Pez Cyclingnews, Edmond Hood, 9 April 2013
Posted by: Bitossi

It’s getting harder and harder to make your name in the early break in the Northern Classics. The World Tour teams want men up there for their stars to ‘leap frog’ over to and the Pro Continental teams want men up there for the TV time. The Tour of Flanders was no exception with the break taking a long time to ‘stick’ and never allowed to go more than 3:45 clear. One name which caught our eye among the seven hardy souls who had the temerity to ignore The Shack, Cannondale, Lotto and QuickStep’s power struggles was that of Garmin’s 22 year-old from Portland, Oregon, Jacob Rathe. Rathe’s name first appeared on the radar as silver medalist in the US debutant’s cyclo-cross championship in 2006. In 2008 he pops up again as a bronze medallist in the US team sprint championship. In 2009 the big results began to appear with a stage win in the Junior Regio Tour in Germany.