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Louder wins Tour of Utah in final stage
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It’s said that racing in the yellow jersey gives a rider wings. It’s also said that there’s no motivation like racing in front of friends and family.
Both notions proved true Sunday during the final stage of the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah, in which Utah native Jeff Louder of BMC Racing overcame a seven-second deficit to Garmin-Chipotle’s Blake Caldwell to take the overall victory by eight seconds.
Both riders put in exceptional performances on the 7.5-mile course at the Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, 45 minutes southwest of Salt Lake City. It was a hot, dry stage, won by Bissell’s Tom Zirbel. Louder finished third, 15 seconds behind Zirbel and 16 seconds ahead of Caldwell, who finished 14th.
Team Type 1’s Glen Chadwick finished eighth to clinch his third place overall.
The final stage took place on a flat, serpentine, out-and-back course using half of the track. Originally a 12.5-mile course, it was shortened when organizers proved unable to get full road closures required under National Racing Calendar rules.
The relatively short distance meant the battle for overall victory would be tight, with the advantage leaning towards Louder, who finished second to Levi Leipheimer at the Cascade Cycling Classic time trial in July.
If Louder was stressed before the start, it didn’t show as he relaxed outside the BMC team truck with his mother, his wife, Soorya, and his 1-year-old daughter Milana.
“Blake is going on another level,” said Louder, a friendly and well-liked veteran of the domestic peloton. “The course is flat, and all the drags are into a headwind. It’s a fast course. I can’t say I have worked on my time trialing this year, but I am time trialing well. But I’m not taking anything for granted. About one minute after me, we’ll know.”
Zirbel turned a 13:50, a time that defied the next 29 riders. BMC’s Brent Bookwalter was the only other rider to finish under 14 minutes, at 13:59.
Zirbel said his first priority this week was to watch out for teammate Burke Swindlehurst, who finished fourth overall. Once he’d gotten Swindlehurst to the base of the Snowbird climb on Saturday, he sat up with Sunday’s time trial in mind.
“Today’s was a goal from the beginning of the week, but it was plan B,” Zirbel said. “It wasn’t a primary goal.”
Zirbel added that his stage win almost ended in disaster when he overcooked one of several hairpin turns.
“I liked the technical element, you definitely had to be attentive,” Zirbel said. “We tend to keep our heads down to be more aerodynamic, but if a turn sneaks up on you, you can miss it. I almost went off the road in one of the turns.”
When Louder crossed the line with a 14:05, race announcer Dave Towle declared that he’d won the Tour of Utah. And Towle’s pronouncement proved correct as Caldwell passed the 14-minute mark with roughly 250 meters to go.
“The course was really fast and a touch windy,” Louder said. “There wasn’t much time for thinking, I just knew I had to go for broke. This has been such a team effort from the staff and management down to the riders, I just wanted to do what I could to repay everyone for all the hard work that they put in.”
It was Louder’s first NRC stage race victory, and it came in front of his hometown crowd.
“I’ve come close to winning NRC races in the past few years, and this is finally sinking in,” Louder said. “To be able to outright win a race like this, in my hometown, and my dad is in the follow car with [BMC team director Gavin Chilcott] and my wife and baby are here. … You don’t get this opportunity very often, this might be the only time, and I’m just going to relish it.”
As for Caldwell, who finished sixth overall in the Cascade Classic, he said he had put in a lot of training since then and had just been waiting for it to pay off.
“I had high hopes for myself, but this is beyond my expectations," he added. "This was the best I’ve ever ridden, and it’s a good feeling to come out of this race with that.”
Race notes
- The Tour of Utah proved Bookwalter’s best performance since he broke his femur in April 2007. The 2006 under-23 national time trial champion finished fifth overall and was a critical component in Louder’s victory. “I’ve had a lot of good momentum coming into this last stage throughout the week,” Bookwalter said. “Yesterday on the final climb was the first time in almost 15 months that I’ve really been able to open it up and give it full gas. I finally felt like myself, and I could actually dig deep and pull something special out.”
- Other overall jersey competition winners were Garmin-Chipotle’s Peter Stetina (best young rider), Successful Living’s Brad White (points) and Chadwick (King of the Mountains.)
- If BMC took top honors with one stage win, the team classification and the overall victory, Garmin had the next-best week with two stage wins, four days in the yellow jersey and Stetina’s best young rider’s jersey.
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