Larry Perera Cycling Diary
Fiordifrutta Cycling Team

OK so I have so many people getting on my case about how lazy I must be not doing a update daily. Mostly I don’t do it cause I have nothing exciting to talk about. But from now on I will try and bore you all to death no matter what I have been up to.

So stage 4 of Altoona was pretty fun, It was a 20 mile-ish loop through the bustling town of Holidaysburg. The course had a KOM with 5 km to go and was pretty techy for the last 2000 meters so if it came down to a sprint finish a good position would be key to getting a result….and possibly not losing any time if that was your type of gig (GC)

Team Sportsbook.com had a fool-proof plan. Peter would sit in and save himself for Saturdays big RR. Svatek would attack himself to death with Nathan and Josh till we got in the move that stayed away for the whole day. I was gonna try and get in an early move as well but only for the very beginning 15 km or so and then I would patrol the field checking out how the GC contenders looked, stay out of trouble and maybe try and give it some juice on the last lap.

Again we missed the move but Svatek certainly gave his all and the one time he wasn’t there he watched the race wander up the road. I managed to break a spoke on my front wheel and get a change and get back on when the going was tough all single file and stuff like that. Snow Valley must have felt bad for me or something cause they gave me a good tow.

There was a crash on the last lap….we would have caught the break for sure if it was not for the mix up…….people were taking all these stupid risks through a high speed right hand bend…and guys were laying on the road like cows when its about to rain. Someone rammed me but I stayed up and no major mechanical damage was done. With about 10 Km to go on the last lap I moved up and Tim Johnson told me that I should give it a shot cause they wouldn’t chase me down. It was a risk I should have taken but I just didn’t feel like I could have help off the field. We were screaming through the last 2000 meters every other lap and I thought it would be just another stupid move. Turns out it would have been perfect cause there was a big crash taking out 6 riders including the yellow jersey nathan oneil so things at the front slowed up just enough for that to work. I stayed upright through the carnage but it was obviously bad cause Oneil didn’t cross the line for like 20 minutes…and he was taken away in by ambulance.

Peter did a heads up ride and lost no time. We were back up at Blue Knob by lunch time…..so we had all kinds of time in our hands. Svatek, Ryan (the masseur) and I shot some pool, drank some beer and hustled the local types at the “clubhouse” ….blue knobs raging bar. Svatek told the girl tending bar that I was an exotic dancer….she totally believed him. She went on about how she hated it when dudes strip for her…and then she told us that she used to be a stripper. It was highly amusing. Svatek beat me in Pool, and the Jukebox stole all my quarters that Bill gave us to do our laundry- it was a tough day.

adios,
lorenzo