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“Tobin is a particularly fast finisher, so considering my form and Lance only being 18 it was a pretty good race for the team,” said Driscoll.

“I wanted to win today, so I’m a bit bummed with second,” added Haidet. “But It’s hard to beat Tobin when you’re with him in the last lap, so I can be happy with the result.”

With five months to go until the official start of the cyclocross season, Driscoll and Haidet will look to other spring/summer events to help them prepare for the cyclocross season ahead.

“This coming weekend I will be racing Paris to Ancaster in Ontario,” said Driscoll. “It’s an event that has been on my radar for a while now, and one that I’m very excited to do. It is a very unique event, essentially a longer, point to point cross race.”

“I will race Lost and Found and the Blitz to the Barrel mountain bike race in June,” added Haidet. “The Blitz is invite only in Bend, OR and will have guys like Adam Craig, Ryan Trebon and Carl Decker on the start line. Other than those events, I will be focused on my training and school.”

Elite Women’s Race–

Starting one minute behind the men, the women’s race also got off to a fast start. It didn’t take long for Mani to ride off the front never to be seen again by the rest of the field. As Mani displayed her characteristic pain face at the front of the race, Rathbun, Clouse and Cassie Maximenko (Van Dessel Factory) were dueling for the secondary places as McFadden was chasing her way back to the field after an early race crash.

In the end McFadden was able to ride through everyone in the field except Mani to snag a hard-fought second place. In a nail-biting finish for third, Clouse caught and passed Rathbun in the closing meters just before the finish line.

Racing cyclocross in the heat of April is anything but easy, but both the Raleigh Clement riders were up for the task once the gun went off.

“I think a part of me was asleep after racing 76 days ago,” said Mani. “It was like breaking up – I didn’t like my bike anymore. I was almost mad and could not touch it for weeks, but racing and feeling the pain and every emotion when you race brought the lioness back out! So I’m pretty happy with it, especially the fact that even with little training since worlds I was still better that the couple past years.”

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“It felt weird because I’ve been doing long road races in Minneapolis and Michigan in 30-degree weather,” added Rathbun. “It was weird to come out here and go as hard as you can in 75 degrees. It’s not what I’m used to right now.”

Since winning the French national championships in January, this was Mani’s first race on American soil in her tricolore jersey. Mani has been a U.S. resident for five years now, but winning in the tricolore jersey is particularly special for her.

“Representing my country is important to me,” said Mani. “Even though I live here now, being French is still who I am and it is important to me for people to see that.”

Wearing the French champion jersey ranks high on Mani’s list of priorities, but there are two other jerseys she is focused on and they both come adorned with a variety of colors.

“I’m number two in the world so I would like to keep my level high,” said Mani. “Why can’t I be number one and get the rainbow jersey? Mostly I want to be consistent and be on the world cup podium as much as possible. Another goal would be to win the overall classification!”

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Next up for Mani is Paris to Ancaster, an event sponsored by regional Raleigh dealers, where she will join Driscoll for a 70 kilometer race on rough farm roads, trails and gravel in Ontario, Canada.   For Rathbun, a student at Marian University, her spring and summer schedule looks very different ahead of the first cyclocross race in August.

“I leave for Europe on Wednesday for 12 days with the U.S. National Team,” explained Rathbun. “When I come back I have two weeks until collegiate road nationals in Asheville. A couple weeks later I’ll do USPRO Road Nationals and then Tulsa Tough with Caroline – the first time we will race together on the road.”

“I’d also like to race collegiate mountain bike this year,” added Rathbun. “I’ll need to plan out the schedule between the mountain bike racing and the early C1 ‘cross races. I’ll do three mountain bike races in total, but I’m not sure which races they’ll be yet.”

“Then I hope to start the ‘cross season with the CrossVegas World Cup and the inaugural Jingle Cross World Cup,” concluded Rathbun. “But if I’m not qualified to race, I will definitely still be there to cheer on my teammates.”

All photos provided credit to Raleigh Clement Racing Team