Wong Finishes 3rd at Mt Washington Hillclimb, August 20

Phil Wong put in a tremendous ride up Mt. Washington to finish 3rd behind Tyler Hamilton and Anthony Colby (Target Training). Wong now has a three year string of podium finishes at Mt Washington after finishing 2nd in 2003 and 2004. You can read about the race on Velonews and see photos by Jonathan McElvery here and here.

Timmerman Wins Tour of the Hilltowns, August 20

A strong team effort in western Massachusetts saw Dan Timmerman win this race for the second year in a row. Matt White made the early break for Fiordifrutta which took the pressure off of Timmerman and Chris Rozdilsky who monitored the second group on the road. The race came together at the base of the 1500 vertical foot climb that dominates the last half of the race. At the top of the climb, Timmerman was able to get away in a small 7 man group that held on until the finish. In the final couple of miles, repeated attacks split the group, and Timmerman made the smart move to attack with 500 meters to go. This surprised sprinter Alvara Tardaquila (UPMC-ACT) and Louis Garneau team mates Josh Dillon and Dan Greenfield, allowing Timmerman to take the win! Rozdilsky finished off a great ride by winning the field sprint for 9th place.

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.

Fiordifrutta Takes 3rd on Team GC at International Tour de Toona, July 25-31
Wong Finishes 8th Overall

The lead-up to this year’s Tour de Toona was a tough one for Fiordifrutta as we lost Mike Dietrich to a broken collarbone at Maine’s Yarmouth Clam Festival criterium. This was the same race where Dietrich snapped his collarbone in 2004, and he vows never to return to that race again! You can send get well wishes to Mike at miked976@hotmail.com and read his on-line diary on spokepost.com. Here is a shot of Mike in full form at Fitchburg when he took the points jersey on day 1.

Tour de Toona saw a powerful ride by the whole squad to finish 3rd on team GC in front of 7 pro teams! Phil Wong had a particularly inspired ride with a 4th place finish on Stage 3 that propelled him to 8th place overall. Dan Timmerman and Jon Hamblen also finished in the top 20 overall (16th and 20th), while Mike Cody, Chris Rozdilsky, and Josh Gewirtz played an important part in maintaining 3rd spot for the team. Matt White also had an amazing week and was the 2nd Under 23 rider overall. You can see full results on cyclingnews.com

Final Team Classification

1 Health Net pb Maxxis 46.59.26
2 Colavita - Sutter Home 2.44
3 Fiordifrutta 3.51
4 Kodak Gallery/Sierra Nevada 6.58
5 Aerospace Engineering-VMG 14.55
6 TARGETRAINING 18.19
7 Snow Valley pb SealOn 18.44
8 RMCEF 24.57
9 Equipe Volkswagen Trek 29.46
10 Bianchi/GP/PCW 30.07
11 Jet Fuel Coffee-Sympatico 34.54
12 Webcor Builders Men 37.12
13 Jittery Joe's Kalahari 38.34
14 Subway 46.07
15 Louis Garneau Racing 1.04.22
16 Mercy Cycling Team 1.33.04
17 AG Edwards 1.34.38