14 + 15

Will it ever end?

Stage 14: Racine 100k

Before Superweek started, this was supposed to be my off day. Like I mentioned last entry, an off day isn't happening. Racine is little town down in Southern Wisconsin. Not much of a drive from Milwauk. Did a couple warm up laps on the course. What a course! Every turn had cracks and lips and sealer and grass, even. This course definitely led the way for fluorescent-orange chalk usage. Ah well. 85 laps. Plenty of times to figure it out.


We roll. Everyone's out again, surprisingly, and leading the way...not surprisingly...were the fresh guys that just arrived at Superweek a few days ago. 5 guys lapped the field early, and the formality of the rest of the race played out. Shortly after, a break of 6 snuck off, and came pretty close to lapping and just ran out of race. So, 5 had lapped, 6 gone, leaving the rest of us to sprint for 12th. 5 to go, Kelly-Benefit lined it up pretty good, though they weren't yet drilling it, so it was them up front, with a massive blob of riders behind. I stayed near the yellow (now Cantwell), and had it up until the last lap. Turn 1, we're through. Turn 2, I see an opening on the inside, and chop or not, dove into it. Normal stuff. BUT! The big former jersey wearer went even further inside and I had to slam the brakes or take us both down. Dicey, at best. Lost several spots, and had to let off a match or two to get back in the mix. Finished 19th, eventually. Happy to have kept it upright.

Stage 15: Kenosha 100k

A Superweek classic. Fun little course. 100 laps. Nice festival vibe at this one, and great crowds. Massive field. Conspicuously absent again: Bahati. The finales are certainly different without him. Anyhow, I thought I got a nice spot during staging, but once we were underway, It felt like I was a million riders back. The course is a really fast one, with the exception of a bottleneck at turn 2, so it's a long line of riders that stay strung out because of that bottleneck...sometimes regardless of how fast the peleton is moving. What does all this mean? It means it's a good course for a breakaway.

So, after spending the first 20 laps feeling the race and letting the GC people futily attack one another, I made my way to the front. Not one lap later, Cameron Meyer blasts off the right side. Side note...Meyer is from the same Australian city (Perth) as my former teammate Michael Fitzgerald. So I kinda knew about him. He also won the Los Angeles World Cup Points race at which I was present (watching, of course). I had a chat with Cameron when we were called up at Shorewood. He's prepping for the Olympics, and I told him he's a nutter for racing Superweek just prior...but it is good training. Ok, side story done. I bridged the slight gap to Cameron, and we had about a quarter lap to get to the break. We exchanged pulls, and 2 laps later (and after Eddie's maaaaaaaasive seranade of words each time Cameron passed), we were in. The break? Geezus. Here's the roll call:

-Cameron Meyer (AUS) Going to the Olympics
-Juan Pablo Forero Carreno (COL) Going to the Olympics
-Carlos Alzate Escobar (COL) Going to the Olympics
-Jonathan Page (USA) 2nd Place World Cross Champs
-Paul Martin (USA) Elite National Champ
-Pete Dawson (AUS) Multiple World Team Pursuit Champ
-Richard England (AUS) '08 Tour of Georgia Stage 5 Winner
-Alex Boyd (USA) '08 Superweek pipped Aram Dellalian for $200 Prime
-Markus Walters (CAN) Canada's Finest?
-Greg Christian
-Russel Langley
-Me

To make things even more interesting, Pete Dawson did zero work in the break. Which is really interesting because I have no idea how cyclingnews got this photo:


I guess it's time to lay down some excuses. Gah. I'm just reporting it as it is. So, Dawson sitting on. The Colombians had 2 in the break. Jonathan Page had a teammate. And. What the results sheet won't show is that not-a-one of the other breakaway guys has been at this madness since day 1. Anyhow. The break lapped. Of course. It's all the right guys, it's big enough to sap plenty of points, and we took off very early, so sprint points would still be up for grabs. Jittery Joe's timed it perfectly, and we lapped with 2 laps to go 'till the first sprint. I recovered for a bit, and then did some basic calculations. Dawson sat on. Everyone else worked. I'll follow him for the finale. Well...long story short, he didn't do much, and took the final corner pretty timidly, and it was game over. I rolled in probably with a top 10 in the field sprint, but too many breakaway mates were in the mix as well, and ended up 8th on the day. 48 km/h average speed. Most probably the fastest crit I've ever done/seen. Not necessarily the hardest.

Interestingly, Jonathan Page was livid at the end of the race. He said "The Colombians rode like real men, unlike Rock Racing." -Looooooooooong Pause- "So Felicidades to them." I wasn't sure what the drama was about, but apararently Sterling is forgetting that the free-pass that comes with the Yellow Jersey no longer belongs to him. Hmmmmmmm.

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