After a tough road race in Greenbush a change of plan was in order. Like most of the field Mike was getting a bit tired and it just wasn’t possible to cover every threatening move. Going into Friday’s ninth stage in Fond Du Lac a call to the “godfather” confirmed the best plan was to just have Mike sit in all day and take our chances that it would come down to a field sprint. (The godfather is Mike Farrell, founder of ABD, owner of Prairie Path Cycles and former Wheaties/Schwinn pro team manager. His experience and tactical know-how is always pretty spot on).

The stage went almost according to plan and Hogan and Danny did a good job of helping to chase down any threatening moves. Former Pro Tour rider Aurelian Passeron (aka “Frenchie”) slipped away in a two man move with Adam Bergman and won the stage, but the rest of the field came to the line together and Sherer finished a respectable fourth (sixth on the day) to climb back up to fourth overall.

Saturday’s tenth stage was held on Downer Avenue on the north side if Milwaukee and is unarguably one of the top 5 criteriums in America. The crowds are huge, the primes are massive and we finish right around dusk- i.e. party time. The plan was again for Mike to sit in as much as possible and for Hogan, Danny, Waylon and me to roll with moves so that we were represented. Four riders of the United Healthcare team showed up- Menzies, White and the Clarke brothers- so we knew the dynamic of the race would be drastically different. Attacks went from the gun and we were in all of them until a move of 10 riders rolled away about 20 minutes in. The move had Frenchie in it, who was now just one point behind Sherer on the overall. The move had almost gotten out of sight on the long backstretch before I could make it to the front to try and bring the pace back up. Johnny Sundt of Kenda/Geargrinder was doing an excellent job of slowing it down through the turns. I put in one pitiful effort and strung back it before I popped. Fortunately IS Corp was right behind me to initiate the chase and massive efforts from Frank Dierking, Frank Pipp along with Way J (Waylon) helped bring it all back together with 19 laps to go. Sherer did a stellar job of staying up front and out of trouble for the sprint, and came across in 9th place to climb back onto the 3rd step of the overall podium with just one day to go.

Be sure to check out the awesome video recaps of both stages 9 and 10 at the HD video page (Photo/Video>HD videos in the menu).

Mike Sherer before the start of Tuesday’s stage.

Mike Sherer had the overall leader’s yellow jersey going into Tuesday’s stage in Sheboygan, and it was clear that the Kenda/Geargrinder team would be gunning for it from the start. Monday’s double points road race and Mike’s jump to the top of the podium reminded everyone that this was indeed a stage race and tactics moved to the forefront of everyone’s mind.

The squad for Tuesday included Waylon Janowiak, who at 19 years old was racing his sixth day in a row, and Danny Robertson, who worked his job as a garbage man in Rolling Meadows from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. before making the drive up. Team director Mike Ebert also lined up to do whatever he could to help Sherer.

As expected, the racing was aggressive from the gun and Kenda/Geargrinder riders Chad Hartley (2nd overall) and Jim Stemper (4th overall) threw in constant attacks. Sherer was often stuck chasing as the other teams looked for the yellow jersey to chase and the Kenda/GG riders laid in wait to counterattack. Robertson, Janowiak and Ebert all covered whatever moves they could but eventually Stemper escaped with Mike Northey (Rubicon Orbea), French rider Aurellen Passerson and Neil Bezdek of Mountain Khakis. The four worked well to build a lead of over 40 seconds and at one point were only 30 seconds from lapping the field. Nothey went on to win the day with Stemper in second and Raashan Bahati lit up the field sprint for 5th.

Stemper’s result moved him into the overall lead and teammate Chad Hartley took eighth to move into second. Sherer finished 13th on the day and slipped to third, just three points behind Stemper and one point behind Hartley.