Larry Perera Cycling Diary
Fiordifrutta Cycling Team

If you have never done the Fitchburg road race you should give it a try…..or at least if you are in the neighborhood you should cruise through the scenic roads surrounding Mt. Wachusett….and climb up to the summit…on a clear day you can see downtown Boston. Anyways…Our team was down to 5 riders at this point. I picked up the “captain” at his quaint sommerville home and chauffeured him to the base lodge of Mt. Wachussett.

Adam and I both went into the base lodge to take care of some business. Out of the bathroom first, I kicked it on one of the chairs in the café….and did a little bike racer watchin….i love seeing all these bike racers who I don’t recognize….its like someone plopped me down in some foreign country or something…after a few minutes Mike “ive ridded 5 hours since Philly” Jones strutted in. He joined me in the bleacher seats. He was happy about the circuit race….but thought today would be tough….hmmm. Adam made it out of the bathroom, barely managing to avoid a beatdown by some guy who apparently wasn’t familiar with Myerson’s Public Restroom Code of Conduct. Ill leave it at that.

The plan for the team was to try and put Adam in the early break……save josh for the finish…….and to keep svatek out of trouble. The first goal we nearly succeeded…..we were all there in the beginning representing every early group that rolled off the front…..with 7 miles completed nothing was sticking and the whole field hit the high speed decent intact. The road surface is pretty sketchy….but once you figure out a safe line you can stick to it for the rest of the race…at least that’s what I do. Unfortunately Henk Vogels fell at nearly 60 mph….and gave us all a big scare. It wasn’t clear how bad his accident was so we stopped racing and waited for the word that it wasnt life and death. After about 15 minutes of riding 10 mph…..word came over the radios that the injuries were not life threatening. So the racing began again. It was sometime around when the pace picked up that I learned that Svatek had been chopped off the road and into a car…crashing hard….but he had made it back on….soon thereafter I saw him, pretty banged up but still fighting.

A small group got away before the KOM on the next lap…but Saturn was not happy with it so they brought it back after a series of impressive 40 mph pulls from Mark McCormack. A lap or so later a group of three got away. I tried to bridge up to them on the climb and got pretty close at one point like 20 seconds….but I couldn’t get any closer so I kept the pace steady hoping for another group to get across….it didn’t happen and I was swallowed up by the field after about a lap.

So the break was gone, Saturn was setting tempo… there wasn’t anything left to do except try and conserve. I practiced the pack slide with Mike Jones….for a couple of laps. The climb was pretty easy if you started at the front and drifted through the field….got your feed and then repeated the process on the next lap. With about 4 laps to go….I was dangling with jones…talking about how the race was unfolding when I saw a friend who was shouting encouragement to me….i gave him a quick squirt of water….and then the next thing I knew jones dumped a whole bottle on my head. Without thinking about I launched a bottle at him….and then looked back at the officials watching this all unfold….They all knew that it was all in good humor but it must have looked pretty amusing to some of the onlookers in the feed zone.

On the last lap I was feeling pretty hungry…and realized that I was in trouble…..i kept my pace within my own limits (which these days feels like a snails pace) and rode a reasonably slow pace up the final climb through the feed zone and up the mountain road to the finish. Jones put in an epic ride and finished 2nd place behind Saturn’s omnipotent Horner.

I have decided to take a real break after Sundays criterium. At least 5 days off the bike. My body and mind is pretty wrecked right now….and I am definitely riding as poorly as I have all season….so the writing is pretty much on the wall. I think with some real rest…..I can put the 68 days of racing I have in the bank and put together some good performances…….

Today is the crit. There are 4 Sportsbook.com riders left in the race….I bet that it comes down to a field sprint so are best bets are on Svatek (this is another one of his hometown races) and the Jazzeroni aka Myerson. I don’t care how I fare today except that I want to be able to help them….even if its only something really small like protecting them from the wind for a few laps…..

Ahh well….i need to go get some coffee and think about what time I need to leave to get to the crit in time to get a 100 minute warm-up on the trainer in full sun. Just kidding…..i never understood why people do that??!!

Ill try and get the update when I get home tonight in the PM,
Thanks for reading
lp