The Story of the Lake Mary Bumper Buddies……
May 31, 2006 10:12 am
Well I’m back now…..I had to go to the office for a few days. Sometimes my office doesn’t have an internet connection. Like this time because I was staying in a sweet cabin out in the sticks of Flagstaff, Arizona. Special thanks to the Cullinans for the hospitality. I did a stage race there to help put the finishing touches on my fitness for the Lancaster-Reading-Philly and Tour de Beauce racing swing coming up. I’ve always enjoyed doing local races when I’m home. I know a lot of riders don’t because they think when they show up with a pro jersey on you’re “marked” and unable to do anything without 7,000 other riders following. Well, it’s true, they do follow you but you can’t blame anybody for following an attacking pro jersey. I always did……..and still do. My favorite though, is when I attack and someone yells, “right side, Austin, right side” as I shoot up the right side of the road. I like to yell it back too, “right side, Austin, right side”. I’m easily amused.
All in all, I had a fun weekend of racing and spending time with Suzanne in the cooler air of northern Arizona’s high country. On Sunday, I went for a ride in the morning, drove up SnowBowl with Suzanne and went up the scenic ski lift (11,500 feet) in the early afternoon, and then raced the criterium in the late afternoon. It was a great time and a beautiful and windy view of Northern Arizona from way up Humphreys Peak.
In Monday’s final road race, there was some very exciting controversy that went down. Two guys, got off the front with about an hour of fast rolling terrain left to race. They opened up a small gap but were still well in sight of the peloton that was being impressively controlled by the leaders team. All of a sudden, I looked up the road and saw one of the breakaway rider’s follow car infront of the two riders. I signaled up the motorcycle official and told him that the break and the car looked to be a bit closer than they should be. Hey, I raced 5 seasons as an amateur in Europe, I’ve seen all the tricks in the book and I knew what was going on. One time in Belgium, I lost a few important spots in a time trial to guys who held on to their team car……. So, he drove up there to check it out, but of course the car saw him coming and moved before he got there. The official then drops back and says that everything looked fine. Of course it did. About 15 minutes later, I asked him to go back up there as the two riders were still putting time into the hard charging peloton. He sped back up the road and this time made the little yellow car pull over and get behind the peloton. This worked for about 2 minutes before the driver of the little yellow car had the nerve to speed back up to his amigo in the break. Now, at this point in the race, the peloton was blowing to bits in a rolling terrain crosswind. We were doing 45-50 kmh in the last hour………and what do you know, the two man break has somehow increased their gap to 2 minutes!!!! This is the kind of hard ass riding I’ve only seen the Rabobank Espoirs, the Lithuanian National Team, the Russian amateur Omnibike Team [2] and a few other Eastern European amateurs do. So, the two guys end up staying off and winning by a few minutes over the remnants of the hard charging peloton. I was a bit upset over the situation so I decided to find the bumper buddies. I could only find one of the guys and I asked him if he’d been drafting off of the little yellow car……of course he quickly said “no”. His buddy even told me, “he’s on a different level”…… Yeah man, the same kind of different level that got him dropped the day before? Then the flood gates opened……and person after person started saying how they saw the little yellow car flying across the country side with two riders glued to the bumper……One guy even told me he heard the riders yelling for the car to slow down. Eureka! I decided to then ask the driver if he’d been pacing his rider. He said, “I was a mile away from them, look at my eyes, I’m not lying”. Yeah, thanks buddy. Oh you know what, I got something for you.. In the end, a fair amount of riders lodged a protest against the two motorpacing bandits. Since, many riders and spectators saw the little yellow car and it’s tag alongs but no officials did, the protest was about as successful as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. But…another protest was made that got one of the riders on technicallity. There was to be no unofficial follow cars on the course and that included the little yellow car too. In the end, the winner was relegated to the back but his bumper buddy, who had no team affiliation to the follow car wasn’t. Unable to nab him on anything else, he was awarded a hard earned first place…………please note: that was sarcasm. I never did find the “winner” after the race or at the award ceremony. He was at least smart enough to split town and head for the hills……
As for me, I finished up the stage race 5th overall. It was a decent ride on my part but more importantly great prep for the upcoming racing swing. With 10 races in 18 days, I’ll need all the help I can get.
Talk to you soon.
