Bombed on the Beach of Normandy and Rocked at Redlands. 4/12/05
4/12/05 Bombed on the Beaches of Normandy. Well, Lionel has figured out why the Germans lost WW II. Normandy is a tough nut to crack. Seven days in hell. Let's start with the weather. It varied from rain, to heavy rain, to golf ball sized hail. Having ridden in Belgium for awhile, I can only describe this sensation to those who have not in the following fashion. Imagine you are wearing all of your cycling gear. I mean gloves, shoes, helmet, cap, socks, Manotex jacket, the Full Monty. Now, jump into a swimming pool of water with a temperature of about 45 degrees. Get out fast or you'll die. Now, get on your bike and ride for six hours. But you're not going to ride on the road, you're going to ride around in a big circle at your local driving range where people will be trying to take shots at you like the guy who drives the golf cart that picks up the balls. Every 30 seconds or so, something will come whizzing by, or nail you in the middle of the back. Not exactly comfortable conditions. That about sums up the weather. Now, lets talk about how the race unfolded. Willie Frischkorn, our go-to guy, was throwin' down some serious stuff. He was third in the prologue, dropped a place or two during the following couple of days, but looked like he was going to finish on the podium. As a result, JV threw the rest of the team to the wolves chasing down breaks and keeping an eye on Will. Unfortunately, Will started to develop tendonitis in his hamstring. Frankly, we had no choice but to pull him. He's too important for the Tour of Georgia to ruin his season in the first stage race of the year. With only a couple of days left to go, we found ourselves in an awkward position. We'd just lost our GC guy. Everyone was trailing in at the back from fatigue in defending Will's position or just getting brutalized by the weather. I heard the locals took to throwing rocks at the peloton when the hail subsided. Nearly everyone was fried. Except, there was, of course, Dan The Man. As I've told you before, Dan Bowman is a super stud. Nothing stops him. He isn't outstanding in only one area, instead he's extremely good all around. Well, Dan pulled our phat outa the fire in Normandy. He held a solid 14 on GC behind 13 guys named Dekker. Rednecks in Redlands. Since Normandy wasn't enough to get everybody racing. We threw the rest of the guys into Redlands. Redlands is a race that will not die. It's a race that's been around my entire life, and I still can't figure out why. It's in the middle of nowhere. The only folks living that far east of Los Angeles are considered white trash. But they're good-hearted folk. Looking down the list of entrants, you can see what devastation occurred on the domestic circuit in the last year. First, any team that is sponsored by a combination of bike shop and a chiropractor is just dirt. In fact, any team with a "/" in its name it basically dirt. Dirt teams scrape by on shear will and determination. No one gets paid. No one gets perks. You may not even get a feed bag. If you are smart, you just take one from some other team, since there's nothing they can do about it once you've ridden off. In fact, you're lucky if you don't have to sleep in your car between stages. I should know. I always rode on a dirt team. Not that all "/" teams would have to be bad. There are a couple I'd like to see riding the Pro Tour. How about Team Giant/Hooters or Team Viagra/Squirt? By the way, shouldn't Jan Ullrich ride for Jelly Belly, or is it just me? Of course there's one team at Redlands with no "/" in its name: Heath Net. These guys came to Redlands and won wire to wire. They strung out the field every day. It was not pretty. With so few solid riders, HN just put the hammer down and brutalized everyone everyday. A good way to eliminate the competition. How did our guys do? Man, did we get shelled. Well, we started with eight. One guy actually finished. Here's a little detail. No one on the team put up an outstanding number in the uphill prologue on day one. On day two, we lost four guys during the Oak Glen stage, including Craig Lewis. That guy can't catch a break. We thought we might have lost Sheldini again, just like last year, but he came limping in after the women's race finished. We're thinking about having one of those doggie trackers implanted in his backside so we don't lose him every year. The remaining four survived the 90 minute crit on Saturday. In the road race on Sunday, however, Ian MacGregor bailed on the first lap, two more went out on lap two or so probably looking for Ian, meaning we really ended up with one official finisher. Can't wait for Tour of Georgia. Lionel Putz, Esq.