Written by: Cynthia Lou

The Bahati Foundation’s Yosvany Falcon keeps the win in the family at the 49th Annual Manhattan Beach Grand Prix. Rounding out the podium are Bernie Sulzberger (Fly V Australia) and Diego Yepez (Bike Religion).

The crowds were tame as a break of 10 riders slipped out at just two laps into the 75 minute, 1.4 mile course on rolling terrain that included a 7% rolling terrain climb. Could such an early break stick?

It seemed that not even the riders in the break thought it would stick. Yet over approximately 5 laps the break opened up a 1’ 40“ gap before the peloton started to reel it back. The break dangled between 1’ and 1’ 30” until about 13 laps to go. At 10 laps to go a chase group of four made it to 30 seconds behind the break with the peloton 1’ 35“ back and more chasers in between.

With 8 laps remaining the peloton was strung out, swallowing up the chase groups and closing the gap to just 40 seconds. The crowds watched to see if the break would be brought back, as the break kept driving the tempo.

”It was hard out there!“ said Victor Ayala (Herbalife LaGrange), who was part of the 10-man break and finished fifth.

”I called it [the early breakaway] in the team meeting,“ said Rahsaan Bahati (Bahati Foundation). ”I had a feeling it was going to happen that way and it did, so, no surprise at all. The dynamic of who was here, the field wasn’t as strong as previous years.“

”We had a guy in the break, Yosvany, who just finished a race in Wisconsin where he won the stage on Thursday. Just gotta go with the flow, can’t always have a field sprint. In the end it worked because I’m in the field. It gives him an opportunity to ride in a break and just sit there, without doing any work. When the guys in the break say, ‘Hey, Yosvany, you have to help us,’ he can say, ‘No, I have Bahati back there.’ So it’s a perfect scenario.“

”I knew I was going to be in the breakaway,“ said Sulzberger. ”It’s never stayed away, at least, for a long time. I was feeling strong. Falcon managed to get the win, he was pretty fresh there at the end. But still it’s not a bad result for us. It’s my first time here, and we just had three guys. It’s good to be on the podium.“

For Falcon, a former Cuban National Team member, this NRC win just three days after his 31st birthday marked a different kind of first: ”This is my first time to California, and I won a race!“

”Of course I wanted to win,“ said Bahati, ”but, it’s great that the team won. I would have been disappointed if another team won.“

Photo credit: Brian Hodes (VeloImages.com)