By John Bohnenkamp
Cade Bickmore just came off a four-day stage race, so a 45-minute race through the neighborhoods near downtown Burlington seemed easy.
Bickmore repeated as the winner of the Friday Night Fever Men’s Category 1-2 & Pro race, kicking off the Snake Alley Criterium weekend in Burlington.
Bickmore held off Jeremiah Stoller and Derrick Chavarria on the sprint down North Fifth Street for the winner, duplicating his victory from last year.
It was a different strategy this time for Bickmore.
“Last year, I was looking a little bit more for a breakaway,” Bickmore said. “This year I was more confident in the sprint at the end. This year. I let my teammates kind of control the race, and then they had trust in me to finish it off at the end of the sprint.”
The lead pack stuck together throughout the 45-minute event, although Bickmore did have one charge to the front late in the race.
Bickmore, part of the Project Echelon Racing team, was coming off the Walmart Joe Martin Stage Race in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a four-day event where the stages are long.
“Actually, this is very short compared to the racing I’ve been doing this year,” Bickmore said. “I’m coming off a four-day stage race where each day was, like, three or four hours. So, the 45-minute stuff is definitely different. It’s not easier, it’s just a different race strategy. It’s a lot more aggressive when it’s this short because people are able to keep doing those efforts more and more because we’re used to longer races.”
The North Fifth Street straightaway is a bit of a downhill, which was perfect for Bickmore.
“It was really to be patient on this downhill,” Bickmore said of his strategy. “It’s really fast and you get a lot of advantages sitting in the draft of other riders. So, being able to sit there and then slingshot off in the last 200 meters was really important.”
Caden Budd, right, and teammate Joaquin Medina, left raises their arms on their way to placing first and second respectively during the Friday Night Fever Criterium Mens Cat 3 race, Friday, May 26, in Burlington. The Friday Night Fever Criterium was a new event in 2022 that replaced the previous Burlington Road Race.
Stoller, with the Nashville Local team, had a similar strategy.
“We were just trying to ride as a team, get into a break if we could,” Stoller said. “But it came down to the sprint. The whole team tried to help me get to the line first, but I went a little too early. Came up second.”
Stoller was making his first visit to Burlington.
“You kind of figure (the course) out,” Stoller said. “It’s not super technical, just figure out the bumps.”
The Memorial Day weekend for the Project Echelon team, a non-profit organization that works with veterans.
“This is a good way to start out for us,” Bickmore said.
In the other men’s races: Caden Bodd of Wrightown, Wisconsin won the Category 3 race. Joaquin Medina of Glendale, Wis., was second, Dean Abt of Chicago won the Masters 60+, with Scott Wall finishing second. Brian Koeneman of Minneapolis won the Masters 50+. Kash Adamski of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan won the Category 4 race. Paul Zdon of Chicago was second. Andrew Weidner of Waterloo won the Category 5 race. Joseph Taber of Moline, Ill., was second, and Aron Kehoe of Burlington was third.
