Marc de Maar of the United Healthcare squad used the queen stage in the mount Hood Cycling Classic to extend his overall lead. The stage win went to Patrick Mc Carty - the former ProTour rider is now with Matrix/Richardson Bike Mart team. De Maar ended the day in fourth place.
De Maar's goal was to win the fourth stage, the 148km long Wy'East Road Race. He set the first attack on the final climb, about eight kilometers from the finish. But the two-minute gap to the remaining riders from the day's break proved too much.
McCarty stayed clear for the day's win. De Maar matched Michael Creed, who is still 44 seconds behind in the overall, but now in second place. Creed pushed away Paul Mach, who lost 43 seconds against De Maar/Creed.
"The team rode fantastic today," De Maar said. "Today was a very hard course; it was either up or down all day. We really had only three guys to control the race today, and we were trying to protect Morgan [Schmitt] some, too, because he was our next highest guy on GC."
Chris Baldwin and Max Jenkins were the other two riders tasked with keeping the peloton in check for the better part of 90 miles during today's stage. Baldwin said after the stage that "we had a good plan and we executed it perfectly today."
"We wanted to protect Morgan a bit today," said Team Directeur Sportif Gord Fraser, "and give him the task of marking [Rob] Britton because we wanted to make sure he didn't get up the road and give Mach someone to bridge up to. So Max and Chris ended up with the bulk of the work, and it's not easy defending a jersey for that long a stage with just two guys."
Britton came into the day one place and 10 seconds behind Schmitt, who sat seventh overall at 1'47 behind De Maar.
"The Bissell guys were really aggressive from the start but we were able to keep them in check pretty much all day," Baldwin said.
With 35 km remaining, and the final climb under way in earnest, a break finally got off the front and up the road. Nate English (Echelon Gran Fondo/Z-Team) was the most dangerous rider in the break, sitting fifth overall, 1'10 behind de Maar.
In the end, English gained 23 seconds to move up to third overall, 47 seconds behind De Maar and only three seconds away from second place.
This will make the final stage on Sunday, the 90-minute Hood River Criterium, quite an interesting battle still.
Stage results
1 Patrick Mc Carty (Matrix) 3h51'53
2 Marcel Aarden (Total Restoration) 0'10
3 Nathaniel English (Echelon Gran Fondo) 0'12
4 Marc De Maar (United Healthcare) 0'35
5 Michael Creed (Team Type 1) s.t.
Overall clasification after stage 4
1 Marc de Maar (United Healthcare) 10h35'42
2 Michael Creed (Team Type 1) 0'44
3 Nathaniel English (Echelon Gran Fondo) 0'47
4 Paul Mach (Bissell) 0'57
5 Sam Johnson (Hagens Berman) 2'12