Tim Teutenberg Wins Thrilling Revamped Philadelphia Cycling Classic

Tim Teutenberg (Lidl-Trek) won the revived Philadelphia Cycling Classic on Sunday, in a three-up sprint to take his first career pro victory.

It was an extra special victory for the German as his aunt, Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, won the race five times across its various iterations between 2005 and 2012.

Robert Donaldson (Jayco-AlUla) finished second and Jonas Rutsch (Intermarché-Lotto) rounded out the podium, finishing with the same time.

“It feels incredible,” Teutenberg said. “It’s my first pro win. It’s a nice race. My aunt I think won it four times [five times -editor] so it’s good to continue that tradition.”

“It was incredible how many people were out there. It was a bit like a climb in the Tour of Flanders,” he said.

The 200-kilometer race played out like a spring classic as well. Racers battled across eight laps of a 14.4-mile historic course around Philadelphia, the original course first used in the race’s heyday. About halfway through, the race really heated up as the strongest teams in the course went on the offensive to reel in the day’s break. Teutenberg made a four-man group and would manage to stay in the action for the rest of the day.

From there it became an attritional, technical race, with constant attacks whittling down the lead group. Lidl-Trek was well represented in the lead, having four of the 10 riders in the lead group inside the final lap once Quinn Simmons bridged across with 5km to go, bringing teammate Sebastian Grindley with him.

“It was quite a technical race,” Teutenberg said. “You never know which attack would go. We tried to be there with numbers. We knew that Quinn (Simmons, his Lidl-Trek teammate) was super strong and he would somehow find his way and make it to the front and that’s what he did. And I tried to slow it a bit down in the group. When he arrived in the group he immediately attacked and that was super good. And then we played the numbers a bit.”

How the race unfolded

A seven-rider break defined the first act of the race. Robin Carpenter (Modern Adventure), Colby Lange (Project Echelon), Kelland O’Brien (Jayco-AlUla), Thomas Sullivan (Meridian Racing p/b de la Uz), David Lozano (Novo Nordisk), and Josh Lebo (Meridian Racing p/b de la Uz) were joined by Derek Gee (Lidl-Trek) who bridged across solo to the group. Lebo fell back leaving six riders once more.

They built up a 2-minute lead at the halfway point, which began to shrink rapidly on lap five.

On the Manayunk Wall on lap five, Quinn Simmons and Luke Lamperti helped force a split to narrow the race down, while the gap to the leaders narrowed to under a minute. Hometown rider Robin Carpenter stayed doggedly on the attack solo even after the lead group got swallowed up by the chase, but soon it was all back together to start the second half of the race.

Lidl-Trek had a numbers advantage, managing to place all of its riders in the lead group, and began playing their advantage.

A strong group of Tim Teutenberg (Lidl-Trek), Robert Donaldson (Yaco-AlUla), Luke Lamperti (EF Education-EasyPost), and Riley Sheehan (NSN Pro Cycling) went clear on lap six. That’s when the race started to look like an attritional spring classic, with groups of four or five spread 10-20 seconds apart across the road.

Those chase groups then formed into two main groups packed full of WorldTour riders. Eight riders led up front including all four from the Teutenberg group, Sebastian Grindley (Lidl-Trek), Jonas Rutsch (Lotto-Intermarché), Ben Oliver (Modern Adventure), and Eder Frayre (L39ION of Los Angeles). Behind them was a group of about a dozen.

Quinn Simmons tried to bridge across with Simone Gualdi (Lotto-Intermarché), and was later joined by Lidl-Trek teammate Sebastian Grindley cutting the lead slowly over the last lap, reconnecting with 5km to go. Simmons immediately went on the attack again but it came back together. Rutsch then went on the attack 4km to go. Donaldson bridged up, but Simmons, gassed from the earlier effort to bridge to the front, couldn’t make it across again. Teutenberg then made it across with about 2km to go as Simmons attempted to chase back on with Frayre.

Teutenberg opened up his sprint from the lead position, going long, and left no doubt as he raised his arms in victory to take the first edition of the Philadelphia Cycling Classic since 2016.

Results: Philadelphia Cycling Classic