The John Lieswyn Diary 2000

Conyers Dill and Pearlman Bermuda Grand Prix

September 21 and 22-24, 2000

For the 4th year Bermuda's bicycle club has hosted an "end of season" stage race. Local companies sponsor American teams with travel expenses and the organizers secure host housing for the riders. This was my second foray into the Bermuda triangle, after being part of the winning 1999 Shaklee squad. This time we were bringing national track champion Colby Pearce, Sylvain Beauchamp, Christian Valenzuela, and soigneur Brenda Phelps.

There were no hurricanes to contend with this time, but the heat was definitely a deciding factor. Thursday night's Hamilton downtown criterium isn't part of the stage race, but it does feature the big bucks. While there was just $300 to win the race, there were primes up to $1000 a lap. The women's race was hard fought, with Tina Mayolo picking up most of the lap prizes.

At the end, the women's peloton (except they forgot to explain it to the Dutch Farm Frites team) made an emotional statement for Nicole Reinhart in allowing the Saturn team to cross the line arms linked, 1-2-3. The men's race developed much like last year, with a break from which a solo rider escaped to win. Instead of Klasna, this time it was Chris Wherry. I was in the break with him and knew the moment he got a gap that I had to go with him, but it took me two laps to shake free of the rest of the break. I couldn't breathe freely and perhaps I was just "blocked" physically from not having ridden much since Arlington, so I didn't make it. Our group was caught, and Wherry scooped up all but one of the big primes en route to the win.

Most of the riders were spending their days on the beach, body surfing, snorkeling, cliff diving naked (yeah Ernie!) and their nights boogeying at the clubs. I had a bad cold coming on so I just tried to sleep and ended up watching the Olympics instead.

Friday we had a 10K time trial. About half the 65 man field brought TT bikes or aero equipment, and the other half had a friendly "retro bike" competition going for the fastest time on a standard bike. Us Shaklee boys broke out the best stuff and worked hard to turn in 1st (Colby) 3rd (me) and 9th (Sylvain). Matt DeCanio, just released from Linda McCartney and riding here for Hot Tubes, finished 2nd just 4 sec down on Colby. By virtue of having 3 riders in the top ten we took the lead in the teams category, itself worth more than twice as much prizemoney as the individual overall win.

Saturday was the 75 mile 15 lap circuit race. Very hilly and hot. There were attacks from the second lap, despite efforts from the Saturn and Shaklee pros to convince everyone that it was in our best interest to save some energy to race hard at the finish. Sylvain had to go ahead and sacrifice himself riding a 40kph tempo for the first half of the race just to discourage attacks. The organizers, seeing the decimation occurring from the heat, cut 2 laps out of the race and held up a 4 laps to go sign. Game on! Now we were racing hard and I had no problem with that as Sylvain set tempo between attacks and I followed every move to neutralize them (by "sitting on" the back of the break and not helping). At the end it was Mercury 1st and 2nd on the stage but Colby stayed in the yellow jersey and we widened our lead in the teams class to 1:12 over Snow Valley.

Sunday's Hamilton Criterium (different course) was to be 90 minutes and this time there was no abbreviation of the distance. By the 9:30 am start it was already 86F and nearly 100% humidity. Once again it was Sylvain doing the lion's share of Colby's defense. Although achy and sickly, I was determined that we would not lose the team lead or Colby's lead, so I went after any attack. We would try to let just one guy breakaway, because one guy's lead is easy enough to control ("feathering the gap"). Phil Zaijek of Mercury went on just such a controlled attack, but today there were no large primes to make it worth it. Several times I went up the road with Peters (Mercury) and Ziewacz (7UP/Colorado Cyclist) with the intent of setting up a controllable situation wherein I might score the stage victory while finishing less than 12 seconds ahead of Colby (to preserve his win in the overall).

These moves were neutralized by Chris Wherry, a fellow Boulderite of Colby's. No problem. In the closing laps Sylvain and I had it well in hand until Andrew Randall (JetFuel) made a strong bid for the win. The other teams, smelling the finish, took over the chase. In the last race of his professional career, Anton Villatoro (7UP) bridged up to Randall with less than 3 laps remaining. We bore down on the break and caught them at the line, but Anton held on to win the stage while Colby stayed in there to take the overall win and Shaklee the teams win.

Colby and I spent the afternoon at Horseshoe Bay Beach with a dozen other riders, and I got thoroughly sunburnt. I went back to the host house to sleep it off. That night there was a delicious feast at the awards ceremony, and then most of the riders went out for a final bash. I heard the next day that the youngest McCormack brother was separated from his attire and that 3 people rode a scooter into the elevator and then through the club. British influenced Bermudians can be somewhat fixated on rules but they know when to cut loose, and the bartender applauded the fun with free drinks for the scooter crew. Wish I were there, but I have just one week to prepare for the Herald Sun Tour in Australia. Til then!