Written and reported by Logan Jones-Wilkins.
Aline Seitz and Maurice Ballerstedt won the ACC individual titles at the Giro Della Montagna, the third day of the Bommarito Audi West Gateway Cup. Richard Holec and Josephine Peloquin took wins on the day as the ACC wrapped up its six stop series.
Peloquin (LA Sweat) found her way into a late race move with Shannon Koch and Alexandrine Obrand. The trio quickly built a 20 plus second lead and the gap proved to be sticky despite Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty28 pulling hard to try to bring things back together. In the end, there was enough of a gap for the three up front to play games ahead of the sprint. Peloquin launched first and it was enough to take her first ACC win of the year.
Aline Seitz (UTC Butcherbox) clinched the overall individual title with a top ten finish in St. Louis. Andrea Cyr (Fount Cycling Guild) finished second overall and also took second in the green jersey right behind Rylee McMullen, whose Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty28 won the team classification.
The men’s race was decided on a late breaking solo move from Richard Holec (Cadence Cyclery) who powered away on the final climb with a few corners left to race. He stole the march on the rest of the top ACC contenders who were looking at each other as the overall title was yet to be decided. Nevertheless, Holec won his second ACC race of the year which was Cadence Cyclery’s fourth race win, netting them the season long team title.
Maurice Ballerstedt came out on top with a second place finish behind Holec, clinching the red jersey in the hectic final. Brody McDonald (Golden State Blazers) closed quickly and rounded off the podium, grabbing second in the ACC overall in the process. Danny Summerhill (L39ion of Los Angeles) was third overall in the ACC standings and narrowly missed out on the green jersey to Owen Gillott (Chaney Windows and Doors Pastaria) who took the final ACC sprint to win it.
Cadence Cyclery took the teams classification with wins at four out of the six race days.
Richard Holec makes it four for seven for Cadence
Photo courtesy of Richard Jefferson III
The men’s race was the one with the most to play for heading into the final night showdown in St. Louis. Heading into the event, the race was poised to be a tale of two races with the race for the win on one hand, and the culmination of the season-long ACC showdown between Maurice Ballerstedt, Danny Summerhill, Brody McDonald, and Lucas Bourgoyne on the other.
The test at The Hill is a one-mile, four corner showdown with a drag up the back stretch to turn three. It is pure high speed criterium racing to culminate the season with a thriller in front of an Italian tinged crowd in one of America’s oldest Italian neighborhoods.
When the pressure is turned up in these kinds of races, the action is a constant push and pull without any real moves materializing off the front. Team Medellin was a main protagonist, as they have been all week, cleaning up all of the primes on offer as the laps ticked by.
The first big action of the race came halfway through at the ACC mid race sprint prime. That season-long competition for the green jersey has been a constant battle between Danny Summerhill and Owen Gillott. The two were tied in points heading into the night, with Summerhill holding the tie break, but it was still hanging in the balance. A small move with five riders stole away right before the prime, which threatened to give the win to Summerhill with no points left for the field sprint. Nevertheless, Gillott and his Chaney Windows and Doors Pastaria team put riders to the front and brought the race all back together to go for the full points. Summerhill had impromptu help from his former teammate Daniel Holloway, but in the end it wasn’t enough as Gillott was perfectly placed and launched a massive sprint to take the prime and the overall green jersey.
After the mid race sprint the race reset and seemed poised for a sprint. Moves kept going, but they never made it far, as the constant shuffling continued to keep the pace high in the group behind. With five laps to go, it looked all but certain to be down to the final lap.
Through the bell all the sprinters were accounted for as the top men found their leadouts and tried to find the right line heading into the key back stretch up the Hill. One of those riders slid out on the outside of turn two. That crash disrupted the peloton, reducing the sprint field to around 25 riders at the base of the final rise. On the front, Richard Holec hit the gas, setting up his sprinter Lucas Bourgoyne who let the wheel go behind him. That small gap quickly turned into a larger gap as no one made the quick jump around Bourgoyne and Holec took the opportunity with both hands, sprinting up to turn three.
With a gap of a few meters turning into one of a few seconds, Holec kept on the gas and cruised to an early celebration of his second straight ACC race win of the late-season after winning the sprint at Chicago Grit. Maurice Ballerstedt, always patient and lurking in the wings, cleaned up the field sprint behind with a perfectly timed run to second place, clinching the ACC overall win. Brody McDonald closed fast for third, which also meant he jumped Summerhill in the final ACC rankings giving him second on the year.
”Today was a pretty lucky day, I wasn’t planning on that but I am stoked on the outcome,” Holec said after the race.
“I see when people hesitate behind me and once I see that gap open up I try to take it to the line because people need to punch back up to me, or I just keep it lined out to the finish so Lucas can sit like three riders back and let others close me down.”
Photo courtesy of Marcus Janzow
Men’s results:
- Richard Holec — Cadence Cyclery
- Maurice Ballerstedt — Rose Bikes
- Brody McDonald — Golden State Blazers
- Bryan Gomez — Kingdom Elite
- Cesar Marte — Fusion Cycling Team
- Alvaro Hodeg — Team Medellin
- Danny Summerhill — L39ion of Los Angeles
- Preston Eye — Team Flicker
- Brandon Feehery — South Chicago Wheelmen
- Dusan Kalaba — Parks Law Firm All Stars
Men’s ACC overall standings
- Maurice Ballerstedt — Rose Bikes — 189 points
- Brody McDonald — Golden State Blazers — 178
- Danny Summerhill — L39ion of Los Angeles — 174
- Lucas Bourgoyne — Cadence Cyclery — 157
- Dusan Kalaba — Parks Law Firm All Stars — 145
- Richard Holec — Cadence Cyclery — 100
- Tim Smith — Chaney Windows and Doors Pasteria — 56
- Luke Fetzer — Cadence Cyclery — 51
- Bryan Gomez — Kingdom Elite — 49
- Preston Eye — Team Flicker — 46
Men’s ACC sprint classification
- Danny Summerhill — L39ion and Los Angeles — 26
- Owen Gillott — Chaney Windows and Doors Pasteria — 27 points
Men’s ACC team standings
- Cadence Cyclery — 327 points
- Golden State Blazers — 196
- L39ion of Los Angeles — 184
Josephine Peloquin grabs the win from the breakaway
Photo courtesy of Richard Jefferson III
For the women, the ACC overall individual win was all but settled heading into the final race as Aline Seitz had a hefty buffer over her closest competition. Nevertheless, with the team classification still left to be decided between UTC Butcherbox and Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty28, and one of the last big criterium prizes of the season up for grabs at the Giro Della Montagna, there was plenty at stake to make great racing.
As the race got underway, what became clear was the big push and pull of the action would run through the top team and top favorite. Marlies Mejias and her Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty28 team would be the ones to mark, but also the riders saddled with controlling the attacks that would surely come from the likes of LA Sweat, Kingdom Elite, Fount Cycling Guild, and UTC Butcherbox.
That control was rock solid for the first half of the race as Virginia’s Blue Ridge were consistently looking to snuff out any attacks that could take some of the points away from the mid race ACC sprint point. With their own Rylee McMullen in the pole position to take the green jersey if she finished in the points in St. Louis.
A crash right before the midway point disrupted the action for a few minutes, but after the race got back underway the dark blue jerseys of the team went right back to the front to continue to marshall the action as the race hit its halfway point. In the sprint, McMullen was in the right place at the right time, but was jumped by a flying Andrea Cyr who sunk by on the left side to grab full points. It wasn’t enough to steal the green jersey from McMullen, but it did signify the moment where things started to go against the ambitions of the Virginia Blue Ridge train.
Quickly following the sprint for green, a group of three forged clear from the peloton with very strong riders. Not only was Shannon Koch (Kingdom Elite) there to drive the pace as she has done with so many breakaways this season, but so too was the Canadian national champion Josephine Peloquin and her compatriot Alexandrine Obrand (Golden State Blazers). The three riders immediately found their cohesion and with ten laps to go had a gap of over twenty seconds. Mejias herself began to chase, along with the likes of Laurel Rathbun and riders from Cyr’s Fount Cycling Guild, but it looked to lack the determination needed to bring back the committed trio out front.
Through the bell it was clear the podium would come from those off the front. The classic late race posturing followed before Peloquin launched early and powered through to a commanding win ahead of Koch and Obrand. Seitz finished safely in the group behind to take the overall ACC win.
“I didn’t know if we were going to make it,” Peloquin said after the finish. “We had a gap but you really never know.
“I like this course a lot, [the hill] makes it harder. I love that because it is nice to have the freedom to race the way I want and go into the breakaway so I really enjoy this race.”
Photo courtesy of Marcus Janzow
Giro della Montagna top ten
- Josephine Peloquin — LA Sweat
- Shannon Koch — Kingdom Elite
- Alexandrine Obrand —- Golden State Blazers
- Justine Thomas — Kingdom Elite
- Laurel Rathbun — Cadence Cyclery
- Rylee McMullen — Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty28
- Megan Sybeldon — KRT QRT Racing
- Sam Quijano — Ride or Die Racing
- Andrea Cyr — Fount Cycling guild
- Holly Breck — L39ion of Los Angeles
Women’s ACC final overall standings
- Aline Seitz — UTC Butcherbox Cycling — 176 points
- Andrea Cyr — Fount Cycling Guild — 155
- Rylee McMullen — Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty28 — 129
- Kendall Ryan — L39ion of Los Angeles — 110
- Josephine Peloquin — LA Sweat — 89
- Marlies Mejias — Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty28 — 87
- Makayla MacPherson — CCB p/b Levine Law — 82
- Odette Lynch — Fearless Femme Racing — 66
- Sam Quijano — Ride or Die Racing — 60
- Jenna Nestman — Kingdom Elite Racing — 59
Women’s ACC sprint standings
- Rylee McMullen — Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty28 — 17 points
- Andrea Cyr — Fount Cycling Guild — 14
- Sofia Arreola — Virginai’s Blue Ridge Twenty28 — 11
Women’s team standings
- Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty28 — 290 points
- UTC Butcherbox Cycling — 268
- Fount Cycling Guild — 205
Photo courtesy of Richard Jefferson III
