Feeling Phat and Skinny: Mike Sherer Report

This past weekend I raced the Fat & Skinny Tire festival in Winona, Indiana- two days of racing with a decent amount of prizes up for grabs each day. Saturday was a relatively flat 62 mile road race and the field was pretty big at about 70 riders. The team for the day was Waylon, Will, and I. The race started off fast and aggressive and all of us shared the load of getting into moves but nothing seemed to stick for a couple laps. About three laps in Waylon got in a nice move and was out in the wind for about a lap or two. After that break was brought back, Will followed another rider’s counter attack. I saw that he was outnumbered so I bridged up to the break with Eric Hamilton from Nuvo. The break now had eight riders. We rolled it for another lap but the break was extremely disorganized. Soon a chase group of six riders bridged across to us to make it a break of 14. This move stuck despite the increased numbers and with two laps to go Will got away with Chris Uberti [winner of Hillsboro-Roubaix] and Hamilton.  Uberti won but Will fininshed second only an inch or two! I tried to take a flyer going into the last lap but was brought back before the sprint. My legs were pretty fried but I managed to finish 9th, and back in the field Waylon finished second in the bunch sprint to finish 16th.

Sunday was a wet and crazy crit. My teammates left me to head up to the Vernon Hills Grand Prix so I was stuck battling it it out solo. However, I wasn’t too concerned as I’ve raced the Fat and Skinny crit for a couple years now and have always finished in the top 5. Ryan Knapp and John Puffer went from the gun and I bridged across with a few other riders shortly thereafter. The break was absolutely flying and we lapped the field in about 20 minutes. After we were back in the pack my main focus was to stay alert and try to make sure that I didn’t miss the next break that might roll away. I was hoping to get away again because I was not confident in my chances of sprinting against the likes of former ABD’er/now-Roadhouser John Puffer. Attacks were flying the last couple of laps but nothing stuck. I came through the last corner in third wheel, right on Puffer. Coming out of the turn I gave it everything I had but Puffer jumped early and hard and I ran out of real estate to close the gap. I finished second on the day and managed to take the halfway prime, so not too bad.

All in all it was a great weekend. The Fat and Skinny Tire Festival is an amazing event and I recommend everyone comes out to it in the future. Now time to rest up and then start Joe Martin on Thursday!

Comments RSS You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.