Ricardo Escuela (SuccessfulLiving.com-ParkPre) crossed the line alone on Wednesday to take the 92-mile first stage of the Bend Memorial Clinic Cascade Cycling Classic atop Pilot Butte, just outside Bend, Oregon.

As if following Escuela’s example, the next three racers soloed across the line in rapid succession: Chris Baldwin (Toyota-United), Phil Zajicek (Navigators Insurance), and Ben Jacques-Maynes (Priority Health-Bissell). Escuela, a second-year pro from Argentina, had beat some of the best in the nation up the 1-mile climb to the finish — Jacques-Maynes leads the National Race Calendar individual rankings, Baldwin is fourth and Zajicek is sixth.

The stage was fairly uneventful for most of the men in the 103-rider field. After a few failed attacks, which began shortly after the half-mile neutral roll-out, seven riders shot away and stayed out front until just before Pilot Butte. Doug Ollerenshaw (Health Net-Maxxis) was in that break, and he said he wasn’t even sure who initiated it.

“It was just like early race surging, you know,” he said. “There was one group that got a small gap, like 25 guys or so, and then when that came back, there was just a moment of sitting up. I just saw some guys going, and the SuccessfulLiving guys, and I just followed them through.”

The SuccessfulLiving.com guys were Curtis Gunn and Dan Ramsay, the only teammates in the break. Scott Nydam (BMC), Scott Zwizanski (Priority Health-Bissell), Heath Blackgrove (Toyota-United), and Ben Day (Navigators Insurance) made up the rest of the break, and things looked good for them as they steadily increased the gap to roughly seven-and-a-half minutes by mile 37.

But looks can be deceiving, and the peloton wasn’t easily fooled. After stepping off the podium, Baldwin explained what the pack – and perhaps even the break – probably knew all along: “The politics of that breakaway were very bad for its success. Ben Day was by far the best rider, and when that happens, the other guys are pretty reluctant to help him, you know, basically handing him the overall win. So I knew that other than the Navigators, nobody was very happy with that breakaway — it kind of dooms it from the beginning, unfortunately for Ben.”

Ollerenshaw recognized this from within the break, and launched at least three unsuccessful attacks beginning around mile 79.

“I was just hoping to get away and to get one or two guys who actually wanted to work to go with. But instead, I kept ending up out there solo,” he said.

Blackgrove explained his reticence to work too hard: “I mean, I couldn’t do too much because I had two teammates behind working to pull us back because we got a good few guys who can win the race.”

So, politics being what they are, the break was reabsorbed into the peloton just before Pilot Butte, and the lead pack riders were fresh enough to begin a sprint up the climb.

“A BMC guy was the first to attack, and then myself and the SuccessfulLiving guy [Escuela] went across to him. Baldwin came across to us, so it was just the three of us then: [Escuela], Baldwin, and myself,” said Zajicek. “Baldwin pulled to the 200-meters-to-go really hard, and at 200, [Escuela] attacked and I lost the wheel.”

The Cascade Classic will continue Thursday with the Meridian Realty McKenzie Pass Road Race.

Race notes
The youngest rider in the field is 18-year-old Carson Miller (Hagens Berman, LLP), a Bend local whose family has hosted the Health Net team for the past five years. One of the highlights of his first Pro-1/2 race was “chatting” during the event with guys his family has hosted. Former Health Net rider Mike Sayers (BMC) was “completely blown away when I came up to him,” said Miller, who finished a respectable 64th place, just over two minutes off the leader’s time. “I was pretty excited about that, for sure,” he added.

2007 Bend Memorial Clinic Cascade Cycling Classic
Stage 1: Ironhorse-Brooks Resources Prineville Road Race
1. Ricardo Escuela, SuccessfulLiving.com, 92 miles in 3:38:31
2. Chris Baldwin, Toyota-United, at 0:03
3. Phil Zajicek, Navigators Insurance, at 0:09
4. Ben Jacques-Maynes, Priority Health Bissell, at 0:15
5. Jeff Louder, Health Net, at 0:23
6. Chris Wherry, Toyota-United, same time
7. Justin England, Toyota-United, at 0:27
8. Darren Lill, Navigators Insurance, at 0:31
9. Corey Collier, Team Einstein’s Cycling, at 0:35
10. David Vitoria, BMC, same time