De Maar takes the stage, Sutherland takes the overall lead.

Bend, OR – Marc de Maar and Rory Sutherland of the UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis are turning into a pretty effective two-pronged attack.

In the opening road stage of the Cascade classic, the two former Rabobank teammates attacked out of a splintering peloton with a few kilometers left on the climb to the finish at Three Creeks Snow Park, with only Fly V Australia’s Darren Lill able to follow. In the end, de Maar’s final-sprint attack netted him the stage win by a second, while Sutherland took the second spot on the stage and the all-important yellow leader’s jersey in the process. The win also moved de Maar up into 2nd overall from 29th after the prologue.

“It’s just like in the old days,” said de Maar, who was sporting his newly-earned Dutch Antilles national champion’s jersey for the first time in a road race.

“Marc and I raced together for a couple years on the Rabobank continental team,” Sutherland added. “We come out of the same school of thought and we know how to race together. Our styles compliment one another.”

Today’s Mackenzie Pass Road Race featured a re-vamped course, which offered up the climb over Mackenzie Pass after starting with about 40 km of mostly flats or downhill. The stage finished with a 16 km climb to Three Creeks at the end of the roughly 120 km route that delivered over 7,000 feet of climbing.

“The team rode great today,” Sutherland said. “The first 40 km, we covered moves And made sure we were in anything that went up the road.”

That included Brad White’s presence in the first break of the day to gain any traction. When that came back, a second move of four riders got away, with de Maar and Lill later bridging across. That move came back as well, but one final move got off the front, with Matt Crane representing UnitedHealthcare Presented by Maxxis.

The effort of the final climb combined with stomach issues unhitched Crane from the front group. At that point, UnitedHealthcare Presented by Maxxis put in a serious effort to chase down the break.

When the front group was about to get caught, de Maar and Sutherland launched their winning attack, with Lill in tow, finishing the job of fracturing the peloton and creating a serious sorting at the top of the general classification.

“Today was one of the hardest stages so far in the U.S. this year,” de Maar said. “It always hurts a bit more coming back after a break. You have to get used to the higher heart rate again. But the prologue helped open things up a bit and today was good.”

Sutherland agreed with de Maar’s assessment of the difficulty of today’s stage. “The bunch really raced the Mackenzie Pass climb in the middle of the stage which was a bit of a surprise, but also good for us because it softened up some legs a bit,” he said. “When it came down to the final climb, the boys did a good job of getting us to where we needed to be.”

The UnitedHealthcare Presented by Maxxis duo now goes into the Stage 2 Skyliners Time Trial with at least a small cushion on most of the field.

“There should be some good gaps for the TT tomorrow,” Sutherland said. “We’re both confident about the TT. We know the course, and we’ll just give it our best and see what happens.”