The attacks never really came, and Ryan Kennedy made easy work of the Queen Stage en route to his third Tour title. Meanwhile, Max Jordan and the Stuart kids start a dynasty in Junior SOL and miniSOL.

Ryan Kennedy batted away what little resistance was on offer Thursday night, with the Queen Stage claiming plenty of victims, but most certainly not the yellow jersey. A blistering opening lap on the heels of Jorden Wakeley and Jeff Owens saw an elite group formed. Even with most of the top six in touch (Garrett Jenema missed the move, while Kyle Macdermaid did the shorter race option, as is becoming habit) no one could really offer any aggression.

John O’Hearn moved to the front heading toward Madeleine’s, but never committed to the pace. Instead, Wakeley and Owens paired over the Power Section. A sick Cody Sovis (like, not a cool sick) dangled off the back before easing his way back into contact, carefully managing his half-empty matchbox to take full points and at least take the green jersey.

Onto the Boonenberg for the first time, no one was totally committed, allowing everyone to stay in touch. Kennedy, Cam Owens, Jeff Owens, Jorden Wakeley, Sean Kickbush, Braiden Voss, Sovis and O’Hearn were ready for the first time up Anita’s. Sensing the ebb of his powers for the day, Sovis offered a speculative attack on the descent to Anita’s, losing a water bottle and almost crashing, all for the sake of a short-lived ten foot gap.

The leaders flew up Anita’s, with Kennedy carefully tacked on the back and watching the wheels ahead. From there on, Sovis was dropped, followed by O’Hearn. Kickbush dropped a chain, but jumped back into the service of his teammate, O’Hearn, and even pulling him back into touch with Voss, the next victim of the furious pace. In the end, Kennedy put time into every GC rider, while he fought for the stage win against a flying Wakeley and both Owens.

His third win, and like Froome, his most deceptively dominant. He never had to attack, and allowed luck, legs, and circumstance ravage his opponents while he himself rode a steady, uncomplicated race.

Braiden Voss holds second, with O’Hearn third ahead of Garrett Jenema. For fifth place Cody Sovis, his long solo second lap put him just 3 seconds shy of unsettling Jenema for fourth. He and his kolo t.c. team finds themselves on the wrong side of an even closer gap in the Team Competition; they stay fourth by just 2 seconds, even with ERSB’s second time coming in at 1:39.

Hagerty takes the win in the Team Competition thanks to Voss and Jenema. Behind ERSB and kolo, Norte finishes the Competition for the first time, a solid achievement in its own right.

Voss also takes his first Mountain Classification with a ten point buffer. He’s the youngest rider to win a jersey in the history of SOL, coming in ahead of a rider who also could have set that mark, his teammate Garrett.

Cody Sovis took full points on three of the four stages, including the Sprint night, to capture green for the second time. Kennedy and Voss are tied on points, with Voss getting the nod on countback from the finale.

Rob Frank easily won Best Old Rider, although we need to dop our caps to both Jason Stuart and Jeff Galstererer for never giving up in the competition. Jeff G.’s huge efforts last night made the ERSB team second place possible, one of just two ERSB riders to take on the Double, a far cry from their small armada in 2016.

Yet again, there was no women’s winner. Ladies, let’s get a Vuelta winner, eh?

Next week, it’s the ever-fascinating Team Time Trial. Riders will get WorldTour points based on the third fastest time from their team. ERSB has won it four years in a row, last year with a dominant performance from Kennedy, Sovis, and Luke Tjosvold.

You can see the full GC and other classification results here.

You can see the full SOL results on the year here. 

However, as the racers toed the start line for Stage 4 of the Tour, a shock rippled through the peloton: the yellow jersey of juniorSOL had abandoned!  Observers were shocked when Peter “P3” Worden, III failed to emerge from the team bus, and the team’s director sportif was dispatched to advise the media that the leader of the Tour de France would not be starting the stage.  No explanation was given and rumors quickly swirled that P3 had failed to correctly report his whereabouts to doping control, in that he’d claimed to vacationing in the Bahamas when in fact he was training in unmarked kit in Kazakhstan.   When contacted Hagerty Cycling President Craig Webb declined comment., and as of press time the World Anti Doping Agency is reported to be actively investigating the matter.

With P3 out of the picture and RBS’s Hunter Frank being held for ransom in New York City, the GC was Max Jordan’s for the taking, and he did not let the opportunity slip by him.  Max was literally the only rider to complete all four stages of the Tour, and for that he wins the whole enchilada (well, actually a water bottle with Reese’s Pieces and a t-shirt; an actual enchilada would have been messy.  It’s just an expression, people).  That’s actually the point of having a stage race — we always love to see the kids there, but we want to encourage them to race every Thursday night.  Max was the only one to rise to that challenge,  and so he wears yellow in Paris.

Over on the miniSOL side, there was no hint of abandonment and as largely expected Caden Stuart and his PJ pants clinched the GC victory, with his brother Stuart coming in second.  The Stuarts have been just as dedicated as Max and are the only minis to complete all four stages, so they complete the GC podium.   It should also be noted that Caden did not just win GC — he did so by placing his emphatic stamp on the race by putting in a blistering personal best time of 0:25:44, coming in only seconds behind stage winner Jameson Schmidt.

The stage wins were again dominated by the Brothers Schmidt, Carter again cruising to victory in juniorSOL while Jameson overcame a wrong turn to again claim victor in the minis.  That’s three firsts for them in as many weeks, and it is apparent that both disciplines are the Schmidts’ to lose as long as they can make it to the race.  Unfortunately however Jameson is still struggling with his water bottle skills, again drenching his shirt instead of getting any water down his throat, and this time aggravating the problem by promptly rolling around in the sand.

Griffin Schwab battled back for Hagerty Cycling, claiming 2nd place in the juniors, while Norte’s Luke Wiersema rounding out the junor podium in third.  Gwen Urbain and Aili Brockmiller were first and second, respectively, in the women’s junior race; Gwen by the way has steadily chipped away at those season WorldTour points, and at 58 points she now has a commanding lead and is the odds-on favorite to win the season points contest.  Over on the minis Sander Stuart managed a 3rd place finish on the stage, while Sutton Bay Bike’s Liam “I’m not Wiersema” Wierzba continued to impress by narrowly missing the podium in 4th place.  Liam has really come far in just a year, and he is only 8 years old.

After the racing was done, everyone adjourned to the warming hut for ice cream and Tour awards!.  Always looking for new ways to challenge the kids, we deviously put two gallons of Moomer’s ice cream on dry ice for 12 hours after which it was so frozen all 34 kids could do initially was stare at it.  Fortunately Beth Collins and Andy Schwartz were on hand to chip away at those ice blocks so everyone could eventually have a taste.  Porter Kochis proudly announced he’d had two ice cream cones and we were sure to have him slam an entire bottle of soda before sending him back outside to his mom.  We still finished the night with a lot of ice cream, so get ready for next week: Leftover Night!

Many thanks to Beth and Andy for putting in the workout so the kids could have their ice cream; thanks again to Heather Jordan and Jesi Schwab for serving as course marshals for the minis; Joel and Kora Voss for sweeping the minis; and David Hilt for sweeping the juniors.

Junior and Mini stage and GC results, and present points standings, are as follows: