From: sery@crunch.unm.edu (sery)
Subject: El Paso Road Race and Criterium
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 92 22:34:06 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM
Distribution: usa



			El Paso Road Race, August 22

The weather was mostly sunny, windy and warm in El Paso for Saturday's 84 mile
road race.  The field of 25 proceeded north with a tailwind on flat terrain.  
The first climb of the Anthony Gap came after 30 miles as the road headed 
east.  After the climb it turned back south for 10 miles and then 
headed west to the Trans-Mountain pass.  After that it was back to El Paso
for the finish.

There were numerous attacks for the first 10 miles.  Nothing stuck until
Russell Fitts (Bikes Plus), a rider from Team Sol, and Robert Leblanc 
(NM Velo) got away.  There was no organized chase except two Phoenix riders 
who tried unsuccessfully to bridge up individually.  Their lead was up to 
approximately 3'30" by the top of Anthony Gap.

When the course turned back south into the headwind there were a couple of 
attacks but nothing stuck.  A chase group of Jim Warsa (NM Velo), Rod Bush 
(Team Shaklee), and Rene Cano (Team Sol) eventually materialized.  They caught 
the leaders just before the turn to the Trans-Mountain climb.  The six riders 
stayed together until about a third of the climb remained.  Cano began to 
dial it and dropped his teammate, Warsa, Leblanc and then Fitts in that order; 
only Bush maintained contact.  This was a tactical mistake that Cano would pay 
for later.

Over the top it was Cano and Bush, then Leblanc and Fitts together, with Randy 
Gibson (Health Horizons) bridging up to Warsa from the main group.  Warsa and 
Gibson were caught by Romero (Colorado Cyclists), Bob DesEnfants (Bikes Plus) 
and Clay Mosley (Bikes Plus) by the end of the descent.  Romero, Mosley and 
DesEnfants worked to catch the Leblanc and Fitts.  Once they linked up they 
apparently gave up on winning and concentrated on working over Warsa.  He and 
Fitts were eventually dropped.

Warsa and Fitts dropped back to the next group of six containing Gabriel 
Aragon (NM Velo) and Gene Fales (NM Velo), Gibson and three others.  
The bigger group worked together and caught the Romero group with about 7 
to go.

Up front Cano paid the price for dropping his companions on the climb.  Bush
kept the pace high into the headwind and Cano was not able to rest enough and
eventually dropped off with 15 to go.  He was caught by the chasers with 5 to 
go.  Bush saw his lead drop to 1'20" from a maximum of 2'.  

The chase group eased up in the final kilometers while Bush kept up his speed
and he increased his margin to 3' for the solo win.  The chase group finished 
in a bunch sprint won by Romero with Cano recovering for third followed by 
Aragon and DesEnfants and Fales.


		Criterium, August 23

Sunday's weather was overcast and cooler.  The .4 mile criterium was all
up and down.  No one got free until towards the end when Rene Cano (Team Sol) 
and Marcel Garceau (NM Velo) got free.  Their lead fluctuated but was down to 
six seconds with less than 10 minutes left due to the pressure applied by 
DesEnfants (Bikes Plus) and Mosley (Bikes Plus).  Warsa (NM Velo) made his 
way to front at that point and successfully slowed the chasers and the gap 
went back up to 20 seconds.  

Garceau had a mechanical as the finish approached.  Robert Leblanc (NM Velo), 
however, was just making contact at that point and replaced his teammate.  
He beat Cano in the sprint to win.  Back in the group Randy Gibson (Health
Horizons) went off solo and just held off Rod Bush (Shaklee) at the line for 
third.