April 25th, 2006 - Racing Down South

Dan Timmerman and Larry Perera have been busy ripping up the Southeast race circuit until their return to New England later this spring. Larry writes the first race report from Georgia, and Dan follows up with a time trial report from North Carolina.

Timmerman 2nd at Gainesville Maxxis Georgia Cup #2, April 9th

This past weekend Dan Timmerman and Larry Perera made the trek to Gainesville Georgia to test their legs and their teamwork against some of the strongest riders in the southeast. Sunday's course was so demanding, with a 5 km climb with pitches over 17% that Healthnet's powerhouse aussie rider Nathan O’Neil sat the day out choosing rest over racing.

The race was held over an 8 mile course which the riders would complete 9 times. As soon as the flag dropped it was Fiordifrutta's intent even with only two riders to be major animators in the race, despite the fact that that there were several pro teams with full squads. Perera stretched his legs on the opening laps, trying to get a cohesive group together up the road, but it seemed that all eyes were on the men of red and black. Perera stated after the race "yeah it seemed like they had us on a pretty short leash, they must have known how good Dan is going right now!"

On the third time up the climb Perera forced the pace as hard as possible and shattered the front of the field. Just as things were coming back together, Timmerman put in an effort than left everyone else just watching, and although a few riders tried to follow, they ended up watching in dismay as Dan just rode them off his wheel.

Over the course of the next lap, with a full on chase behind headed up by Pro Team Aerospace, Timmerman put 2 minutes into the field. Eventually a chase group formed with eventual winner Thad Dulin making it across solo to Timmerman in the closing laps...Timmereman went pull for pull with Dulin, a veteran third season pro.

Given the fact that Timmerman was off the front for close to 100 km, it was impossible for Dan to get away from the crafty professional...though Timmerman did unleash some furious attacks knowing he would be hard pressed to beat Dulin, the home town favorite who knew these roads like the back of his hand.

Finishing an impressive 2nd place Timmerman fine tuned his race form with an epic breakaway which would have even Jacky Durand jealous. Young Mexican Pro Oscar Henao brought in the charge from behind to round out the podium. Perera bridged across to the next group and won a 6 man sprit for 9th place. Hopefully this is just the beginning of good things to come from the Asheville N.C. based duo.

Asheville Time Trial Series, April 20th

After another week of the hardest riding I've ever done, I headed out to do the first TT of the Asheville TT series. You never really know what you’re going to get at these things. The local Masters LOVE their TTs. That's like their thing.

I guess that's what you supposed to do when you get old.... forget how to climb and sprint, doesn't matter, as long as you can still destroy anyone in your local TT. I mean, our local ball busting Master in Ithaca finally was dethroned last year at age 52. One of the local Asheville Masters guys apparently converted his bedroom into an altitude chamber just so he could embarrass young punks at the local TT.

Anyway I thought I was feeling good enough to do the TT, good enough to do a 20k TT, but I guess I probably shouldn't have done it and kept resting for Shenandoah. I got 3rd. Beat by two local Masters. Ouch!!