Laurel Flyer Road Race Report

June 9th twenty/06

My good friend J. Heverly came down from Pine City, NY to help sweep the Laurel Flyer course with Tom, Sheila, and myself. It stopped raining just long enough for us to sweep and set out some signs. After a strenuous sweeping work out J. and I decided to go for a bite to eat. We rode over to the Bum Steer where we split a half a sub and a couple of beers (most excellent carbs before a race!). Upon returning home we thought it would be best to turn in early, we set up our cots in the garage, J. on one end and me on the other, as not to bother each other with our snoring. However, the acoustics in the garage made J’s snoring sound more like a pack of log cutters with chainsaws. I finally managed to fall asleep, but not for long as the rain on the tin roof hammered along all evening into the early morning.

After 5 hours of not so restful sleep I awoke at 4:30 am on June 10th never to return to dreamland. Around 6am I started a pot of coffee and commenced to eat my pre-race breakfast, while discussing with J how poorly I felt this race was going to turn out. It was cold and damp and I still ached from last week’s endurance event in Ohio. After getting no sympathy from J, I decided to prepare my bike and clothes for the race that I had ahead of me. We arrived around 8:10am at the Airport to give Tom a hand setting up. The weather was gray, cloudy, and extremely windy (perfect conditions for a road race. Ha!)

After sitting in my truck for about 45 minutes I decided it would be a good idea to start warming up, never quite getting warm though. I decided then that this race was going to be longer than I had expected. Finally at the starting point Tom gave the final instructions and we started off rolling down the runway. From this point on the weather no longer mattered. Finally out on the road the groups began to form and I found myself riding about in the middle. This group didn’t seem to be in a big hurry, which was fine with me. A few miles down the road I decided to start putting a little more effort into my ride to keep up with Michelle from VisitPA.com. I tried to keep up with her but she finally broke away leaving me with a smaller group. I stayed with this group mostly through the first lap until the last climb up to the basket shop, where I road with this yellow jersey guy. He was stronger on the climbs but I was catching him on the flats where we took turns pulling for each other.

After the second lap past the basket shop, yellow jersey guy was about 25 yards in front of me, and all I wanted to do was reel him in and beat him to the finish line. Which was much more of a challenge than I had predicted due to a strong head wind, but I was determined to pass and demoralize him. About 1 minute after I passed him my legs were turning to jelly. As I noticed him coming up on my right, I decided this was where I really had to dig deep and put it all out there. IT WORKED! I had no idea where I had finished, only that I had. And that seemed to be the biggest trophy that I had won this year. As it turned out I did better than I thought, placing third in my second road race ever. It was a great race. The Oswald Racing team did well today. Thanks to Tom for putting on a tremendous event under extreme weather conditions. Looking forward to my next race at Jasper.

- E. Franck