Larry Perera Cycling Diary
Fiordifrutta Cycling Team

Well the last stage is over of the 2003 fitchburg stage race. Unfortunately my drive home was nearly as epic as the race itself….After a quick chat with svatek in the am. I headed out in the mazdaratti to the local coffee shop en route to downtown fitchburg. After haggling with the staff about how big my thermos actually was I drove to the downtown criterium. I got there early enough to check out some crit action…..walk around……sign in…..walk around some more……give svatek his broken wheel….walk to my car and get kitted up.

I can never tell whether I like criteriums or not. Im definitely not a great crit rider…..but I guess sometimes you have a good time….today was one of those occasions. I decided to wear a radio….even though we were not using them as a team. I set it on the scan function and listened in on the other teams. I think you can learn a lot about tactics etc. if you do this….but its probably against the rules….so don’t blame me if you get in trouble for it…blame amos brumble.

So I rolled around with svatek and warmed up. We were really in search for a spare campag rear shifter cause his was broken from yesterdays excursion into oncoming traffic. I saw josh anthony drop his brand new caad 17 cannondale at least 4 times all in front of the dude who probably built it (curt davis)

After call ups and a little chatting with some other riders we were off. The bank says it was 89 degrees at the start….but I doubt it cause it felt pretty cool. Somewhere along the line I decided to go off the front and followed a jittery joes rider. Saturn bridged up quickly and I realized that I felt BAD. I lost contact after a about a minute and waited for the bunch. Totally blown I went to the back of the field….listened in on other riders/directors and found adam. I stayed with adam for a while until I spurred him on to try and get across to what I thought might be the race winning move. He tried his best but could not match the speed of the 8 man break off the front (driven by 4 saturns)

I went up with 25 laps to go and helped chase for a couple laps….and then blew again…..(reoccurring theme?) I then tried to get up to adam but was done for the day. Even though I was sufferring all day I was glad to actually try and get something done…….even if it didn’t work out. Adam rode strong countering svateks last lap 45 mph burst of speed….that only got caught in the last 500 meters…..and finished 3rd or 4th in the field sprint.

Mark won today….saturn kept the jersey…….and im at home. If anything interesting happens this week ill be sure to let you know.

Oh yeah jones is growing a mohawk……I guess that’s why he did so well.