September 5, 2008 - Green Mtn Stage Race

You can see complete results and write-ups on cyclingnews.com

Dillon 4th Overall - Green Mountain Stage Race, August 29-Sept 1

It is rarely ever the case that the end result tells the whole story, and so it was at Green Mountain Stage Race this year. From outside of the peloton one could see we finished just off the podium in 4th, which is a decent result amongst a strong field of professionals and elite amateurs.

But anyone who actually raced will tell you about Fiordifrutta executing textbook stage race tactics on Sunday's queen stage to the summit finish atop Appalachian Gap. It was right out of the HealthNet playbook (that has led to 5 straight NRC titles), only it is possibly more noteworthy because we are amateurs and a number of talented riders sacrificed their personal result to dominate the race as a team.

Going into the big day I was 20 seconds down from the lead with several top domestic pro's in between. Schildge had killed it the early part of the stage to make the break and sweep up the sprint for bonus seconds on the road so that it would come down to the climb up App Gap. Following the sprint, a large move of the race favorites bridged up to Eric's move making a lead group of 16 that had over 2 minutes by the time we got to the base of the first big climb of the day, Brandon Gap. That's when Fiordifrutta took over the race.

With the other race favorites in the break, using energy to take pulls, we used our strength to let them fry in the wind while i stayed protected. Beginning on Brandon Gap Whitey, Weller, Marzot, Driscoll, Ratcliff, and Rozdilsky strung out the peloton and it would never bunch up again for the remainder of the day. The catch was made just before the start of Appalachian Gap and rather than calling it a day the team went trucking straight through the break and began to lay the tempo down on the final climb as well.

In a perfect world I would have delivered the win that the team worked for, and certainly deserved, but I simply was beat. I set a new personal best on the climb by over 30 seconds (which is significant because I just set a personal best a week earlier with a 417 watt effort) but it wasn't enough to take the win. We rode to win the race, and we know that on some other day in the near future the end result will also tell the story.