The Cascade Cycling Classic is a racer’s race, so the announcement of its return after a 1-year hiatus was welcome news for many.
The race takes place in Bend, OR, which offers a utopian outdoors vibe. Everyone is active. You see groups of kids riding their bikes to school. Every vehicle has a rack for bikes or a hitch for pulling boats or horses. Even the 2019 edition of the race itself included a new stage highlighting Oregon’s natural beauty. The “Painted Hills Road Race” started in the mining town of Mitchell, about 1.5h NE of Bend. It had everything: hard mountain climbs, stunning vistas, technical descents and open plains surrounded by snow-capped volcanoes. Incredible.
For Floyd’s Cycling, the race started out with a bang, as Alec Cowan took stage 1. After stage 2’s 100 miles including 8,500ft of climbing, the GC was reshuffled. Serghei Tvetcov finished fourth, 7 sec back of winner Jordan Cheyne, with Nick and Travis another 2 min back. Overnight leader, Alec, crossed the line 10 min later. This left Serghei in 3rd and we liked our chances. Stage 3, however, reshuffled the deck again as Travis McCabe won from a group of 7 that took 5 min out of the field on a challenging circuit race. With Travis in the Pink Worthy Brewing Leader’s jersey, the race became very tactical and focused on time bonuses, as we shifted our support from our climbers to Travis.
It was only the potent versatility of Travis that made this tactical shift possible. Attending to time bonuses, Travis would win the stage 4 crit and the team would put a dominant stamp on the race with a 1-2-3-4 finish. When all was said and done after the 5th and final stage, Travis brought home the GC, as well as both the Points and KOM jerseys–and Floyd’s Cycling won the team competition. The celebration began before the podium ceremony started, and it was great to win in front of our title sponsor, Floyd Landis, and our presenting sponsor, Roger Worthington of Worthy Brewing.
