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Park(ing
lot) Forest Criterium In general, when reading a race recap, the writer's team controls the tempo, wins the race, kisses the girl and goes home with the least road rash and the most money. Well, in the real world, unless you ride for Labor in masters' races in Southern California or the United States Postal Team in France in July, you don't always win. Some times you get your ass handed to you individually and as a team. The temptation from this writer would be to skip a recap, but the omission of evidence would tend to give the reader the impression that this reporter is virtually unbeatable, perhaps even worthy of challenging some one like Chris Horner in a time trial. It isn't so. I'm a flailer. The secret is out. The Park Forest Criterium is in downtown Park Forest, such as it is. It amounts to a strip mall complex and a large parking lot. Park Forest is a community about 20 minutes past the southern edge of The City with Big Shoulders. This race was the 6th annual. The South Chicago Wheelmen host the race. The Wheelmen keep us guessing, as every year the layout of the course changes. In the first year, it was a basic tri-oval. Last year there were 41,934 corners packed into the .8-mile course. This year only 9 but all 9 are packed into 1/3 of the course, including a carousel turn with a diminishing radius. This rider, never having been particularly adept at cornering - hence the preference for road races and time trials - found a great deal of difficulty navigating this roundabout without allowing a 3 bike length gap to form in front of him every time through. Since the race was 50 laps long, this was bound to create some trouble, as the result was an all out sprint to close the gap into a strong headwind. So pathetic it was that team leader Big D dropped back to offer verbal assistance, talking me through the corner like an air traffic controller bringing a rookie pilot down in a thunderstorm. At one point, I swear to all that's Holy it would be quicker to simply dismount my bike, point it in the opposite direction and continue on. Speaking of the bike. Today was the first day on my brand spanking new Turin issue Orbea Lobular Carbon steed. Its' a sweet ride, but since I'm used to riding on a clunky department store bike with baskets, it took a bit of time to get used to. An excuse for slow cornering? Nah, I never could do it well. The stage is set. Turin has a compliment of 4 riders, Riders from Indy BAP, LJS, Proctor, Citgo make up half the field and about 92 sMACK's make up the rest. The sMACK's are equipped with two way radio's and the Head sMACK is barking orders non stop for a full hour and 40 minutes like Bjarne Riis, only with ADD on crystal meth directing CSC in Paris-Nice. Mostly the instructions were for team riders to get on my wheel or to move to the front and slowdown. Which on this day were similar instructions. As per, the race starts with Turin's own Sout' Side Johnny through the first 4 turns before the official finishes blowing his whistle. Johnny is excited, as this race is one of his fav's. Almost immediately the attacks start flying and riders are being shelled off the back from lap 2 of 50. Despite an average speed for the race of only 25.1, the race is brutal hard because you never take more than 10 pedal strokes in a row before you have to lean the bike one way or the other on this compact course. A break of 6 riders escaped after 15 laps. Turin was not in. Sout' Side and the Asian Invasion worked hard to bring things back to equal, which they did. Johnny was still full of piss and vinegar 5 laps later and ordered Druber onto his wheel for a tow to the front for an attack. Druber, being gassed from 20 consecutive sprint intervals out of the carousel turn naturally lost the wheel of his impassioned teammate and got boxed in. A break formed and left. 2 laps later Druber was able to finally make it forward, but lacking any speed to attack, succeeded only in having the field line up in his wake. Now, it may have been my imagination or it may have been the case, but it seemed to me that everywhere I moved in the race, I had ZsMACK, a Proctor and an LJS rider on my butt. It's probably my imagination. I cannot imagine for the life of me why teams would assign riders to tail a slightly over weight 41 year old in a Pro 1,2 race. Any way, the break went clear with eventual winner Scott (attack until everyone is sick of chasing) Pearson, Hushpup Schroetlin and other key riders present. Turin was now relegated to the lickspittle part of the race and being the only team not present in the break, the onus for a chase was on us. Problem
was, at that exact instant we came up short-handed. Sout' side,
having used the last remnants of his oxygen supply yelling at Druber
for being slow and unable to get a clean gap, decided he'd had enough.
He was off to the parking lot. Ryan, having done a lot of early
work was tapped and D is a sprinter. Though he makes hero pulls,
we like to save him for what he does best. Druber takes 4 laps with
the remainder of the field in tow. The gap to the break falls from
30 to 15 seconds and the lickspittle pack is halved. Big D takes
a monster turn and the gap falls to 10 seconds and the lickspittle
pack shrinks to 10 riders. D points out to the rest of the lickspittles
that the race is up the road. Tantalizingly close, we are close
enough to read the numbers on the jerseys. The sMACKs have only
one rider of 11 in the break. Even so, no takers. Druber moves back
up for three more laps and the gap maintains at 10 seconds. Eventually
and predictably, the gas goes off, the break goes on and with 5
to go the lickspittle pack trades attacks. In the Turin camp after the race steam was vented, venom was spewed and we were real bike racers again. On a serious note: Condolences to JD, whose mother unexpectedly passed on Sunday. Our hearts and thoughts are with you brother.
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