Ryan Roth, Denise Ramsden win for the second year running at Stage 1 of the Tour de Delta, kicking off BC Superweek

BC Superweek was off to a roaring start on Friday night with Stage 1 of the 15th Tour de Delta, the MK Delta Criterium. And for the second year in a row, the day’s men’s race belonged to Ryan Roth of Silber Pro Cycling

Last year, the 2012 Elite Men’s Canadian National Road Race champion also finished in the lead, six seconds ahead of the second place finisher. This year, though, Roth’s performance was even stronger, with a lead that put him across the finish nearly 11 seconds ahead of Garrett McLeod, riding for Team H&R Block Pro Cycling. At the race’s conclusion, Roth finished the 48-kilometre, 40 lap competition with a time of 1:02:48.

Roth’s performance comes as yet another high point in an already commanding season for the Kitchener, Ontario-raised cyclist. Last month, at the Canadian National road race championship in St.-Georges, Que., Roth climbed the podium in third place after the Individual Time Trial. Further, Benjamin Perry, another Silber rider, was the winner of the National Criterium title, having also taken Stage 5 of June’s Tour de Beauce.

It’s a string of successes, Roth says, that owes itself to a good measure of team discipline.

“We had a few races in the spring to find our cohesion and legs together,” Roth said, reflecting on those wins. “Since then, we’ve been gelling really well and playing off each other and it’s been going great. We’ll have a bit of a rest in August and then we’re waiting to see about the Tour of Alberta.”

“Hopefully we’ll get in there and that will cap our season.”

Optum’s Will Routley found himself the third-place contender, and recalled the powerful dynamic of the race that quickly saw him surrounded by Silber and H&R Block riders, once the breakaway started to take shape. Without a teammate nearby, Routley was fighting for position on his own. His account of that moment of the race, confronted with such an overwhelming powerhouse performance from Roth, was a humble one.

“Once Ryan came up it changed the dynamic a little bit,” the 32-year-old Whistler, B.C. export said. “He won this last year so he knows what he’s doing and made it tough. I tried a few times, but the better man won tonight. I’ve been teammates with Ryan before and he’s a good bike rider.”

Finishing third to a rider six years his junior, too, didn’t faze Routley. In fact, he said, it was an encouraging, positive thing to see the younger McLeod make such a strong drive to the finish. “To get out-sprinted by Garrett, I actually was kind of happy because I’ve been coaching him for a couple of years,” Routley said, “so I know he’s motivated. He’s been training well the last month and it shows — he’s riding well, too.”

“Maybe I’m turning into an old man,” Routley said in a moment of tongue-in-cheek self-deprecation. “I’m getting washed up here.”

In the women’s race, Vancouver’s Denise Ramsden similarly owned the podium for the second year running. Riding for Trek Red Truck p/b Mosaic Homes, Ramsden finished the 30 -lap, 36-kilometre circuit in just 55 minutes and 30 seconds, earning her back-to-back titles with another strong performance in 2013 under her helmet, when she finished second with the same time.

A veteran of the 2012 London Olympics, Ramsden escaped the peloton with just ten laps left in the race, maintaining that drive and power until the end to win the stage. Already familiar with the course, hers was a winning performance aided by experience.

“I think it’s just a hard race, so it seems to break up each year,” she said. “It’s three years in a row actually that I’ve been in a break at the end. The first year I kind of messed up the finish and lost the sprint, so then last year I figured it out, and I pretty much did the same thing this year going with a lap to go.”

Ellen Watters of Sussex, New Brunswick, who also rode at the 2012 Olympics, finished in second place.

“I was taking a little bit of a break and Denise took off,” Watters said, recalling the decisive moment of the race that saw her riding with Ramsden with a third of the race left, “so I thought, ‘I should follow that wheel!’ So I did, and it was hard for the last ten laps. Then Denise killed it in the last lap.” With the effects of the previous 29 laps being felt, Ramsden conserved her energy, then pushed hard for that win with her final surge to the finish, feeling the presence of the peloton bearing down on her from behind.

“I kept checking back to see and knew that the group would be going even harder at the finish,” Ramsden said, “so I just had to save a little bit for that.”

Tonight, BC Superweek continues with Stage 2, the Brenco Criterium in Ladner, British Columbia. The Tour de Delta concludes on Sunday morning with the White Spot Delta UCI 1.2 Road Race in Tsawassen, B.C.