Saturday’s Tour de Delta Ladner Men’s Criterium featured a bit of everything to see. The large crowd in the traditional fishing village saw a two-rider breakaway which looked like it might stick, thrilling crashes, and an exhilarating sprint to the finish line.
At the end of the bedlam, US National Criterium champion Travis McCabe stood tall, edging past Kiwi Campbell Stewart on the last straightaway to claim the title in the 60-lap, 54 kilometre race.
“It was a pretty chaotic race, there were crashes on so many laps, it was a lot of fighting and a lot of hard racing the entire time. The German riders up front were just monsters so I think you saw the strong teams committing - the teams who thought they could win. Us, New Zealand, Elevate-KHS... we timed it to perfection,” the 30-year-old from Denver, Colorado explained. “We've got our lead out down, we dialed it in and I think it showed - it was really a pitch perfect race for us. My teammate Emile (Jean) dropped me off in perfect position and I had the legs to finish. It's great to win here."
It was a gritty race that saw riders contact each other at times and really attack aggressively to try for the win. It’s something McCabe wasn’t surprised by. "When it comes into the finish, everyone's going at much higher speeds and not everyone can win, so you have teams like ourselves - I'm the designated sprinter trying to win against five other teams with designated sprinters. It just ends up like one sprint after another sprint after another sprint until there's no one left."
Stewart, who is a four-time junior track world champion, stayed clear of the crashes and was quick to throw praise at his teammates for getting him on the podium. "The guys did a great job, we had Tom Sexton and Jordan Kerby on the front all day just dropping off with a few of the other teams. It was a controlled race to a certain extent up at the front, but there was a bit of chaos off the back."
There were several crashes, including one with 18 laps to go that saw the race stopped. At the time, Ed Veal of Real Deal Racing and independent German rider Leon Echtermann had a breakaway with a 15-second lead. At one point, the gap was as much as 30 seconds. The stoppage may have helped the peloton and halted Veal and Echtermann’s rhythm. "For us it might have been a nice little rest to stop and then go again. It just means we had to think of a different strategy to make sure that we got the rest,” described Campbell. “I know a couple of guys off the front were strong, but we've got some diesels here on the team and they worked it out really well, but just couldn't get on the line."
In third place was Samuel Bassetti from Elevate-KHS Pro Cycling. It’s the second straight podium for the Santa Rosa, California resident at BC Superweek after he was second in Friday’s Tour de Delta North Delta Criterium to kick off the nine race, 10-day series.
