| Subject: | Notes from Willamette |
| Date: | 04/16/2000 12:06 AM |
| From: | Candi Murray |
|
copied from rec.bicycle racing <excerpt>Hi, this is John Lieswyn of Team Shaklee. Many people have asked me why I'm not posting my race diary on RBR anymore. While I'm still doing a diary (not to regularly anymore, but at least half the time) a ton of other riders are doing a pretty good job of it as is evidenced by all the links posted on RBR. So I will on occasion just do a short blurb and anyone that wants to be on my "race reports" mailing list please send me an email asking to be added to that list. The Tour of Willamette in Eugene Oregon is one of the hardest stage races in America and despite it's faults (no $$, media, fans, or consistent officiating) it is a lot of fun to do. It's funny that pro men and women profess to be "just training" here but everyone seems to take it pretty seriously. And it is the unofficial regional championships for the NWesterners. And the officials are getting much better with experience. So far this year we haven't been misdirected or had huge penalties assessed randomly for yellow line violations. Last year Clark Sheehan was singled out with a 3 minute penalty and bumped from top 3 to nowhere on GC. Moninger (Mercury) is dancing away from the rest of us on the hill finishes (2 out of 3 road stages, with the exception of the stage that Mark McCormack took from Scott a couple days ago). Yesterday not even Scott's own teammate Kirk Willett could hold on when Scott lit the afterburners. Today we had a 10 mile flat time trial. The rain mostly held off for us. I rode better than ever, as my teammate Eric Wohlberg usually takes 1:30 out of me in 10 miles and this time I was just :50 down. After 15 years I'm making a bit of progress in this event. Steve Hegg (Jelly Belly) rode awesome and we've yet to find out who won between Eric and Steve. Most of the national level riders out of the GC rode the TT pretty easy to save energy for the criterium tonite and killer road race tomorrow. Locals gave it their all, and with good reason. This race may be the highlight of their season. Leaving the TT I said to Mark McCormack "seeya tonight" and he said "yeah, seeya rain or rain" as a play on the cliche rain or shine. That about sums it up: when the forecaster says "one or two showers" that means light rain for the next 24 hours. Where else in the country do you get the feeling that you are racing in Europe, with awesome hard road races 4 out of 6 days? More later. </excerpt>quick note to let you know what happened tonite. 6pm RAIN, Cottage Grove, Oregon. 7 man break incl. Mercury u23 rider Will Frischkorn, Mercury Kirk Willet & Gord Fraser, Shaklee Graeme Miller & I (John Lieswyn). 2 others. (Sorry I didn't get your names...!!) I reeled in $200 in primes early on while the break was forming. The race win pays $30 and the overall GC pays $300 so my primes were pretty good considering! Despite Graeme & my combined 35 years of race experience we got absolutely drubbed by Kirk and Gord. Gord attacked 2 1/2 laps to go right when I thought I should go myself. That put us on the defensive, a situation we could not recover from so close to the finish. I tried my best to bring him back but within a lap he'd bridged to the back of the field and I was blown. Just as my efforts faded Kirk attacked and also popped across to lap the field. I went again in the last lap and we also caught the tail end of the peleton, but we were too late to find Gord and Kirk. Graeme was 3rd, I was 6th. This break shook up the top ten on GC pretty well, putting Kirk up into 2nd and myself 3rd or 4th, depending on how much time a lap is worth. Notes: Gman (Graeme) went really well in this morning's TT and finished just 33sec down on Hegg (Jelly Belly) and Wohlberg (Shaklee, at :02) Moninger (:04). I was about 1min down, probably around 13th. Arghh!! Kent, teach me!! Mercury is making it really hard for the rest of the field to win a race. It's easy to slip into thinking "I wish they'd just go to Europe and pick on guys their own size" but we all need to really yank ourselves up to their level and EARN IT. Yeah, they are all flying but WE CAN DO IT if we don't get discouraged. |
