Lindine Sprints to Victory at Granogue Day 2 – UPDATED Full Report, Full Results, Photo Gallery

The start of the men's race. © Cyclocross Magazine

by Molly Hurford

GRANOGUE, DELAWARE — Day two of Granogue was just as fast and hard as the first, and tired racers took to the course as early at 6:30 when it first opened for inspection. Since the race is a double UCI weekend, racers needed to be prepared for two hard days of racing with a lot of points on the line.

Justin Lindine (BikeReg.com / Joe’s Garage) had a bit more of a challenge today with Troy Wells (Clif Bar) hot on his heels for the entire race. It came down to a sprint, with Wells hitting the pavement first. Lindine managed to sprint around him and take the win, making it five straight wins in two weeks. Travis Livermon (SmartStop p/b Mock Orange) rolled in comfortably in third place.

Wells and Lindine had an early break in the race, thanks to a good start from Wells. The two battled it out for the entire hour, trading attacks and turns at the front. Lindine had a crash on the corner right before the run up fairly early in the race, but luckily for him it came after he had put in a hard attack, leaving Wells exhausted from chasing him. Because of that, Lindine managed to recover from his fumble and continue on. He was by no means the only racer who was hurt by the run/ride up, many of the top fifteen attempted to ride the stairs and fumbled into crashes.

After the race, we spoke with Lindine, who, even after five wins, remains the humble working man that the cyclocross community has come to know and love.

“It was a little more fraught with peril today. There was just drama of all kinds. Troy (Wells) was obviously on top of his game today so it was pretty obvious early on that it was going to be this battle and Livermon and Batty were not that far behind for a lot of the race so there was more pressure not to screw up and then I did. I crashed on the big sweeping turn at the bottom of the stairs, going fast, there was lots of loose grass. I was running file tread tires, which were great everywhere but there. It was a little bit of a gamble and it kind of cost me there. My chain was all jammed up, it took a good 15-20 seconds to get it all sorted out.”

Second place Troy Wells talked about Lindine’s slip-up as well. “He made a mistake after he’d put in a big attack on the lap before, and then on the descent he made a mistake, but I was so gassed from countering his move before, once he went down I had nothing and just tried to stay steady and hoped that I had enough in the tank where if he came back to me, I could go again. But by the time he caught me, it was two laps to go and we pretty much both pedaled around suffering for the last two laps.”

The finish was a sprint between Lindine and Wells. We asked if Lindine strategized the finish at all, as the announcer suggested he did. He told us, “I did. With a few laps to go we each put in some digs on different parts of the course, and we weren’t really getting away from each other and I didn’t have a lot of gas left in the tank after bridging back up to Troy. I don’t have a lot of faith in my sprint, but I thought if I could get Troy to hit the pavement first it would be OK.”

“I’m not very well versed in sprinting,” he added.

Troy Wells, the only racer to be able to stay with Lindine in the past five races, was happy with his second place finish. “I had a much better start than yesterday, yesterday I had a really bad one so I made sure not to get caught in traffic in the first lap, then eventually me and Justin got off and we were kind of going at each other. One would attack and then the other would catch back on.”

“I’m not the best sprinter,” he said. “I was leading onto the pavement and I would have rather been sitting behind him, because he probably has a pretty good draft behind me. He got me in the sprint.”

Travis Livermon was happy with his third place result as well, saying, “I really liked the course, it suited me well. It was fun and very hard. A lot of people were alone, these races are a lot of attrition. When I saw Justin drop his chain, I tried really hard to catch on, but I didn’t; he went really fast.”

We had to ask if Livermon was sporting his gold chain, which, during hot races, can be spotted swaying back and forth as he blasts past. “I am wearing my gold chain,” he answered. “Always.”

The racers didn’t all fair so well. For example, Jeremy Durrin, who placed fifth on day two of Providence, flatted twice with two to go and didn’t finish, and Canadian Mike Garrigan, who took third place at Charm City, injured his thumb in a crash early in the race and was forced to abandon it. Garrigan told us, “I had a great start, I was excited to have a good ride today … I was in the mix, had one crash, then another crash, got tangled in with a guy, and hurt my thumb. I hope it’s not broken!” Garrigan has Canadian Nationals in just three weeks, so we’ll be following him and the other Canadian riders including Shaun Adamson and Craig Richey as they head away from New England and back to Canada to race.

Check out the women’s race report here.

Video interviews coming soon!

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