Sour Grapes

Weather looked good; no rain and sunny. Only problem, it was cold as Hell. Car thermometer read 32 degrees.

I'll keep this one short so I don't say too many things I may regret. I have a teammate who said he would be in a support role and help me maintain my 3rd place in the overall standings. I point out 1 rider who can overtake me and say, I have to finish within a few spots of him or I could potentially lose my 3rd place standings. Simple enough, right? My teammate gets in a break. Guess who immediately bridges up? The one rider who is a threat to me (I saw him go too late or I would have tried to tag along). I'll also add that this one rider was a threat to the overall leader in the standings who had a few teammates with him and none of them were in the break.

Here's a quiz, what option would you do if you were the teammate up front?

1. Do absolutely no work in the break after recognizing the danger rider had made it?


2. Work your ass off to make sure the break stays away?

You guess it, he chose option 2. To add insult to injury, there where 6 riders in the break, the payout goes 5 deep, and he finishes 6th. I lose my 3rd place in the overall standings.

Of course, it's not all his fault as I knew who I had to watch. I honestly don't know if I could have made or stayed in the break if I went with him anyway. Here's my racer's excuse; I had a GI sickenss start on Wednesday and I lost 4 pounds, the bad way, by Saturday. Option 1 would have;

• If the break stuck, he would have been completely fresh and probably finished higher than 6th. No one in the break could fault him for not doing an ounce of work for defending his teammate's high overall placing.


• If the break was caught, he would have been fresh for helping lead out his team sprinter and trying to protect his overall lead. This scenario would have also tired out the team for the leading racer in the overall giving an outside chance for me to move up in the standings.

The pre-race talk should have went like this, 'I'll be here in a support role and help you out anyway I can unless something comes up and I think I can do well myself; in that case, forget about helping you maintain your overall standing'.

Sour grapes? You bet as a top 3 overall standing was one of my goals as soon as I heard they were making this a series this year. I ended up 5th in the field for 11th overall on the day...