July 2, 2007 - Tour of PA Fun

Fun at the Tour of PA, June 24-28

The world’s strongest U25 racers gathered in PA for the biggest cash prize in history last week at the Tour of PA. Fiordifrutta sent a strong team of young up and comers to do battle with racers from 5 different countries: Jamie Driscoll, Charles Marzot, Phil “the thrill” Gaimon, Hayden Brooks, Josh Lipka, and Erik Schlidge tailored their training especially for this event. The team’s goal was to impact the race with stage wins and affect the race everyday. Jamie was the first to execute on the teams plan by winning the stage to Bedford, where he remembered (after his director yelled in his ear, just as his interview was ending) that his frame was in fact made in that very town. Jamie won the stage by sitting on legendary cyclist to be Peter Stetina, and barely coming around him within the last 3 meters. With his goal achieved, moustache clad Jamie went on to be invisible for the rest of the race, merely resembling guys who pictured on the post office wall.

Phil Gaimon still had visions of the top step of the podium until the last road stage, but just like his website name, he just could not get any move to stick and he was always left trying to catch the bouquet. When asked about his poor form on the day he was smoked by a Canadian duo of no names on stage 5, he mumbled at the press conference , “I felt jittery and my mind was clouded from drinking 128 ozs. of sweet tea over the last 2 days”, the stunned announcer tried to pull the mic back, but the tenacious brides maid Gaimon grabbed it to explain ” you see, they put the sugar in there while it’s hot, that’s how it gets so sweet!, it’s cane sugar! It dissolves easily and saturates the tea. Chikn-fill-a is from Atlanta, there’s one 22.87 miles from here, I had my girlfriend Google it while we were driving to the stage this morning”

Support riders were an important part of the team, and hold the key to success. Hayden is a natural leader out there and loves to tell everyone how he selflessly goes back to the car to get bottles. “I just go see my mate Curt back there and we have a walkabout, some vegemite.. it’s heaps of fun! I hold onto the bloody car for a K or 2 while I practice saying the line from my favorite movie Crocodile Dundee “that’s not a knife!” I then ask him where my SRM is and bring the now warm bottles back to me mates”

Charles Marzot was important and mainly spent his time studying and reading the tech guide, he underlined run-ons, considered revising fragments and addressed dangling participles. In a post race interview, he quietly said “ I got dropped on the downhill on stage 4 because I was sick to my stomach with the terrible grammar and tone in the description of today’s stage…I even threw up in my mouth a little bit. but I was out of water..it was dreadful, just dreadful”

Josh Lipka spent many minutes riding tempo and chasing down breaks before succumbing to the lure of the college dorms’ cafeteria’s self serve Capn crunch bin, he reportedly put on another freshman 15 in the course of that week he said quietly “ Curt warned me, from his own experience, to stay away from the Capn Crunch, but I couldn’t stay away from it, even when the roof of my mouth was raw I just kept going back, I even used some of Jamie’s moisturizer to speed up the healing process, but I’m hooked!”

The sprinters like the spotlight, and New Jersey native Erik Schlidge is no different. On the hillier days he was the first to call groupetto, piano, autobus! On the flat days he showed up rested and ready (and exfoliated, loofah washed and sometimes still wearing a seaweed mask on his face in the team car). He was edged out of the top five on stage 1b in the last 100 meters because he was taken aback by his own image reflected in a crystal clear store window.

Erik crashed on stage 3 because he took out his compact to check for stuff in his teeth after the feed zone. After suffering through the pesky hilly races he was ready for the easy, subdued stroll into Pittsburgh, he was sitting in second in the best looking rider competition behind a Konica Minolta South African he needed to remain focused on the race, not the store windows for the finish. The team meeting that morning left the boys with a few action items:

1) instead of a lead-out for Erik, we need to have a rider on either side of him for the last 2kms ..like the blinders on a race horse so he can’t be distracted by his own beauty in the store windows.
2) Just agree with Erik that the South African was leading by virtue of his accent, not his looks.
3) All riders except Erik were allowed to remove their earpieces while Toby Keith’s Shokn’ Y’all was played over the team radio to get him psyched up and ready with 3kms to go.

Eric finished the race a distant 8th but was awarded the top place on GQ for best looking rider, as the South African could only manage 13th on the day.