Tour de Frankenmuth

This post is dedicated to my impatient friend, Bike Boy.

So Friday night after I attended Cat's high school graduation ceremony (where she was Valedictorian and gave a nice speech) my Dad and I drove briskly to Frankenmuth. We arrived at the hotel just before 11pm. By 11:01 we were asleep. Thank you again Doug for offering to share the hotel room.

Saturday morning came quickely and it was cold! Temperatures in the low 40s. We made our 1.3 mile trek from the hotel to the parking lot full of cyclists and began prepping for the race. My Dad stood around and took pictures while I got my number, pinned it on and prepped my bike. He did however take the team's spare wheels to the support truck. As we were warming up, there was a hot air balloon launch taking place, Joe has a picture somewhere.

We rolled to the start line for our supposed 7:33am start time with the I/IIs going at 7:30. But at 7:47am the race still had not started for anyone. But eventually we got off and from the gun the racing started. Two riders sprinted off the front before the first corner. We left them out there and slowly pulled them in over the next few miles. Another flurry of attacks followed for a while but the right group just never formed so no one stayed out front very long.

Joe was very active at the beginning, attacking again and again. But as he said he ended up "out riding himself." I remained at the front for the better part of the race. I dropped back occasionaly to rest and recover, maybe talk to John Scott or Tony and see how they were doing and what their plans were, but spent a lot of time with Darrell watching the front. I would do my share of blocking everytime an SLC rider went off the front, but as I stated, all the early breaks were useless.

At the halfway point in the race, I was not feeling great. I had started the race on nothing more than a clif bar and a GU. Durring the race I consumed 5 GUs to keep my body functioning but it didnt feel like enough to get me to the finish with the feild. I made this known to my teamates so they wouldn't be looking around for me at the finish.

Durring lap 3 of 4 a rider got away and got a nice gap. We pulled him in on the run into the start/finish line. I would like to insert a small rant here about the finish line. I guess the city wouldn't let the race shut down the street. But 4 lanes across, maybe leave one lane for each direction and two for the race...no. The finish line and the 300 meters leading up to it was 6 feet wide and downhill. Do the math. Cyclists moving 40+ spriting with only 6ft of space....not too bright if you ask me.

On lap 4, the final lap, I was still with the peloton. This was where my mentality changed from "finish the race" to "finish with the peloton." I rode up to Darrell and he asked me to find the rest of the team and move them to the front to block so he could attack. As I moved back, I discovered we had lost Joe and John so I got Tony Scott and DMO to move their way up. But Darrell had an opportunity to go and took it. It didn't last long because we couldn't block because we hadn't had the time to move up. Eventually the team got to the front, but Darrell waiting on attacking.

Around 10 miles from the finish line, a Bissell guy made an attack and got a substancial gap. I told DMO to go with him. As the group pulled DMO back I made a small attack but was met with some yelling. They told me to "roll it" as in paceline. I wondered why and looked back...to my surprise there were 11 of us with a gap on the peloton. No one is sure what happened. I asked around, and no one really knows. But we formed a breakaway somehow. In the break were DMO, Darrell, Me, an ISCorp rider, the other two Bissell guys and 5 other guys from assorted teams. NOT included in the break was a Wolverine.

Well we tried to stay away to the finish. DMO and I did more then our share of setting the pace. We were assisted by the ISCorp rider and Darrell. However, the two Bissell guys sat 5th and 6th wheel, understandably not working. The 5 assorted guys behind them were from the MTB scene and didn't have the technical skills to paceline efficently. This left the 4 of us out of a group of 11 to chase down the one guy out front and beat the peloton.

My mentality changed again here. It was pretty much "Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" because I was in so much pain. I wanted to quit, but I knew Darrell and DMO needed me, so I dug extra deep to help them. This whole time, our gap to the peloton was increasing. Scott said that him and Tony blocked while the peloton chased, but they just could not pull us back in.

As we flew through the feed zone about one mile from the finish, I was in the gutter. I had been red lined for a long time and was on the verge of shutting down. 500m from the line the road goes slightly uphill. I put everything I had left into my legs to try and get Darrell a leadout (racing for 2nd place, we never caught the Bissell guy) but I was in too much pain, I had pushed harder than I ever had before and had nothing left. I had to ease up and ride to the finish behind the group, Darrell getting 5th overall. DMO crossed just ahead of me in 11th and I got 12th, not bad for being the driving forces of the break. The peloton was about 40 seconds back.

Overall it was a good race. I was pleased with the work I did for Darrell and the break. A few of the guys even congradulated me on my efforts.

Things I thought of, but was too lazy to fit in above:

- I lost my wheel magnet at mile 45 which annoyed me, so I cannot tell you how fast the break was moving.
-Scott and I both hit a huge pothole that I thought broke my wheel, it ended up being fine.

-Thank you Tony for giving us gaps on purpose to start breaks.

-Thank you Tony and Scott for blocking in the peloton

-Kroske, make sure you are paying attention next time so you make the break and can't complain about it haha

-Sorry Kroske for almost running you off the road.

-Thank you Dad for lunch, pictures, support and driving home.

[Photos courtesy of my Dad]

[[As usual this post was not proofread for clarity or grammer]]