By John Bohnenkamp
Cade Bickmore’s yell of victory could be heard over the crowd, and the roar of the speeding pack coming to the finish line of Saturday’s Snake Alley Criterium Men’s 1-2-Pro race.
Bickmore timed his sprint perfectly, getting to the line first for his second win of the two-day event in Burlington.
“It’s just pure ecstasy,” Bickmore said. “Such a rush.”
The hour-long race was a cat-and-mouse game that Bickmore had sort of anticipated, and once “Plan B,” as he called it, was instituted, it gave a large pack of riders a chance as they raced down North Fourth Street toward the finish line.
Bickmore won the Friday Night Fever race with a sprint, so he was confident if given the opportunity again, he would be successful. It’s why he didn’t push the pace early.
“I got the job done yesterday, so that was a big motivator for me to wait for a sprint, and not use too much energy to whittle down the field,” Bickmore said.
“And it worked out pretty well.”
On a day when a lot of winners broke away early and controlled their respective races, it was a little nerve-wracking for this field of 61 riders when Kyle Perry of the Texas Roadhouse team surged to an early lead that had everyone — well, everyone except his Roadhouse teammates — working together to chase him down.
“There was a Roadhouse rider out in front early in the race, and that was looking a little bit dangerous, so I had to do a little more work with the pack to help close that down,” Bickmore said.
“It put Texas Roadhouse in the driver’s seat. I was on that team last year, and we did the same thing, so I kind of expected that from them. I knew what their game plan was. The goal was not to let one of the solo riders from that team go away like that. It definitely made us have to go to Plan B.“Once we got more tired, it was looking more dangerous, because he already had time on us, and everybody was getting tired at the same rate. So I think we started working together a little bit, across teams, because it was in our best interest.”
Perry did come back to the field — he ended up finishing 20th — and Bickmore was the fastest at the end.
“There was a rider out front, and everybody was kind of looking at each other because they didn’t want to be the first one to lead the sprint,” Bickmore said of the turn onto North Fourth Street. “I took a gamble, waited and waited, knew someone else was going to bite the beat and lead out the sprint. I think I timed it perfectly and was able to get the job done.”
“I tried to be more patient this time, but Cade just had a better sprint,” said Jeremiah Stoller, who finished second to Bickmore on Friday. “It was more about survival, making sure no one got too big of a gap. The end was just a big washing machine.
“It’s just trying to not miss opportunities when people jump. Cade’s pretty good at timing his sprint right.”
Elias Saigh and Harry Lasker put on their own show in the Category 3 race, pulling away from the field early and then putting on a sprint at the end that Saigh won.
Saigh and Lasker had a big lead right away and alternated between first and second place throughout the race to save energy.
The original plan was for the two Adapt ChemStation teammates to cross the finish line together, arms raised at the same time.
“We came through the last corner, and Harry was like, ‘What should we do?’” Saigh said, smiling. “I was like, let’s both post up (celebrating at the line). So we were halfway down the straight, and he was like, ‘I can win, right?’ So I was like, ‘Let’s sprint.’ Then he said, ‘Let’s not sprint,’ and started sprinting.”Caden Budd finished third, giving Adapt ChemStation a sweep of the podium spots.
Other winners on the day:
• Cory Flood won the Category 4 race.
• Joseph Tabor won the Category 5 race.
• Henry Flentye won the Junior 13-14.
• Kash Adamski was the Junior 15-16 winner.
•Jonathan Meyer won the Junior 17-18 winner.
• Cormac Leary won the Junior 9-12 race.
• Jonathan Card won the Masters 40-plus race.
• Aaron Drevlow won the Masters 50-plus race.
• Ron Hagen won the Masters 60-plus race.