August 16, 2005 - 2 Podiums

Michael Cody and Dan Timmerman have kept up the strong racing after Tour de Toona, and write the following race reports. The schedule for the next few weeks includes appearances at Criterium National Championships, Mt. Washington Hillclimb, Chris Thator Criterium in Binghamton, and the Green Mountain Stage Race.

Dietrich Named Ride Magazine’s Rider of the Month, August

The summer issue #126 of New England’s Ride Magazine has given Mike Dietrich their prestigious Rider of the Month award. Although Dietrich is currently down and out with a broken collarbone, he looks forward to a fast return to the peleton.

Cody Takes 2nd at Concord Criterium, NH – August 6th

What seemed like a beautiful, breezy, and cool day turned into a blistering hot one for the Pro-1-2, even more so as an unexpected group of strong racers turned up to contest this late summer crit. Many racers from New England who hadn't been racing as of late showed up as well as a few racers returning from the Altoona Stage race the week before, including former team rider Mike "SoPro" Jones (Healthnet).

The course races around a wonderful park in Concord with a short climb with some corners in it, as well as some rollers over the top before a super fast descent shoots everyone back to the finish line. Attacks went from the gun with groups of 3-6 rolling up the road. Every time they would get more then 10-20 seconds Jones would simply roll to the front and pull them back. This scenario repeated itself 8 or so more times with Jones himself throwing in a few attacks. Cody chose to sit tight in the field and follow the few attacks by Jones since he was suffering from the heat and the fatigue from Altoona.

With 7 laps left Jones threw a racing splitting attack down that pulled 8 riders up the road. Cody realized the seriousness of the move and bridged from the field within the lap. Looking to make a move stick, Cody countered the move with Jones, Jesse Anthony, two CCB riders, and a Boston Scientific rider making the split. These six riders worked well together to separate themselves from the shattered field. While Jones and Cody were trying to get more riders to pull through with two laps to go, Jesse Anthony attacked and took a 10 second gap. Jones was content not to chase so Cody and the remaining riders pulled through for the next lap keeping Jesse insight.

2km from the finish, over the top of the course, Jesse dangled just 5 seconds in front. A hesitation from the group caused Cody to jump the break hard to try to catch Jesse solo. The move gapped everyone while he caught and passed Jesse on the finishing straight. Jones had managed to regroup and catch Cody on the line for the win with Cody holding second ahead of the shattered breakaway and field another 25 seconds back.

Timmerman 3rd at Capital Region Road Race, Albany, NY – August 13th

It was like one little red Fiordifrutta demon vs. an army of green goblins. With Louis Garneau bringing an 8 man green clad team to Capitol region RR and me being alone, I knew there was either going to be a big crash or they were going to gang up on me. From the start they specifically had me marked and wouldn't let me get even a few feet in front before chasing me down. As expected they were sending people up the road, trying to get one of their guys away. I went with the ones I thought were a threat but I couldn't go with them all and Dan Cassidy got away with another rider.

I tried to get things moving but the rest of the riders were too busy filling up the pack. Safety in numbers I guess. They all seemed content doing just that while the race went up the road. After some words, two guys actually started pedaling and got a small gap. I had no choice but to try to bridge by myself and with 7 goblins left they weren't about to let me go. I attacked constantly until I finally got away on one of the hills and easily bridged across to the chasers.

Unfortunately they weren't going too fast and another came across towing LG rider Josh Dillon. We chased with the goblin sitting on the back and got close to the two leaders. The plan was to bridge across since I knew these guys were all going to just look at each other in the end but I was tired from attacking so many times and even though there was only one goblin left he was bent on chasing me down. I went for it one more time on the last downhill and Dillon chased me down again. After that effort we were only 20 seconds behind the leaders turning onto the finish road. It was too late though so I went with about 500m to go for 3rd.