The John Lieswyn Diary 2000First Union InvitationalLancaster PA, May 30, 2000 90 miles, 13 laps, rolling city/residential course, cool and sunny weather My favorite race. We arrived a bit late due to traffic and road construction, and scrambled to get on the start line. The biggest crowd I've ever seen for Lancaster was on hand, and the media was out in full force. I got to speak with Mapei's Freddy Rodriguez while we waited to start. He was my best friend on the US National road team in '95 and it was good to see him. His disappointment at having missed the Olympic Trials (due to airline problems) was plain in his voice. Also back in the peloton was Saturn's Bart Bowen, recovered from his horrific crash at the Tour of the Gila a month ago. Notable missing opposition were Mercury's Gord Fraser and Henk Vogels. That's cool for us! The mayor pulled the starter pistol trigger a half dozen times before realizing it wasn't loaded and he just yelled "GO!". The race was quite fast as usual for Lancaster. My biggest fear here is a flat tire, but this year I got lucky. My plan was to wait until 5 laps to go before putting my nose in the wind. At 7 to go some dangerous moves were getting sizable leads so I shut down a couple gaps on short hills. It seemed that Postal was bringing everything back, perhaps for a Hincapie field sprint. At 2 laps to go on the park hill three men escaped: Klasna (Saturn) Rodriguez (Mapei) Michael Sandstød (Memorycard-Jack&Jones). I figured since Mercury and Postal had both missed it that we'd be seeing them again soon. Either those two teams were playing "chicken" with each other or they were out steam, because with half a lap to go we were still 30 seconds behind. It would be a nail biter finish. The key to this sprint is positioning yourself in the top 5 going through the downhill turns entering the city at 1500 meters to go. I was out in the wind trying to stay at the front but I started the sprint around 20th, to finish around 15th. Argh. The break just barely stayed away, with Klasna over Freddy. First Union Wilmington ClassicWilmington, VA, May 31, 2000 74 miles, 20 laps 3.7 mile course residential/park streets. Many turns, 2km uphill to finish, then 500 meter feed zone hill. My legs definitely weren't recovered from yesterday. The race started so fast that I couldn't imagine making it to the finish at this pace. My team radio crackled with instructions to go with this move or that move, attack here or there. All I could think about was hanging on! I said as much into my talkback but later found out that my mic wasn't working. At halfway the word was that our sprinter Dave McCook felt great but was riding a soft (50psi) front tire. We yelled in the feed zone to have a wheel ready next lap. Later Dennis (one of our mechanics) said that was hard because he had 9 minutes (while we circumnavigated the course again) to pace around worrying about the wheel change. I led Dave all the way up the finish line/feed zone hills and when we could see the wheel in the air I slipped in behind him and raised my arm to alert all the other riders to Dave's stopping, or else he'd have been run over... Around this time a break of of 3 (again) was establishing a two minute lead. Composed of Postal's defending pro road race champion Marty Jemison, Mercury's Vogels, and Mroz's Piotr Wadecki, the break was the highest horsepower combination of 3 riders you could assemble from this field. Us Shaklee guys could just hope that the big teams who missed the move (Saturn, Mapei, Memorycard-J&J) would throw it down and bring it back. Once again I was disappointed as only the latter team made any serious effort to chase. During the Memorycard chase the break actually took time out of us! At 2 laps to go 8 riders were about 20 seconds clear, without any Shaklee representative. Eric Wohlberg hammered the downhill and I took over from the base of the park hill. With 1km to go before the finish line & 1 lap to go, I blew up within a couple bikelengths of the 2nd group. I soft pedaled as McCook blasted by. A quick look behind and a sudden shock - instead of 60 riders behind me, I was the last man in line, with just 20 men ahead of me. Over the feed zone hill McCook hit the wall and came back like a rock. I gave it all the stick I had and over the top I just latched on to the back of the group, now just a dozen guys. The break would not be caught today, but 4th was still up for grabs. Nobody in this group would take a turn on the front, so I attacked with 3km to go. Going through the park I counted off the distance to go and checked behind me periodically. I was at 99% of max saving a teeny bit in case I was caught just before the line. At 200 meters to go I had 4th locked up so I eased off the pedals. Ten meters after the line ten guys swooshed by me. Not a win but some USPRO points and cash, and a bit of a confidence boost going into Sunday's championship. The race was won by the Mroz guy after Vogels pulled out of his pedal 200m from the line, and Jemison was dropped at 1 lap to go but stayed away from the rest of us to take 3rd. Tomorrow I lay it all down for our sprinters at Trenton, NJ. First Union ClassicTrenton, NJ, June 1, 2000 90 miles dogbone shaped course with one end a winding city circuit (w/cobbles) and the other a park with the feed hill in it. It was very hot and muggy, with heavy pollen concentrations and many riders having trouble breathing. At the team meeting we felt sure that with Graeme Miller coming off a win in Japan and our 1-2 punch of Jonas and Dave, we had a superb team for a field sprint. The plan was to get all three of them to the front entering the city circuit at half a lap to go. So much for the plan... The first half of the race was absolutely ballistic. Half the field was dropped from the rear while team MROZ went nuts at the front. We were losing riders left right and center. Eric flatted and then crashed on the cobbles. Glen and Graeme hadn't found their legs back after the Tour of Japan and still had bad jet lag. At the halfway mark the race was down to 70 riders and the front was a battle zone every lap. Most riders were just hanging on so large breaks were rolling away. The bigger the break the less chance for it to work smoothly, so the race continually split and then regrouped. A 2 lap lull in the high pace ensued. 3 laps to go I was in the 3rd group a full minute back on the leaders. Dave asked Colby and I to give it all we had to bring the race back together and we had help from several other teams. The 2nd and 3rd groups joined and then as we left the park at 1.5 laps to go the US Postal team took control and brought the 40 riders left in the race all back together. The last time through the park Dave McCook was knocked off his bike and into the grass by the Italian national champion (we're 90% sure it was intentional). So it was only Peter Wedge and I remaining for team Shaklee. I'm never much good at positioning battles so I entered the city circuit in about 30th. At 2km to go and bouncing over the brick street I managed to move up (in the wind) to about 12th. Out of the last turn I was on Tony Cruz's wheel while Mercury had 3 guys on the front leading out Gord. Tony's bike bounced wildly on the rough pavement and I pulled out a little early, passing just a couple guys to finish about 7th. Fred Rodriguez won this time over Gord. The race seemed to be much slower than previous years but the weather was the big determinant in what turned out to be a very tough race. The Euro teams are looking strong and the depth of the American peloton is growing each season. Philly will be the hardest fought US Pro Championship ever... US Pro Road ChampionshipPhiladelphia, PA, June 4, 2000 10 laps of large circuit including Manayunk Wall. 3 small laps over Lemon Hill at finish. 156 miles 77 degrees, sunny Before the race I told my brother in law & masseur Dave Kingsbury that I'd be stoked to finish top ten. I think I was simply trying to convince myself that that would be enough to be happy about. Deep down I couldn't settle for anything less than the stars & stripes jersey. Everyone figured me for a dark horse long shot. But with more than a dozen years race experience under my belt and nearly 5 years as a domestic pro I figured that if I got in the right situation I could surprise a lot of people, maybe even myself. When on Coors Light in '94 and racing with a still healing broken back, I became the de facto team leader on the road. That was the year that 33 riders got 12 minutes on the field, thanks to my teammate Dave Mann. It was also the year that a miscommunication with my other teammate Michael Engleman resulted in Steve Hegg escaping to take the jersey. I was a dismal 13th. My second try at Philly was in '98 when I trained hard at the Peace Race in Europe for preparation and came to race super fit. I made the lead group of 30 and blew the sprint to finish 19th behind a victorious George Hincapie. In '99 and racing for Shaklee I came back to try a third time, but I didn't have "the form" and missed the crucial breakaway. So for my fourth try in Y2K I was prepared for disappointment but anxious for a go at the jersey nonetheless. After two top ten finishes the past week I was confident and strong. The team meeting laid out 3 riders to protect: Graeme Miller (whose ability to score a podium finish is renowned) Dave McCook (whose sprint is nearly unbeatable at the moment) and myself. Glen Mitchell was to chase the KOM jersey. Colby, Adam, and Christian were the workers. Sylvain and Eric were to assist in the closing laps with breakaways and the leadouts to the base of the Manayunk Wall. An early 22 man breakaway was vigorously chased by Memorycard-Jack & Jones. All were caught but 8 men. These 8 were not favorites but J&J continued their chase even harder the next two laps. At one point I was talking to Glen about travel plans for the Atlantic Cup races next week and he said "I'd rather think about this race first..." I realized that once again my mind was trying to build a calming wall. I really didn't want to get nervous and waste a bunch of energy. The first 200 km flew by in no time at all. I was feeling very SLEEPY. Several times I got a poor position starting the climb up the wall and one time I was the last rider by the top of the climb. At 3 big laps to go there were no team chases going on but the intensity of the race was building and I started to wake up. Second to last time up the wall I was about the 4th man over and I got a serious chill from the pandemonium the crowd was raising. I had been fearing that I wouldn't come around but now I knew that I was having a strong ride. On the last time up the wall the crowd was deafening. At the bottom I was about 15th and I had to swerve aggressively around riders who were opening gaps. At halfway up I found Hincapie's wheel and mentally padlocked myself to it. He was "swinging" (barely hanging on to the guy ahead of him) and so was I. Over the top there were just 9 riders left. I was up against Vogels (Mercury) and the sprinting prowess of Hincapie (USPS) and Rodriguez (Mapei) as well as another USPS worker and 4 Europeans. I didn't really want to work with this move with my two best sprinters in the group behind. So my pulls at the front were short and slower than everyone else. I also didn't want to miss an opportunity to get away from the other two Americans. I tried one move with Vogels and another with a Saeco rider but both were quickly neutralized. The hoped for bluffing between Hincapie and Rodriguez didn't materialize for me. After a solo by Vogels was brought back on Lemon Hill at 1 and half laps to go, I made my first mistake. I mentally wrote him off. The second mistake was not planting myself firmly on Hincapie's wheel. George wasn't going to let Fred get away. So when Vogels surprised everyone at 2km to go with another solo attack, ultimately successful, I was out of position to react. And worse yet I ended up leading the sprint out. At 800 meters I figured I'd go as slow as possible and try to jump first. I had a brain freeze because I saw the 200 meter sign and I didn't jump. Why (I didn't jump first to have at least a chance) I'll never know, because at 180 meters to go Fred jumped first and the race was over. 7th in the race, 3rd American, 1st domestic based rider. Now up to about 50 uci points, 236 US Pro points and top 3 in the US Pro tour. I received many congratulations but somehow I feel very quiet inside. And very ready to win every race I can the rest of the season. Thanks for everyone's support of my writing. Your encouragement has been yet another great motivator for me this year. Until Wednesday, then? ps. to my team, thanks for the support. "sorry" doesn't seem good enough... |
