The Elite Women’s squad stormed in to the 2007 season scoring 4 wins in 4 races over the first few weeks of the Colorado racing year. 2007 brought some changes to the Elite Women’s team roster. Gone are Sharon Allpress and Carmen Small who both have moved on to professional teams for this year, but returning are Beth Fisk, Anne Lannan, and long-time team member Renee Eastman. New to the squad this year are former mountain bike pro Lisa Matlock and SyRae Weikle. The team is looking strong as ever, as evident by their early success already in 2007.
Beth Fisk opened the team’s win streak early with her win at the Criteriums at Stazio on March 11th. Impressive as the win was, Beth showed her strength by fending off repeated attacks from team Excel and taking the field sprint without any teammates to help her. Beth showed signs of her good form a few weeks earlier when she went down to Arizona to race the Valley of the Sun in mid-February. She started that race with a fantastic 5th place in the individual time trial and finished 8th place overall in this national-level late winter stage race.
Beth’s form was clearly building in March as she followed the win at Stazio with another win at the CU Boulder Crit the following week on March 17th. This time she had a little help from teammate Renee Eastman who made her first race appearance for 2007. The race was made very active with attacks from both of the Vitamin Cottage women, but still came down to a field sprint. Through some slick tactics on the last 2 laps that forced other teams to chase, Beth and Renee were able to position themselves to take 1st and 3rd respectively. The following day at the Boulder Beer Road Race the roles were reversed as Renee won and Beth took 3rd. This time race strategy allowed for Renee to sneak off another rider from team Excel for 2 man breakaway that lasted the majority of the race. Renee handily took the sprint from her breakaway companion as Beth was able to take the field sprint after patrolling the field all day to ensure her teammates success in the breakaway.
The following weekend the team took their 4th win in as many races at the final edition of the Criteriums at Stazio for 2007. This time the team finally had an advantage in numbers as Lisa Matlock made her team debut. She joined Beth and Renee for an active race around the ball fields at Stazio. Despite numerous attacks, the team couldn’t get any breaks to stick and it all came down to the last lap. Lisa made a valiant effort to string the field out on the last time up the climb which allowed Beth and Renee to latch on to a vicious attack from a member of the Sports Garage. The 3 separated from the field in the last 500 meters setting up a 3-woman sprint, advantage, team Vitamin Cottage. This time the team went one better from the week before and took both 1st and 2nd place with Beth easily taking the sprint and Renee just hanging on for 2nd place.
2007 has opened better than could have been expected for the women’s elite team with 4 wins already in March. The bar has been set very high and they hope to continue their winning ways as the heart of the spring racing starts in early April with pseudo-cobbled classics Koppenburg and Boulder-Roubaix. Look for more updates from the women coming soon.
Special thanks to Deirdre Moynihan for the photos - click here to see the whole gallery