The Team: May 2008 Archives
It was ugly. Real ugly. Keeping both our top contender Bain Foote and his back-up Tim Regan in contention or at least with-in reach of the grand prize has been an ugly and expensive endeavor. With only 5 Herring riders on the start list out of an allowed 10, we thought we would have to work pretty hard to be competitive. Little did we know that we would come home with 4 crashes, lots of road rash, 1 totaled bike, a broke-down RV and a ton of expensive carbon/unobtanium parts to be replaced.
Stage 1: Individual TT, 7 miles. The Individual TT is always the time to shine for our Top GC contender Bain Foote. Early in the day, the course was reported to be super fast with a tail wind on the way home. By the time the Pro field started however, the winds had shifted and picked up considerably in strength. But Bain Foote would power through the stiff wind on the smooth, rolling course to finish in 10th place. First place went to John Murphy (Healthnet Pro Cycling), with 17 year old phenom Chris Butler (Hincapie/Barkley) in 2nd and Frank Travieso (Toshiba) 31 seconds back in 3rd place. This would set the stage for a big battle between Travieso's Toshiba team trying to take 31 seconds back from the very dominant John Murphy.
Stage 2: Street Sprints, "The Vomit Comit", 650 meters, single elimination, 3 rounds 9:00PM. This was a stage where the only person with any experience at all was Kenny Bellau. He's done 3 of these and done pretty well in all of them. But none were this long. This stage would see 8 riders starting from a standstill racing for a line about 1KM away. And it was pretty dark. The first 3 advance to the next round until there were only 9 riders left in the final. Bellau's advice to the team was to waste the competition at the start line by starting in the smallest gear possible and don't look back. Bellau, leaving the line on one wheel, immediately put about 30 meters on his field. But rolling a fairly small top gear (50X12), he was reeled in before the line at 38MPH. He was eliminated. So was Frank Moak in his heat as well as Woody Boudreaux. Moak was unfortunate enough to pull the country's best sprinter, John Murphy in his heat. But both Tim Regan (resident Herring Gas sprinter) and Bain Foote (a non sprinter) advanced into the 2nd round. Regan missed a gear change in the 2nd round and was eliminated there, but surprisingly, Foote advanced to the final. In the last sprint, Bain finished a close 4th place, but still managed to gain a total of 15 bonus seconds taken off his time from the 2 previous sprint advancements. Regan managed to get 7 taken off his time for his effort. It was too dark to see anyone vomit.
Stage 3.... 60 lap Criterium. 9:30PM start time. Gimme a flashlight. This stage was just plain fast. It started about an hour after a rain storm, in the dark on a clean and fast course in an office park outside Atlanta. The course had one small, gradual hill at the finish line with a strong tailwind. The rest of the course consisted of big sweeping turns, mostly downhill with a big 180 serving as the last turn. The course was so fast that it was impossible for any break-away attempts to succeed for any amount of time. It was a bit dark in places, but all the turns had gobs of grip. Bellau, having had better weekends, pulled out at about half way swearing off cycling for the rest of his 30's. But the duo of Foote and Regan were still fighting for the top spot. Both of these riders need back-up to shine in a field like this and it was decided that it would just be safer to finish in the pack than to risk crashing in the dark at over 40MPH. The final average for this stage was a quick 29MPH. Pretty fast for a course with a U-turn. Bain's still maintaining 9th in GC with Tim in 15th.
Stage 4: Team Time Trial. 13 miles 9:00AM. Yup that's right, less than 12 hours after finishing a lightning fast criterium with blindfolds on, the pro racers had to line up this morning for a torturous Team Time Trial in rolling hills. The Herring team was already handicapped with having only half of the allowed 10 rider team they needed. The competition, although sleep deprived as well, would be extreme. This is the most technically dependent and most scrutinized of all of cycling events. You mess up here and everyone just assumes you and your buddies are posers. And you can forget trying to recoup any of measly prize money. Herring's mission was to limit damage as much as possible. They were up against John Murphy and his composite team of stellar time trialers, Team Myogenesis who had a full roster of strong, experienced riders, Frank Travieso's super-strong TeamToshiba, and the kids over at Hincapie/Barkley. All of these teams had 10 riders. Herring had 4.5. By the end, Herring only lost about a minute and a half to the winning Toshiba team, finishing with all 4 of its top riders together, where many of the 10-man teams finished with only 3 or 4 as well. It sounds a lot worse than it was, but the objective of limiting the damage was met.
Stage 5. 90 mile Road Race. Just a couple of hours after the Team Time Trial. The racers were complaining of the heat. The Herring team, most who live in the armpit of America (as far as heat goes) were finding it comical that 85 degrees was being considered hot. Anyway, the race started off with a bang. Literally. Well, it was actually a lot of bangs. For once the Herring Team had a great starting position. While the official recited his normal instructions, the boys in blue gave each other a serious "Let's do it", recognizing the opportunity to be the first to dish out the pain. Out of the parking lot, the entire Herring team was on the front which allowed Tim Regan to gently roll away from the pack. He realized that he had a little bit of a gap and he could see no one behind him but his own teammates. So he threw down a little attack, which was followed by a few other riders to jump across. This was going to be good, however, one rider who's brother-in-law must surely be someone with a computer that can forge papers to get an upgrade to a category 2 decided that he would panic before we were even 500 meters from the start. The rider from the Latino team would try to pass the field on the white line on the right. He wasn't going to make it. Bellau said, "I looked back to see him get bumped off the road slightly. Yet, he kept on the gas and hit Bain Foote from behind so hard that Bain's wheels came off the ground. Bain landed under my bike, taking me down with over 30 riders falling down on top of us." The Latino rider landed in the grass, while Bellau's brand new Orbea Orca was destroyed under a mountain of lycra clad racers landing on it. Bellau relented, "I would have gladly taken on twice the road rash to have not lost my bike with-in sight of the start line." He wasn't alone. Woody Boudreaux immediately snapped Bain off the ground and assessed that Bain's spaghetti-heap of a bike was finished as well. He shoved his bike into Bains hands and gave him a push up the road while screaming "bring it back in one piece". Frank Moak who also hit the ground was tangled up a bit and rolled off about 2 minutes later with a few other crashers in tow. Frank chased for about 25 miles and was in sight of the pack, but after dropping all the helpers he had with him, it was obvious he would never see the pack again. Then the unexpected happened. A race official in a van drove up to Frank and said "You've had some pretty bad luck and you're working your butt off. You deserve to be back in the race. We're putting you back in. Get in the van." Now in Frank's almost 30 years of racing, this has never happened. Sure enough, they dropped Frank off in front of the pack, just in time for him to check in on Bain who was riding a bike that for him, felt like it was built for a child. And now it was raining with gale-force winds. The pack was approaching a railroad crossing that was at a diagonal to the road, the same one we were warned of at the start line when it was dry. As they hit the tracks, the rider in front of Bain dropped his wheel into the wet, slippery tracks and struck the Superman pose as he slid down the road under Bains front wheel. For the 2nd time in 30 miles, Bain was on the ground with a destroyed bike. Didn't I use the word "ugly" up there at the top? Frank then did his best "Woody Boudreaux imitation" and shoved his bike into Bains hands and gave him a push. "Stay upright. This is getting expensive" yelled the Herring Gas Team Manager.
Hours later, back at the team car, Woody was pointing out to Frank how bad the damage was on Bellau's bike. "Man, can you believe this? Wow, Kenny, this sucks. I hope Bain is doing OK on my bike." Which is about when Frank piped up and said, "Woody, why are you so worried about Kenny's bike? That's your bike over there", pointing to the bent up heap of carbon fibre in the grass. "Bain is on my bike", Moak continued.
Woody's face dropped. "What? Awww #$%^& *(%^&^#@%"
Bain finished the stage with the pack, on 3 different bikes, helping bring back a rider that at one point had a 6 minute lead. The pack finished as a group and Bain and Tim finished 25th and 27th place respectively. Now was that bad luck or good?
Stage 6: Gainsville, GA, 60 lap Criterium. 4 corners, narrow and very fast. With attrition taking out many of the once 120 strong field, the Tour of Atlanta was left with only the strongest. At the line, 75 very serious, very fast and very bandaged up racers would be racing for time bonuses and glory. Herring's game plan was to initiate a break-away hopefully containing the right mixture of racers. We needed at least one Toshiba rider, one Hincapie/Barkley and either Tim or Bain to be in the break. This would allow either of them to leapfrog many people on the results sheet. If we were lucky, Toshiba would allow this thinking that John Murphy of Healthnet would be left alone to chase. The attacks by the Herring riders would prove futile as Toshiba was more content to try to keep it together and gamble on Frank Travieso in the final sprint. The Herring riders were basically forced to sit back and watch. Sure enough, it was a Toshiba train for the last 5 laps at over 30MPH. Up the final stretch, Travieso barely nipped Murphy for the win. Another stage of 29mph. One stage left.
Stage 7: Buford, GA, 60 lap Criterium. 4 corners with a sharp hill between turns 3 and 4. Open and breezy. Almost time to go home, but there's some formalities to attend to. Namely, about 80 minutes of a bar-fight on bikes. Herring's chances were over for this tour, but Tim and Bain were still wanting to mix things up. Bain's place in 9th place in the General Classification was secure as long as he didn't crash again and if Tim could make it into a break he might be able to move up into a paying spot as well. Another issue is that there are riders here that didn't start any of the previous stages. This was allowed since this if the first annual Tour of Atlanta. From the gun, the Herring duo were duking it out with some of the riders with fresh legs. After a series of vicious attacks from both Tim and Bain, a group of 7 riders were able to escape with neither Bain nor Tim along for the ride. The group of 7 gained 1 minute and 10 seconds on the field when Bain got frustrated with the complacency at the front and cruised past the pack on the hill. 2 riders bridged across to Bain, but neither would lend any assistance. The 3 were able to close within 30 seconds of the 7 riders up the road with Bain doing all the work. Toshiba amassed at the front and kept Bain in check until he finally gave in and waited up. Toshiba was content letting the break-away roll off, which forced Murphy to chase. Toshiba had a rider in the 7 man break which would have taken the overall victory if they were to maintain a 35 second lead. Not wanting to be forgotten, Tim Regan rolled up to the front and within 2 laps had closed the 7 man break-aways' lead from almost a minute, down to only 10 seconds. This was with only 2 laps to go and it also forced Toshiba to now set up Frank Travieso for the sprint if the entire field were to catch the 7 riders up the road (there were bonus seconds paid to only the top 3 riders and Frank T was really close to taking the lead from Murphy).
At the finish, Tim Henry (JitteryJoes) who had escaped from the group of 7 out sprinted Phil Gaimbon (Fiordifruita) with the other 5 right on their heels. John Murphy held onto his overall lead and the Toshiba guys were not too happy with Herring Gas. We like that.
It was so good to get home. Road rash, broken bikes, an Rv that only made it to Hattiesburg and the disappointment of just getting beaten up still can't get us down. A few beers to celebrate the end of a tough weekend and we're ready for the next one.
We would all like to say thanks to Sylvia Boudreaux for having to play nurse all weekend when when she's nowhere near her hospital or a time clock. And to Bruce Sanders, one of the founding members of The Herring Gas Cycling Team for opening his beautiful Atlanta home to 7 weary souls.
We'll see you later,
