Kendall Ryan and Ty Magner shine at Lake Bluff stop of Intelligentsia Cup

This article originally appeared on Velo News

Kendall Ryan and Ty Magner put on another sprinting clinic at the Lake Bluff Criterium, the penultimate race of the Intelligentsia Cup and the seventh stop on the American Criterium Cup (ACC) Saturday evening outside of Chicago.

Both L39ION of Los Angeles riders had no trouble capitalizing on their superior leadout trains to add another win to their already robust palmares.

In the pro women’s race, Butcherbox made it hard throughout the night, and German Tanya Erath picked up a few early primes racing solo for WorldTour team EF Education TIBCO-SVB.

Andrea Cyr (Butcherbox) cleaned up the intermediate sprints along the way, putting a big dent into Maggie Coles-Lyster’s lead in that competition.

The Canadian national champion skipped this round of the ACC to represent her country in track at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, but holds such a sizeable lead in the overall series and points competition, that she continues to command both those leaderboards.

After the lap board came out to show 15 to go, ATX Wolfpack went to the front to keep the pace high until the primes started to go up in cash, causing L39ION to sprint for some new sneaker money before taking over the front with three to go.

The team set a pace so high it quickly destroyed the peloton. The Schneider sisters launched Ryan to victory, but a strong challenge came from Intelligentsia Cup’s overall race leader, Marlies Mejias Garcia (Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty24). Paola Munoz (CWA) took third.

“We were definitely prime hunting today,” Ryan said. “But the goal was to win the race and, and yeah, just race really hard. So we got a couple of primes out there. I just tried to stay nice in line and keep it dialed for the finish. We had our order set. We were sprinting for Sam today. She has a lot of family out today. This leadout was really, really good. But I saw my Marlies out of the corner of my eye so I had to turn on the turbos.”

L39ION was the only team at Lake Bluff just for Saturday’s America Criterium Cup. DNA Racing was a noticeable absence; the team opted to sit out the rest of the Intelligensia Cup after one of their riders received a positive COVID-19 result.

The men’s race went a similar way, with the field shedding a third of its riders in the first 20 minutes after L39ion set an early tempo. The team never let any attempts to get up the road get too much time and had control of the peloton for the majority of the race.

At the halfway point, New Zealander Xander White (CS Velo) made a solo move that had some potential, but the move was brought back after L39ION’s Eder Frayre came to the front to set the pace, whittling the field down even more with 17 laps to go.

Curtis White (Best Buddies) went on the offensive for a couple of laps before his teammate, Tanner Ward, countered with 13 to go and spent some time off the front while, back in the peloton, Miami Blazer’s Frank Treviso took his familiar place at the front of until Brandon Feehery (Project Echelon Racing) popped out of the bunch to take some points to in the America Criterium Cup points classification.

After catching Ward, Treviso pulled over with three laps to go to let the L39ION train work its magic. Lance Haidet was the final rider to take Magner to the line.

“We won here last year as well,” Magner said. “We knew the way the course kind of flows. You got to take the front of it earlier than you think. And you got to really hit this home stretch, and you can almost take it as easy as you want down the back. So we had a good plan. I just got to thank the whole team. That was incredible.”

Danny Estevez (Best Buddies) took second, and Clever Martinez (Blazers) finished third and continues to lead the series.

The America Criterium Classic moves to Littleton, Colorado on August 6 for the eighth stop of the series.

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