After four days of racing, the overall winners were Kristin McGrath and Jeremy Powers, whose team affiliations have a wonderful gustatory symmetry - teams Peanut Butter and Jelly Belly, respectively. In both cases, the victories came as somewhat of a surprise.
Among the men, the big hitter was supposed to be Ted King, who rides the European professional circuit for the Cervelo Test team. Even on his own Jelly Belly team, Powers was something of a second fiddle. Teammate Will Routley had the star power, having just won the Canadian national championships, and Powers is better known as a marquee name in cyclocross, the hybrid sport of road racing and mountain biking contested later during the fall season.
EARLY BOMB
King dropped an early bomb on the rest of the field by detonating the course record for the Stage 1 time trial. He made scary fast work of the 5.7-mile ride from Warren up Brook Road and along East Warren Road in a time of 13 minutes, 22 seconds, almost 20 seconds ahead of the next-fastest racer. In cycling terms, that's like winning a baseball game by 10 runs. King had apparently made an emphatic statement: King was going to be king of this race.
Although Reid Mumford of the Kelly Benefits Strategy team won the Stage 2 circuit race around the Route 100-Route 2-Route 100B loop through Duxbury and Moretown, King stayed comfortably with the lead group and secured for a second day the yellow jersey awarded to the overall leader. He then handed the jersey off to one of the race organizers for laundering; he didn't want to go around wearing the same sweaty jersey for four days in a race he planned to lead right through to the finish on Monday.
SUNDAY'S RACE
But then came Sunday's hilly road race, over Middlebury Gap and finishing at the top of App Gap, where a steady 40 mph wind was waging war on the equilibrium of spectators and riders alike. Powers slipped into a decisive three-man breakaway, and King, apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time, missed the move and found himself about three minutes arrears.
The stage went to Canadian David Veilleux, the recent winner of the U.S. national criterium championships. Veilleux had been several minutes late getting to the start of Friday's time trial but compensated by getting to the finish of Stage 3 several minutes before anyone but Powers and third-place rider Will Dugan. Second was good enough to put Powers in the yellow leader's jersey, and not even the king was going to take it from him. All the new leader had to do was stay with the pack in the final Stage 4 criterium in Burlington, eventually won by Jake Keough of the United Heathcare team.
BACK IN ACTION
McGrath is a proven talent on the national scene, but she didn't necessarily come to the GMSR as a race favorite. This was her first race back in action after basically getting run over by a truck, resulting in a broken femur and other damaged body parts. Along with Peanut Butter and Company teammate Olivia Dillon, she appeared to have a mighty challenge on her hands against, among others, a strong Team Danbury Audi squad led by Janel Holcomb and Kathleen Billington. But, in the Stage 1 time trial, McGrath immediately proved that she had put the whole truck business far away into the past tense, winning the stage by a margin even larger than King's. Dillon hung on for fourth place, despite gear-shifting problems that slowed her late in the race.
Holcomb took the Saturday circuit race, but she couldn't separate herself from McGrath and Dillon, who were right behind her in second and third place, respectively. Then came the war of the winds up App Gap on Sunday, and this time it was Dillon's turn to be tops on the podium, with McGrath a close second and Holcomb now far back. Dare it be said? - it appeared that the overall win for Team Peanut Butter had jelled. No one had a chance to catch McGrath or Dillon in the final criterium, won by Team Tibco's Megan Guarnier, just a sliver of a second ahead of the Peanut Butter girls. The final, overall podium: McGrath in first, followed by Dillon and Team Kenda's Anna McLoon.
OTHER GREAT RACERS
Focusing on the elite fields in the GMSR, however, often diverts worthy attention from some great racing elsewhere, especially the efforts of local riders. Jessie Donavan, who officially lives in Charlotte but spends much time with her family in The Valley, didn't win the Women's 3/4 race - she was second overall to QCW Cycling's Kacy Wander - but it was Donavan who seemed constantly to be animating the action.
Here is a woman who barely tips the scales over 100 pounds and whose total body fat is approximately equivalent to the amount in the average human thumb. She has given birth to three lovely young children, and some would say that childbirth is the rough equivalent of getting run over by a truck - in Jessie's case, three times.
But not only was Donavan on the podium in the first three stages, she was a surprise winner of the Stage 4 criterium. And being a woman with an insatiable aerobic appetite, she was spotted after the Stage 2 circuit race in her running gear. In preparation for a triathlon this coming weekend, she tossed in a mid-GMSR five-mile run to be sure that pint-sized cardiovascular unit was kept firing on all cylinders.
Local boys Bob Dillon (related to Olivia only by the coincidence of name) and Marc Hammond, racing in the men's 4/5 field, weren't quite so aerobically devoted (or nutty) as to attempt any running between race stages, and both acquitted themselves admirably. Going against riders who in many cases were less than half their age(s), Dillon and Hammond beat enough of the young punks to prove that to be a strong bike racer you don't have to be young, you just have to be good.
One decade now in the books. Now only the gods of cycling who can peer into the future know how much PB&J will re-emerge in GMSRs to come. Full results can be viewed at gmsr.info.
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