June 08, 2009
Mike Hone wins at Ravensdale-Cumberland Road Race
Ravensdale, WA - From the gun, Mike Hone joined 3 riders to form the early break of an 87 mile road race. The first attack went eary within 5 miles of the roll out. Hone followed Galen Erickson, Trevor Kosa and Dan Mensher. The small group of four rolled off and soon gained a 40 second gap between the peleton.
The course was a rolling course with a small wall of a climb and then the final 1km climb to the finish. The 4 riders continued to create a good momentum and keep the break rolling. The gap between the peleton kept on opening, but still there was plenty of time left in the race to be caught. With 30 miles down, the lead four could still see the ensuing peleton when climbing the wall. The gap was now about 1m 25sec to the field.
On the second lap, at approximately the 65 mile mark, Trevor Kosa cracked and fell out of the break. A small group of two riders were trying to bridge. Ian Mensher and Patrick Stanko were soon to join the lead 3 and form a group of five. With a few more time gaps and a couple more chase groups, the lead four kept on rolling to the finish. Now with two Gin Optics riders, Dan Mensher and Patrick Stanko fireworks were about to begin with the final 6 miles. The group knew they would not be caught by now. Galen Erickson initiated the first attack, the Gin Optics team had to be the aggressors since they had the advantage in the break. Erickson attacked with 5 miles to go on the short climb at the beginning of the final circuit. Hone had to counter and follow. Both Hone and Stanko had to continue to shut down multiple attacks from the Gin riders.
Gin Optics were never able to break away in the final stages of the 87 mile race. Hone and Stanko had worked well to shut the two riders down. Hone led into the final corner of the race. It was a steep climb to the finish of the final 1km finish. Immediately, Galen Erickson attacked again, Mike Hone had to react and bridged across to Erickson on the first part of the climb. Once Hone had caught Erickson, Hone attacked and kept on going. It was about 700 meters to go. Mensher had cracked and was not able to follow Hone's wheel. With 200 meters to go, Hone knew he had won and took his 2nd win of the year. The long break finally worked again and it was a great Lenovo win.
Shawn Ongers who has recently returned from injury placed 7th. He was in the chase group and was close at bridging to the lead group. Jeff Goodwin obtained a solid performance with 11th while Dakin Bell and Brian Hall both finished with the pack.
