Larry Perera Cycling Diary
Fiordifrutta Cycling Team

Well, I’m not sure what I had hoped for in terms of the circuit race but for me things didn’t exactly materialize. It must have been 96 degrees once for the second day straight and because of this the USCF officials decided to shorten the race by 5 laps, which left us with a 65 mile circuit race.

I took a short spin in the am…..and although I didn’t feel awesome I thought maybe I would be a bit better than yesterday. I made the trip over to Fitchburg with my mom….which was nice because it gave me someone to talk to, someone to help feed us, and even someone to buy me dinner after the race! After securing the secret parking spot……..svatek schooled my mom in the basics of handing up a bottle and actual did a little practicing…..rolling by my mom at 15 mph…..getting a feed….it was pretty funny….

The race started off and since I was at the back I tried moving up….making good progress I got about 20 guys from the front before the 180 degree turn, and found myself in the gutter but still making ground…..i was following another guy doing this…and people were following me….I don’t know exactly how it happened, but we were cruising at like 29 mph and someone got all sketchy…and people were going down in front of me. I avoided one guy but at this point I was clipped out and grinding the curb with my miche cleats……eventually I left my point of balance and ate it onto the shoulder of the road, covered in sand and a little bit of rash………my bike was pretty tweaked but I got rolling again and followed mike sayers who was the only other guy to get back on after hitting the deck…I just kind of zoned in on the patch missing the backside of his chamois and tried and get on the healthnet train that had gone back for him. We made contact after about a 1K chase. That was pretty much the end of my race…and the beginning of his....he went right through the field and got in the winning break....while i licked my wounds...and did what i could to help the team. i don’t know if it was the frustration of crashing after 5 minutes…….poor form……or something else but I kind of limited my losses and got lapped……you were allowed to get lapped 3 times…..so I got bottles for svatek….and tried to stay out of trouble…

Horner and Co. lapped the field eventually. Sportbook.com suffered some causualties….but we will try and get through the rest of the weekend. Today was not a total loss, Adam won the first points sprint so maybe we could try and put him in the break…..and swallow up the points jersey? And there will always be the exciting criterium on sunday afternoon.....I think Adam thrives off of the energy put out by spectators...and sunday there will be no shortage of those.......did you know he won the crit as a junior? Now you do!

Again sorry to dissapoint you…..mike jones threw down today……he seems to be going well….id put my money on a good ride from him tomorrow.

lp