September 12, 2007 - Last Road Events

The Fiordifrutta boys have had a busy finish to the road season, and Josh Dillon writes up the final races below. The squad looks forward to the start of the cyclocross season with frequent UCI podium riders Matt White, Jamey Driscoll, Toby Marzot, and Johs Huseby.

Dillon Second at Concord Criterium, August 4

It was hot! So hot that immediately following taking the sprint for 2nd, Todd and I ducked into the nearest house we saw with a person in the yard who kindly accommodated our request for water. Not only did she bring us into the protective cool shade of her home, she had her daughter and friend (both bikini clad) serve us numerous glasses of ice water. Yes, New Hampshire hospitality is spot on.

What race? Oh ya, the Concord Criterium...so we had a compact and potent squad of Johs, Toby, Nordo and I. We had Johs picked for our sprint man, and the other 3 race for the break. That break came on just the 2nd lap as Todd put in a dig on the course's only climb. He had 7 guys with him, so I bridged up on the next time up the climb to give us better numbers and we went to work.

With about 5 to go Teddy King (Priority Health) put in a big solo effort. After we tried to bring it back for a couple laps Todd and I spent the following laps arguing who was going to get to the lead the other out, alas I conceded and Todd dropped me off on the last corner to take the sprint.

Green Mountain Stage Race, August 31 – September 3

We couldn't have asked for a more perfect weekend of weather to race bikes, and race bikes we did when we lined up 7 deep with Riff, Brooks, Lipka, Roz, Driscoll, Tobias, and me. Starting with the opening gun, Fiordifrutta led out the short prologue up the eastern wall of the Appalachian Gap as Jamey scored a 7th place finish. Toby followed that up the next day with a 6th place in the 2nd stage, as he drove the only break that stuck on an aggressive day of racing.

The 3rd stage, a 104 mile march over several of the biggest climbs in the state was animated by the Fiordifrutta team, which put itself in all the moves and concluded with an 8th place on the finishing climb up the western slope of Appalachian Gap. With only the Burlington Criterium remaining, Fiordifrutta was very aggressive utilizing all riders to push the pace of the race. A late race break gave us a 4th place on the stage. At the end of the weekend it was 6th, 14th, and 19th in the overall classification.

Chris Thater Memorial Criterium, NRC, Binghamton, NY, August 26

How come nobody told me about this race in previous years?! It is a wicked sweet course, and really good prize money, and it is right nearby in upstate New York. And it is NRC, so there were points available to help us hold our top amateur ranking. In fact, a top 8 finish is enough points to move us into the top 15 of all teams in the country.

Unfortunately we (Hayden and I) came up a little short with 14th, but we did have a ball racing our bikes, taking primes, bridging gaps, attacking the field. It was awesome, and we actually made money on the weekend. Really maximized the pro-am experience all around.


Univest GP (UCI 1.2), September 8-9

Ask anybody who has raced Univest, and they will tell you the winner (and the rest of the top 20) is always decided on the finishing circuits that account for the final 60k of the race. That is how you race Univest, wait until the circuits, 10 yrs of results can't be wrong....except this year. With temperatures in the mid-90s and the humidity equally as high a lethargic field was content to the let the early break gain over 10 minutes.

Racing 101 would tell you that the early break would fry in such extreme heat and easily be reeled in as the field started racing each other. What went wrong is the field wasn't allowed to enter the finish circuit because the break and its remnants had already completed a lap and therefore the scoring would have been too messy. As it turned out, the officials couldn't keep track of just the riders that were allowed to enter the circuits, let alone the other 170 riders that weren't.

So having no riders in the break meant we were sent home for the day, having to salvage the weekend with the criterium the following day. The criterium featured a new course and we raced hard, made it into several breaks and had a go at the sprint which resulted in two in the top 20. Not the dream come true we had hoped for, but at least we got to get down to some racing.