Tour of Belize Final Stage. Vindication and Pain Nation

From Kenny:

Sorry so late with this. Just fired up the computer today. Been catching up on some sleep after a recovery ride. KB

Stage 6: Final Day

Vindication and pain nation.

This morning, as we got to the starting area in the beautiful mountain town of San Ignacio, we were greeted with bashful smiles from some of the race officials. They wanted to deeply apologize for the "screw-up" on the King of the Mountains (KoM) points tally for the Polka-dot jersey competition, which we were sure we had on the shoulders of our man Michael Olheiser. (And I apologize for any accusations I made here of favoritism. It's all been a bit frustrating though). They handed us a new polka-dot jersey, this time without the fanfare and stage presentation with the pretty girls and all, but it was fine the way it was. We were told that Mike had only a 1 point grasp on the jersey and there were 6 points to be gained on the first and only KoM hill climb today (6 points to 1st, 5 points to 2nd and so on). The points paid out to 5th place to the top of the hill at mile 30. All we needed to do was either let 5 racers get ahead on the road to soak up the points, or make sure that Mike was at least 1 place in front of the Santino's rider #7 who sat in 2nd place in the KoM points. Sounds easy on paper.

When the race started, immediately a couple of racers attacked up the hills of San Ignacio. They quickly gained about 45 seconds which we thought was a good situation. Now there were only 3 places for the KoM points hill coming at mile 30 of this 95 mile stage. But what we discovered was that there was a deal struck at the front with some of the Spanish speaking teams. We were sharing a radio frequency with the Mexican Tecos team and with my limited ability to speak and understand Espanol... and what we were seeing, there were at least 2 other teams helping Tecos chase down the 2 escapees. I immediately attacked, but it was a 'fools bet' to try to go against such a strong chase. Eventually the chasers caught their prey and pressed forward.

This was a bit sobering considering that we knew there were other alliances in the peleton against us already. But having some of the Latino teams join forces to try to wrestle the Polka-dot jersey from us just made us race harder. Each Herring rider took turns marking the front of the field behind the bright orange Tecos train. No one in Blue showed any signs of being tired or signs of being intimidated that more than half the teams in the race were working against us.

So here was the deal: We had to lock up the climbers jersey by getting either 5 people who were not in the hunt for it to win all the points or we had to get Mike to win at least one more point than the Santino's rider wearing #7. Then we were to go on the attack. Try to get Bain up the road away from the Yellow jersey. His team was tired as we saw yesterday and in this wind, with Bain being 3 minutes down from the lead, it was still do-able.

We decided to play it conservative to the big hill. Coming up the category 3 climb, it was all blue at the front. A couple of Santino's riders made the mistake of coming up to the front to do the same thing. They got in front of me as the hill was starting to get steeper. Behind me was Tim, Bain, Frank, Mike, Woody and Chris. Everyone present with the target in our sights. The hill proved more difficult than what was on paper. The wind was buffeting us around like sheets in the wind, but by the top of the hill, Mike was clear and took first place at the line marking the top of the hill. Over our race frequency I could hear several "Congrats Mike" from our squad, then a heavy Spanish accented "Congratulations, Herring Gas!", which I believe came from the director of the Tecos team, with whom we were sharing a frequency.

Now here is where the real racing would start. From the top of the hill, we slowly turned north-east toward Belize City and straight into a stiff 20MPH head wind. Attacking riders were usually a Herring rider, or closely followed by a Herring rider but the chasing peleton was determined to keep things together... and the pace very high. The more north the road turned, the stronger the wind. Finally the Tecos team had regained control of the front and the attacks were all proving to be pointless. Then we were served a big surprise.

The motorcycle holding the information board drove past me holding a sign that read "10 KM to the next KOM". What? "Hey Mal, this board up here is saying that we have another KoM sprint in 10KM. Anyone else see that?" I asked over the radio?... Silence. I repeated. Then Mal pipes in, "The Race Commissioner just told us that there is another KOM in 10K." (Actually that sentence was full of expletives and more accusations, but this is a family show.) This hill wasn't in the daily communique nor in the race bible, but it was vaguely mentioned in the daily parcours, a topographical description of the day's upcoming events. We had to again try to take control of the front, after we thought those duties were over. Quickly, we had all 7 of us behind the orange Tecos train, who only had 4 riders pulling at this point. Mike O' then told me that he wished he knew where the Santino's rider #7 was. "Hold on Mike, I'll drop back and find him."

I found him about 25 riders back and as I did, I could hear over the radio in Creole (we were sharing a frequency with Santino's also) that his team was calling him to the front. His radio didn't seem to be working, but his team leader suddenly showed up on my shoulder and was screaming across me for him to get his butt in gear. He starting moving up, but on the right, which was the windy side. I kept Mike informed exactly where we were and I kept #7 in the wind as discretely as possible. Every time he made a move to get himself protected from the wind, I was there to gently take that protection away from him, even from behind his own teammates. Now he was directly behind Mike, but still in the wind coming from the right. I slowly moved in behind Mike, moving #7 back into the wind. When we saw the "1 KM to go" sign I moved slightly in front of him, keeping him on my right as Mike started to make his move. When Mike decided to take off for the sprint, lucky # 7 was so tired that he didn't budge off of my wheel. Again "Good Job Mike" came over the radio.

From here, about 50 miles from Belize city, the road flattened out and the wind picked up harder off of our right shoulder, pushing us all against the left ditch and the crumbly stuff. And the pace got intense. The field was splitting into pieces and I found myself off the back because of my efforts in the hills. I was in a chase group with Woody and about 40 others, mostly little guys and munchkins too vulnerable to the wind. Then this group started to splinter as well. Up front, the Tecos team and their allies were keeping the pace high to discourage attacks and to keep the chasing groups from re-attaching. Then turning right back into a direct head wind, the Yellow Jersey crashed. In a true sign of unsportsmanlike behavior, a couple of teams picked up the pace. The Herring riders witnessing the crash and the Canadian Pro team Calyon got to the front to try to slow the pace so the race leader can get back on. There's a gentleman's agreement that "you don't attack the Yellow Jersey if he crashes or has a mechanical." The Tecos team did get him back up and back on just as the pack was coming into the finishing 2 mile circuit. Turning onto that circuit where we would do 2 laps, Frank Moak crashed and came detached from the very small front pack of only about 45 riders. Frank would finish about 45 seconds behind this group.

Off the front was local Red Bull rider Ernest Meighan and US National team rider Chris Barton with a narrow 20 second lead on the field. When the group of 9 that Woody and I were chasing with arrived on the circuit, the front group were finishing their first half of a lap. From here I could see all the finishing action and was right in the mix to see Ernest Meighan take the win for the stage against the young US Team rider. Right behind came the pack, chasing at over 40MPH with another US National rider taking the sprint from the field for 3rd place with Tim Regan holding on for 7th. Woody and I rolled in about 4 minutes later and yes, I did a wheelie across the line.

So no Yellow Jersey for us. The race was basically lost on the first day with that big 12 minute break that Woody started. From that group, on that first day, the winner of the race was able to gain the 3 minute lead he held onto till the end. His team, Tecos did a great job from there keeping us in check. And a big nod to the US National Children. I don't know how fast the children are in your neighborhood, but I can promise you that they are probably not as fast as the children on the US National Team. All but one of them is younger then 21. They won the team competition at the ToB. Now they are going to Belgium for 4 months to try to grow chest hair. They beat us at our best and they should have. Hopefully they'll be bringing home gold medals from the Olympics one day. Those are some really fast children.. I wish them the very best.

The Tour of Belize is a great tour. It's well run, professional and very challenging. And we had some great success. We proved that a little team from the Gulf Coast can be competitive with anyone in the world. We had one rider on the podium for 3 days pulling on the climber's jersey. We had the whole team on the podium in the Team Time Trial, which was a pretty big honor for everyone involved. Fourth place in the Team competition, 4th place in the sprint competition and we had 2 riders finish in the top-10 in the General Classification (6th and 8th). This little team had such a good showing. Real true teamwork. Professionalism. Honor. We were the talk of Belize and at our hotel after the last stage was a constant flow of local riders, fans and new friends dropping off gifts, making jersey trades and signing autographs. It seems like we were putting on more of a show than we thought. Not bad considering that we had 2 of the oldest riders in the race. Also, Frank held his own award ceremony out on the water front Sunday evening as some cold beer and fruity drinks were served. It was my first beer in months. Man I missed beer.

I hope you enjoyed my sometimes rambling ramblings. I know I can go on, but it's more of a blog for me and the team to keep a record as to what went wrong and right as anything. And I passed on all the well-wishes you sent us to the entire squad. It was heart warming to know how closely some of you followed this. You can check out our pictures in the picture section of the Herring site at http://herring-cycling.com/gallery2/ (more to follow). And I'll have some video posted up soon, after I fix this battered computer. We're all home now, licking our wounds, letting our privates heal and picking at the peeling skin from the sunburn. I'll be posting some Q and A's I got during the tour later in the week. Next time I'm going to wear long sleeves.

See you later,
Kenny

Stage 6

Final podium

Time for autographs

Ed: Yo Kenny - On behalf of everyone who has followed the race and waited impatiently for their daily Kenny-fix: Thanks, buddy. Well done.
- DH