A sport like cycling would seem to be one that would crave simplicity: The first person to cross the line is the winner.

But as Saturday’s VeloTek Grand Prix at Clinton Lake proved, cycling is a sport mired in complicated detail and strategy.

Lawrence-based GP VeloTek won the men’s category three criterium, the highest race classification of the weekend’s competition. VeloTek’s Kurtis Albrecht was the individual winner in a 25-mile race that came down the last 400 meters.

As it turned out, the whole race catered to Albrecht’s strength as a sprint-oriented cyclist when it came down to last-second jockeying for places down the final stretch.

“My tactic was to sit and watch certain guys in the race and go with them, and that’s exactly what I did in the sprint,” Albrecht said. “I watched one guy go, I jumped out on his wheel and he took me along for a little bit, and I jumped him and took the sprint.”

To the untrained eye, the race would have seemed to be a procession of brave, yet foolish riders who tried to steal victory by ditching the pack early on.

But according to the experienced cyclists in the race, there is a method to the madness.

The race consisted of 25 laps around a mile-long course. Most of the peleton — the term used to describe the main group of riders — stuck together in a tight pack for the entire race, but there were other riders who would take turns extending huge leads over the rest of the field.

Toward the later stages of the race, several riders took leads big enough that it appeared they could steal the victory.

Framed by a bicycle tire, participants in the Juniors 15-16 category race during the second annual VeloTek Grand Prix. The race was Saturday afternoon at Clinton Lake.

With five laps remaining, Scott Hammack and Robert Newell appeared as though they could run off with the race, assuming an eight-second lead over the peleton.

Hammack survived to finish second, but Newell dropped all the way to 24th. Hammack said his strategy paid off because he knew sprinters like Grife, who won the 21/2 mile prologue earlier in the morning, would be coming after him late.

“It was interesting, I didn’t think it would come down to a sprint. The guy who won the time trial, he’s a strong sprinter, so I wanted to get ahead of him because he’s a strong sprinter,” Hammack said.

The race finishes today with a 58-mile road race near Perry Lake starting at 9 a.m.