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BISBEE — Gregorio Vega’s bid to lead the 30th La Vuelta de Bisbee wire-to-wire is still in tact. But heading into today’s final stage, he has more company than might have been expected after his team’s dominant showing in Friday’s prologue put six Tecos riders in the top eight.
Wearing the yellow jersey, Vega turned around to look behind him just before he crossed the finish line. He saw a handful of riders, led by 21-year-old Kiel Reijnen finishing on his heels in the 79-mile Sulphur Springs Road Race Saturday morning.
That afternoon, Vega dropped another six seconds to Reijnen and 15 to Warren Time Trial winner Ryan Blicken of Landis-Trek to hold a 21-second lead heading into the final stage.
“A couple of guys attacked really hard,” Vega said through interpretor and teammate Fausto Muñoz. “The whole team is partners and that’s really important. Thanks to the whole team, they really worked hard.”
  
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Muñoz sits in third overall heading to this morning’s Tombstone Road Race which will begin in Old Bisbee at 8 this morning and end around 11 a.m. at the finish line atop the Mule Pass Tunnel.
Although he’s only 37 seconds behind his teammate, he’s helping to throw all his weight behind
Vega.
“We had good speed the whole course so we tried to keep the goal — keep Gregorio in the lead. So we’re happy he won,” Muñoz said after the hard-fought Sulphur Springs race. “Gregorio is an especial climber so we’re going to try to win king of the mountain.”
Carlos Lopez of Mexico-based P&S Specialized is second overall, 21 seconds behind Vega and the leading American in the top division is Reijnen, who represents the Phoenix-based Waste Management Team.
Following Saturday’s road race, Reijnen was hopeful t the Guadalajara-based Team Tecos had weakened its defenses.
“We had a good team-effort today; they did everything for me, I was real protected,” Reijnen said. “They did a good job putting pressure on (Tecos) and with the winds today, it definitely took a lot out of (Tecos). They started to weaken.”
Reijnen felt Saturday’s road race format, nor the afternoon time trial played into Tecos’ strength.
“They’re all definitely climbers,” he said. “The flat course, the hard wind — that’s not their style. After that stage, they’ll have a lot of guys who are pretty toast... We didn’t expect Tecos to take as much control as they did. They didn’t need to go to the front, but they did and that worked to our advantae. They’ve probably got four guys with nothing left in the tank. But, they did their job — they protected the yellow jersey.”
Thirty-nine seconds back, Reijnen will have his work cut out for him in today’s race which finishes with the Mule Pass climb. But, he will have the backing of a large team.
With about 10 riders apiece, Waste Management and Tecos are the best represented units in the men’s pro field.
A third Tecos rider, Carlos Guinez sits in fifth place and Blicken, by virtue of his win in the time trial is in sixth, 57 seconds off the pace.
In the women’s pro race, Kelly McDonald of California-based Touchstone Climbing sped to victory in the Warren Time Trial to take the yellow jersey from Chloe Forsman of Tucson and Team Luna.
Heading into today’s final stage, McDonald holds an 18 second lead over teammate Maria Monica and a 46-second lead over Forsman.
Saturday morning’s Sulphur Spring Road Race was won by Marisa Russell of Arizona’s Procon/FNBA team.
“The race didn’t get going till about 10k, then it really went hard,” Russell said. “The roads were nice and the enclosures were great.”
The women’s field finished in a tight bunch of 13 riders with Russell’s 15-second sprint bonus proving to be the difference for her.
“(Russell) actually surprised me. I was at front with a couple of Touchstone riders who were up in the G.C.,” Forsman said. “They put in a couple of attacks. I challenged a couple of those attacks. Marissa attacked with a little more than 200 meters to go. I was able to jump on her wheel, but I wasn’t able to pass.”
The Colorado-native Forsman began her racing career in mountain biking. That, coupled with her lack of teammates likely worked against her in Saturday’s road race and time trial.
“The Touchstone girls have quite a bit of experience, but it’s also a climbing race,” Forsman said. “Today (having no teammates) probably made more of a difference today.”
She said her mountain biking background has some advantages and disadvantages in a road race format.
“It’s made me more aggressive. Out here, it took 10k to really get going, but in mountain biking, it’s 10 seconds and then, boom,” Forsman said. “I really have to tell myself to be patient and drill that into my head.”
In the men’s masters race, Michael Hutchinson of California-based Morgan Stanley won the time trial to take a 26 second lead over teammate Michael Buckley of Nevada heading into today’s final stage.
Dave Swanson of Team Velo is third, 35 seconds behind and Al Sneft of Colavita NM is 36 seconds back.
