Hmm...
Mootsie said:
Creed's first year with Postal he won the Cascade Classic without so much as even a team car. So the dude's got it in him.
Cascade Classic or Spring Classics? I wonder which race is harder? I'm going to go with any Spring Classic race, not because of the course, as the Cascade is a hard race, but because of the competition that is there. So let's look at the race itself shall we?
Stage 1, Creed finished a stellar 72nd on the day just barely making it onto the back of the front group:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2004/jul04/cascade04/cascade041
Stage 2 is of course where he threw it down, and threw it down he did. He smoked everyone on that day, helluva a ride it appears:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2004/jul04/cascade04/cascade042
Stage 3 he came in a respectable 5th in the TT. Although he beat Louder who was trailing him in the overall in 2nd position.Moving up his overall advantage to 38 seconds.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2004/jul04/cascade04/cascade043
Stage 4, a crit. I have never known why they put crits into stage races, it provides little or no chance for anyone to make up any time unless they're handing out time bonuses for the guys who podium, but in a stage race that has already been over some brutal climbs, why didn't they run another road stage? I know that there are plenty of roads in and around Bend that are bombastic and would make the race 10 times harder than it already is.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2004/jul04/cascade04/cascade044
Stage 5, circuit race. Again, like a crit with longer laps. Stay somewhere near the front, and keep out of trouble, and you'll not lose your lead if you've got the fitness. Little or no chance to get time on your opponents.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2004/jul04/cascade04/cascade045
Stage 6, another crit, and as long as the kid doesn't crash out, he's going to win. He finishes safely in the front group, and rides on to victory. So really, he had one hard day out of all of them, and rode really hard and balls out when it counted. He didn't need a team for that, he had the engine to ride away from the rest of the guys out there.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2004/jul04/cascade04/cascade046
Looking at the results, sure you've got a who's who of domestic pro racers in there, but these guys are all Division 3 at the time, and you've got Creed who is riding for a division 1 team winning this race. Some may say, including myself, that this is how it should have been.
Creed has it in him, but I don't think he cares really. Or at least that is how it appears to be. I think coming up as a junior racer, he was essentially coddled, told how good he was, and he was good, as a junior, and won many national championships, and U23 stuff as well. And let's face it, we've all seen junior racing in the US. The fields are getting deeper, but they're still small change out there. Most people don't take up the sport until they're well into college for the most part. Well, then, Creed got to the big time, and kind of stuffed it. Sure he was sick last year, but if you have down on your resume the biggest win of your career as the Cascade Classic, sorry Charlie, you might as well hang it up at the top tier. Not that I personally wouldn't love winning that race, but when you're racing for Lance's team, at least in this case, it's kind of minor on their radar screens compared to the winning Armstrong, Max, and others did in '04. Now he's riding for j. Vaughters at TIAA-CREF, and I hope he does well, and maybe gets another ride with a ProTour team, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Sure, he'll rip it around the US, but as we've seen, Europe ain't the US and things are most certainly different over there.
