The Jelly Belly cycling team scored its biggest win of the early season by winning the Redlands Classic this past weekend (March 22-25). Andrew Bajadali won the biggest race of his career with the help of Alex Candelario, Nick Reistad, Mike Jones, Matt Rice, Bryce Mead, Brian Dziewa and Mike Cody. Danny and the riders were extremely happy to beat all the “Big” teams and win the most important race in California behind the Tour of California.

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The week started on Monday when Mike Jones, Nick Reistad, Bryce Mead, Mike Cody and Brian Dziewa went to the Lexus of Riverside car dealer to drop off the team cars and meet and greet the sponsor. The team activities continued on Tuesday when the boys went to Smiley Elementary school and talked to a 3rd grade class about bicycle safety and what its like to be a professional bike racer. The kids asked a lot of good questions and the guys passed out lots of Sport Beans to keep the kids up all night. At the end all the kids got autographs and were fired up to do the kid’s race on Sunday at Redlands.

The race finally started on Thursday with a three mile prologue with a hard steep climb for the last mile. Andrew was the team’s top finisher in 17th place with Symmetrics Svein Tuft winning the stage. The next day the team raced the 97 mile Oak Glen Road Race, the first 70 miles of the race were flat to rolling with constant attacks and a really fast pace. The guys did what they could to stay at the front, cover attacks and keep Andrew out of trouble. The last 26 miles of the stage had three KOM’s and were basically up the whole way, just like in stories your Grandpa would tell about walking to school, except it really was uphill the whole way. The team did delivered Andrew to the bottom of Oak Glen at the front of the pack and ready to battle for the stage up the brutal six mile climb to the finish. At the end Andrew finish fourth just off the pace that ageless stage winner Scott Moninger of BMC set. Unfortunately for the team Bryce Mead crashed twice on the stage and the second crashed caused Bryce to need six staples in his left knee and he withdrew from the race to go to the hospital. Luckily for the Danny Bryce took over Assistant D.S. duties and helped work the radios to get information out to the guys in the races.

Saturday was a fast technical criterium where the guys just tried to keep Andrew out of trouble and cover breaks. The team was not able to make the break which stayed away to the finish with Rory Sutherland of Health Net winning the stage. Andrew maintained his fourth place overall with the team ready to give it everything on the Sunset road race Sunday. The team was ready to throw-down on the Sunset loop to try and take the lead from Scott Moninger. On the second lap of the race Andrew and Alex got into a 14 man break with Andrew being the highest placed overall. The break went out to 1:20 then fell to just 20 seconds on the ninth and that is when Alex became an animal and went to the front and the gap went up to 1:45 on the group of Scott Moninger who had no teammates left. The gap went up to over three minutes and in the final 9 miles Andrew had to defend himself against attacks from Phil Zajicek (Navigators) and Ben Jaques-Maynes (Priority Health), but in the end held on to win the overall by 10 seconds over Zajicek.

After the race everyone was super pumped because of the big win and beating all the “big” teams and Danny was very excited to have directed a team to the Redlands overall win. The team celebrated its hard work that night and the grit and intelligence of Andrew and Alex in the break to win the overall. This win gave the team a big boost of confidence for the rest of the season, because now the guys have proven they can beat anyone in the U.S.