Riding for THF Realty, Brian Dziewa of Farmington, Mo., rode away from the pack and won the feature race of the Gateway Cycling Club’s Spring Criterium on Saturday at Tilles Park.

Dziewa, who rode with Jelly Belly in the inaugural Tour of Missouri, attacked with about 5 minutes left in the 60-minute-plus 6 lap event and solo-ed away for nine laps to beat a field of Cat. 1/2/3 racers.

Twas a nice result for Dziewa, 26, who said Tilles Park “is not a good course for me.” The circuit is a little less than a mile and basically flat with one little rise about halfway around. “All speed,” said Dziewa, who made the most of his late attack on a cold, windy day. “It went pretty well.”

Dziewa races these days for the love of the sport and works in the family restaurant business in Farmington. He spent one season with Jelly Belly, a U.S. domestic pro team, and was one of three Missourians in the Tour of Missouri, along with Dan Schmatz (then with BMC) and Brad Huff (then with Slipstream-Chipotle).

Schmatz and Huff both crashed in the race, Schmatz in an unfortunate encounter with an armadillo in Stage 2 and Huff spectacularly in the sprint to the finishing line in front of Union Station in the final stage. Dziewa entered the ToM with dead legs, having ridden in support of Jelly Belly’s James Meadley en route to Meadley’s yellow jersey in the Tour of Hong Kong-Shanghai  a few weeks before. But he said he raced in Missouri anyway because he didn’t want to miss the state’s first major stage race.

Schmatz retired after the Tour of Mo. and started his postrace career as the director sportif of the THF Realty team. Jelly Belly didn’t renew Dziewa’s contract, and Schmatz brought him on board with THF Realty. (Huff is now with Jelly Belly, but he’s been out with a knee injury.)

Dziewa says his season to date has been “up and down.” He broke his wrist in late January, then came down with what he jokingly called the “Bubonic plague,” which knocked him down for a couple of weeks. The victory at Tilles could be a good springboard to his defense of his title in the Missouri State Road Race Championship, the Newburg Hellbender, in mid-May.

–30–