By David Quist

Pre-Coffee Race Report – Redlands Crit
Saturday, March 25th, 2006

–More Benjis for da bus in the Beaver Medical Group Criterium—

Great course for this crit, an uber-technical nonagon of insanity. I mean, think about it: 90 minutes of racing…maybe 40 laps, with 9 corners, that’s some 360 out of the saddle sprints to look forward to. I pretty much expected to be hanging on for dear life to make the time cut. But it wasn’t as bad as I expected, and it was pretty easy to move up the corners, as the field was well populated with Northwesterners. (more…)

With the race shortened to only 3 days, riders had extra fresh legs for today’s Sunset Loop stage. The pace shattered the field with only a select, 30-some group of riders surviving to the finishing circuits. Despite the aggressive riding, Health Net did excellent work keeping the attacks in check, and delivered O’Neill safely to the line in yellow. JJ Haedo made up for yesterday’s missed opportunity and took home the stage win for Toyota-United.

Full results coming.