by Craig Cook

@##=#<1,L>@##=#For all of the team it was a day of firsts: their first experience racing road bikes in the dirt (25% of the course is on unpaved roads), their first race of more than 45 miles, their first race as a full squad, and their first win as CRCA Junior Development. To see Pascual Caputi off the front the opening 20 miles of the 55 mile Battenkill-Roubaix road race today you’d think he’d been racing at this distance for years. Caputi took off three miles into the race on the first dirt section and quickly put almost two minutes on the mixed junior/women/masters50+ field. The course is one large circuit with three substantial climbs and many small ones in addition to the dirt sections.

Behind Caputi the field started coming apart on the first serious climb of the day, a 1.5km twisty, but paved, hump. Lipton’s Katie Lambden went on the prowl and quickly rid herself of all her competition as well as all the 50+ men. CRCA’s Lewis Almonte, however, would not be shaken. Lambden and Almonte fixed themselves a proper gap and never looked back. Up ahead Caputi started feeling the distance and eventually was picked up by Lambden and Almonte. Coming into the final feedzone 12 miles from the finish Caputi Lambden and Almonte led a small chase group by almost four minutes. In that group was CRCA JDEV’s Ian Harris who would eventually finish 5th.

Further back in the main field Tommy Bibliowicz brought the team home for 6th place. He would later be DQ’d for failing to pass rollout. Caputi and Lambden left Almonte behind on the run in to the finish in Salem. Perhaps the only regret of the day was Caputi’s demure finish line crossing: while Katie Lambden celebrated with a full victory salute, Caputi, perhaps out of some chivalrous impulse, or perhaps because he was too kicked to think about raising his hands, crossed the line quietly behind her; foiling this photographer’s attempt at a decent finish shot.