The Roden Files

Final Rochester Giro, Sunday, April 1, 2007
By John Roden

After all nature of assurances that the last Rochester Giro would be a fun
family day involving the minivan and everything, I found myself without
company driving the 90 miles down the Thomas E. Dewey Thruway alone and
lonesome with nothing but Randy Travis blasting on the radio after my whole
brood pulled the plug at 9pm in the midst of my kitchen re-flooring project
no less. We headed out for the final chapter in this year’s series under
darkening skies. On the way down to the race, I felt like I was working a
little too hard and noticed my wheel had slipped over and was rubbing on the
chainstay. After fixing it, I thought “If only it were always this easy”
indicating to the reader some foreshadowing of things to come. As Todd
rushed through his usual pre race admonishments, a huge bolt of lightning
cracked the sky, hurled by an angry Zeus from somewhere near Strong road.
As we trundled off, a flurry of attacks found me a bit off the front to be
joined by a Preferred Care duo of Mike Mathis and Jason Skalski, both
sporting some super early season fitness. As the heavens opened in a cold
and steady downpour, we were joined by Al Lombart (Full Moon Vista) and
JW Dundee’s-Home Performance teammate Steve Burget for a total of 5. We got down
to work and made good our escape. After a while, the pace started wearing
on me, I checked to see if the wheel was back to rubbing again of if a chunk
of asphalt or dead raccoon was lodged in my fork. After a while, Jason just
sort of attacked off the front and in short order Mike followed suit, poof,
off go two team mates while I was checking my bike again for signs of a
tangled anchor chain. So, we three set to chasing, to no avail. Mike took
the win, then Jason, Steve fired up a nice sprint for third, followed by Al
and myself driving hard in the caboose. After a rainy ride back to the car
and some hot coffee, the Giro series is over. We were able to get a rider
on the podium this year and really clicked nicely as a team, so it was a
solid bunch of bricks in the wall for the home team.