Tucson Bicycle Classic: Tucsonan Welsh sweeps women's races

"I had an amazing weekend," she said of her overall time of 4 hours 43 minutes 4 seconds.

"I won all three races and GC (general classification, or overall time), so everything aligned for me this weekend, and it was great racing here in Tucson."

The 26th annual three-day event featured about 600 participants ranging in age from 9 to 75 and older competing in 27 categories, race director Caroline Leonard said.

"Pretty much everything and all different skill levels in between," she said.

The final day featured a circuit race that started and ended on Greasewood Road near the Pima College West Campus. The 5.6-mile course went south on Greasewood and took a right turn at Anklam Road, which the cyclists rode all the way to Speedway, before they came back to Greasewood.

The pro women's event consisted of seven laps while the pro men did nine laps.

Francisco Mancebo, a five-time top-10 placer in the Tour de France, won the men's event overall in 5:02:46, but his teammate Cole House won the third stage in 1:52:47 to help lock up the team title.

Mancebo, 35 and originally from Avila, Spain, had the yellow jersey coming into the final day with a 16-second advantage on Sonoran Hector Rangel, who finished second overall.

"I'm very happy for me and the team," Mancebo said. "This race is very nice for me. There's no stress and it's like training for me.

"I am a grandpa now," Mancebo joked.

Welsh, 28 and a Tucson resident, finished second in the TBC overall last year and knew exactly what she needed to do to win.

"Going into it I kind of knew the courses and that helped," she said. "This year was a little bit of an improvement. I'm super happy."

Welsh has lived in Tucson for the past two years with her husband, David, a Tucson native working on his Ph.D., at the UA. He rode in the Men's 2 event.

Welsh said the toughest stage was the time trial on Friday. That consisted of a quick 3.2-mile ride near Old Tucson Studios that she narrowly won.

"That was a challenge in the wind, and I only won that by 2 seconds," Welsh said. "Going into the next race it was really close, and I wanted to be aggressive and make the women race their bikes."

After Saturday's road race, she had an eight-minute advantage on the pack along with overall runner-up and Tucsonan Kathryn Bertine after they pulled away from the pack in the road race.

"We put a lot of time on the field and it worked out definitely to our advantage," Welsh said.

Saturday's 20-mile course started on West Duval Mine Road near Green Valley, ran up Mission Road and looped back around at Helmet Peak Road.

After Saturday, Welsh had the easy win at hand. She said she didn't even plan on winning the final stage, but she still did in 1:51:12 after starting out conservatively.

Welsh is in her third year as a pro and races for Primal/MapMyRide.

"I'll race all the national races this year so this is kind of a warm-up for what's to come for me," she said.

Overall results / B19