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Memorial
Day Weekend Flyover country features a number of tradition rich Memorial Day Weekend races. Chief among them is The Greatest Spectacle In racing…The Rock Island Criterium. There are also a couple of smaller less significant races called the Indy 500 and the Loews 600, but the Rock Island Criterium features more carnage, human debris and spectacular crashes than either of the two combined. The race has human drama, gut wrenching accidents, a fully fenced in race course completely absent of hay bales or padding for the garbage cans and street light poles. The latter promises at least a dozen Category 3's and a handful of other racers spread out among the categories from 10 year old juniors to 50+ year old huffenpuffs will be carted off in meat wagons. It's the worst race in the country on one of the worst courses, but that doesn't keep the fields from filling to overflowing with dreamers in search of a big paycheck or masters hoping to rekindle the flickering light of their glory days. The Hooterville contingent of Team Estridge/Delta Faucet found the lure of large fields, big money and new faces to races against too strong to resist. Legend has it that when Hooterville residents apply for racing licenses, they are fitted with collars that deliver low voltage, but painful jolts of electricity should they dare cross the state line to race a bike. Last year, Johnnie the Mole and Der Hausfrau through great effort and permission from their wives, actually took the dare of a drunken former bike racer from Hooterville, claiming he actually raced outside of Hooterville. The drunk with a yellow campy cycling cap claimed the shock collars were simply a fear tactic, not actual working devices. Huasfrau and The Mole found the drunk -a former little 500 winner named Dave - to have been telling the truth and ended up racing in TN, MO, IL, OH and many other exotic venues. This year, Nooner and Wun Tun left Hooterville at great personal risk to join in the Memorial Day Weekend merriment as well. As with most major races, there are warm up events. The Iowa Memorial Day Weekend races typically lead off with a dead flat 80 mile hammer along the Mississippi River from Burlington Iowa to Wapello Iowa and back. It starts at 4:00 on Friday afternoon and generally ends before 7:00 pm in a bunch gallop. It's a race in which the promoter allows up to 200 entrants, professional through category 3 and on a flat, wide open course, you can imagine the mess it makes of the highway. The fabled Snake Alley Criterium follows on Saturday. Lenny Kravitz won the 40+ race this year and ancient mariner Steve Tilford won the Pro 1,2 event. Team Estridge opted to do defy tradition. This served a two-fold purpose. It eased the Hooterviallian's transition west of the Wabash River and the ABD cycling club was putting up big money for old people to play around an office park on their bikes in the West Chicago suburb of Lombard. The course was a 1.1 mile flat 4 corner crit. The fabled Snake Alley Criterium features a cobbled 20% climb of 300 meters 12 times per race for the old guys. Snake Alley pays a purse of $350 over 8 places and the new Lombard Criterium offered One Thousand Seven Hundred and Fifty ($1750) over 15 places to the 40+ field. You guess which the better attended was. Lombard Criterium 91 racers stage, ranging from former Olympic team member Tom Doughty of the Discovery Team Masters to some fat clubber with a tool kit on his seat post and a mirror on his helmet. During the warm up, Team Delta was riding trainers. I offered some strategy to Nooner, Wun Tun, Johnnie the Mole and Der Hausfrau, "Listen up. Since you guys have never been seen at Stoopid Weak, or any other race of consequence outside of Hooterville, no one knows how good you are. These guys also don't know what poor condition I'm in. I'm willing to be the Huckleberry. I'll make a bunch of attacks early and these knuckleheads will turn themselves inside out to get on my wheel, because I'm known to tow wheel leeches to the finish line in big races. Anyway, once the peckerheads are tuckered out, one of you unknown Hoosiers should sneak off while everyone is waiting for me to attack again. We all agreed that if nothing else, it was a plan. During the race, I slogged around the course luring the nims to chase while Der Hausfrau embarrassed everybody in the field who fancied themselves a sprinter by taking every cash prime by at least 3 bike lengths and Johnnie the Mole snuck off unimpeded into a break. Nooner and Wun Tun immediately moved forward with Druber and Hausfrau to frustrate bridge attempts. Since the sMACKs had one guy in the break and 27 guys in the field, they did what they do best - moving forward and going slow to help the break stay away. The break was pegged at 20 second or so for a half hour. Nooner, Wun Tun and I were unable to do a proper lead out for fear of driving the field into the break so we simply let the field bunch up for the last two laps. Hausfrau of course won the field sprint, Johnnie the Mole finished second and the weekend was off to a lucrative start. Sunday is my favorite day of the weekend. The Melon City Crit is hosted by Greg Harpers's bike shop in Muscatine, IA. Greg has the best venue of the weekend, in a beautiful city park on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. It's a smooth one mile course a sweeping downhill and a nice little ¼ mile climb of 6%. This year, the 40+ field was fast, strong and deep. Despite racing in a steady rain, the course was fast and safe. Several break attempts were made but were short lived. The pace was high. With 3 to go Flick-n-sMACK moved to the front to drive the field but it was bunching up. I moved up to second wheel followed by Der Hausfrau…"Patient…Patient…Patient!" Hausfrau was giving me instructions. Feeling the swarm coming with 2 to go, I went to the front on the downhill and drove it. Stone Pony, representing the C-U racing club made a strong move up the hill and took the bell with a 50 meter gap. "I'm right here, Drive! I'm right behind you, keep it going. Haufrau was there every time I checked under my arm. With Stone Pony burying himself up the road, I drove the train all the way down the hill at 40 per to the base of the climb in pursuit. At the base of the climb we caught Stone Pony and Der Hausfrau busted up the hill. I feared he had gone too early. Exhausted, I looked up the hill and I was limping in and saw Der Hausfrua make the left hand turn at the top of the hill with a 2 bike length gap and knew he had it locked up. The weekend continued to roll. Melon Ball 30+ race: Immediate attacks from several riders made the start painful and when the attackers were caught, the pace would slow momentarily and another attack would launch. I don't know why it is, but whenever a course has a hill, everyone fancies themselves to be Marco Pantani and attacks up the hill, only to peter out at the top. The pace up the hill was relentless only to relax momentarily on the downhill section. Within 10 minutes an attack went up the road. Hausfrau bridged up and I sat at front. A rider from Florida attacked up the hill toward the break on the next lap. I jumped to his wheel on the hill. At the top of the climb, he looked at me and said "C'mon!" Looking back and noting the clear gap, I drove around the park to the base of the climb. With the break 5 seconds ahead of us up the hill, the Peckerhead attacked me to get to the break. It was a low class move but he would debase himself further later on. I struggled alone for another half lap before catching on to the back of the break. The break worked up to a 1:30 lead as Johnnie the Mole kept the hounds at bay back in the pel. One rider who kept attacking eventually got a 5 second gap over the break and held it for a half lap. Hausfrau, decided that he'd best get there but quick and exploded toward the String Bean. The break chased and I got popped. After struggling for 2 laps to bridge the gap to the move, I was blown. No excuses. I'm not in shape. With the gap at 1:30 I was safe for not getting caught before the finish. Up the hill on bell lap The FL Peckerhead chopped Der Hausfrau off his bike. He had fully displayed his lack of class, but he went on to win the race. Hausfrau had a dislocated pinky finger but he got back on his bike in time to finish ahead of the pel in 7th. I limped in for 6th. The Greatest Spectacle in Racing: Legends of the Flail The pre race call ups were down right embarrassing. Despite his dominance of the previous days, Der Hausfrau was completely ignored as the announcers fawned over hazbin masters who - because the Quad Cities Criterium having such a storied past - make it the one race they do for the season. While the ambulances were cleaning up the Cat 3 race, the announcers had plenty of time to kill while staging the masters' field, so they used it to gush over the past heroes of the sport who were toeing the line for the masters' race. No disrespect. Honestly. Tom Schuler - US Pro Champ and director of Saturn, Timex and now Endeavor has been brilliant for cycling for both men and women in developing and sustaining his program. Dan King and Fabio Orlandi were truly great bike racers of the 70's and early 80's. Jeff Bradley rode as a field sprinter in the Tour de France, before anyone knew Americans could bike race. The announcers in an effort to tout the field of old huffnpuffs to the crowd even invoked the name of The Boering One further propagating the Olympian myth. Der Hausfrau just took it all in stride. He's been racing a long time as well, but a man without an ego never takes offense. Let the Legends have their moment in the sun. God knows they labored in obscurity back when they were in their prime. The sports writers in the US didn't even know bike racing was a sport back in the pre Armstrong Days. The Rock Island Crit is a favorite for Midwest Masters. As evidenced by the riders who come out of the woodwork to make this their one appearance of the year, one need not be fit to stay in the race. One only needs a set of testes the size of oranges to endure the danger. Squeezing 8 corners into a little over 1 kilometer necessitates short straights and tight corners that serve to limit top end speeds. The Lovely Kathy inquired of one of the volunteer corner marshals why the concrete buttresses and wrought iron fencing lining the streets weren't fronted with hay bales. The answer was, the straw comes loose and makes the course "too slick for the riders. It's dangerous." Lovely Kathy turned Jersey on this poor sap at that point. Sounding like Mona Lisa Vito in "My Cousin Vinny" the retort was "Oh, and the 2 painted faux brick cross walks and 5 manhole covers per corner don't make the course dangerous ya dickhead?" The race started, I went to the front at lap two and stayed there for a couple of laps. The field was single file, which is how it's best on this course. Every once in a while some guys would attack and guys would chase and it would get back together and the sMACKs would send a flailer off the front. The field would line up, the sMACK would get caught another would go off the front and sit 20 meters up the road for a while ad infinitum. I've been fighting femoral tendonitis for a few weeks and the pain flared up. I withdrew about halfway through the race, much to Kathy's relief and so help me, as I pulled up lame between turn 7 and 8 I had 5 guys on my wheel! I kid you not. "Uh, guys…I'm withdrawing, you may want to go rejoin the field." Habits are hard things to break. Anyway,
Hausfrau patiently stayed 2nd or 3rd wheel the entire rest of the
race. With 2 to go, I looked over to The Lovely Kathy and said,
"Hausfrau is going to win this race". At that same point
the announcers were still fawning over the once a year hazbins.
I quote: Seeing the race bunch up, with only one lap to go big track sprinter Wun Tun, bolted forward and got the field strung out through turns 2-6. Schuler and Bradley were probably working an old school co-op because Shuler busted down the back stretch way too early to be thinking of a win of his own but he had Bradley on his wheel. Hausfrau jumped off of Wun Tun onto Bradley's wheel. Bradley overcooked turn 7 and careened out of control over one of the afore mentioned manhole covers leaving Der Hausfrau clear to churn through turn 8 and the final 150 meters to the finish line for the V with enough room to give a two arm salute. The weekend was complete.
Post race interview:
With that, the Hausfrau got his wheels from the pit and rode off. He could be heard singing…
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