Fitchburg Longsjo Report: Stage 2

7/4/08 - Stage 2
The 92 mile road race was pretty hard to say the least and even saw Thomas out climb Jafer, a historic feat in itself. The road race consisted of 8 large laps then turned into a ski resort for the final 2K finish climb that gained 1,000 vertical feet, with some pretty steep sections. Since Oscar was the GC guy, Jafer was in charge of covering all of the early moves while Oscar and Thomas kept calm in the pack. In the first few laps there was a myriad of attacks that slowly wore on Jafer as he covered them. Every time up the feed zone climb the pack stretched thin as the incline became steeper all the way up.

Jafer utilized Thomas' patented "Florida Fade", everytime up it to try and conserve some energy. The Florida fade means to be in the top 15 or so at the base of the climb and then slowly fade backwards as everyone else is riding hard. By the time you crest you are at the back of the pack or slightly behind. Luckily, there was a nice decent following the feedzone so with a good tuck you could easily catch back on.

With about 4 laps to go a few riders gained a three minute lead on the pack, but the entire Metlife team came to the front and pulled the gap down to a minute.

On the final lap Jafer knew that he would be hard pressed to make it over the feedzone climb with the pack and his chances of finishing with the pack would be even smaller. So he did what naturally occurred to him, attack, and don't look back. Luckily, he caught a rider that had been dropped from the break and they worked together to make it over the feedzone climb. He made it 3/4th of the way over, then the pack caught him and it wasn't hard to catch back on the downhill. Once again he went to the front to try and help Oscar but told Thomas that he would have to do most of the work for Oscar. As the peloton began the final 2K climb to finish the pace rose then rose some more. Jafer was shelled with under 2K to go and slowly inched his way to the top, to tired to even stand on his bike as both Oscar and Thomas flew up the mountain. In the 6 or so years, that Thomas and Jafer have been racing with each other Thomas has never beaten Jafer up a single climb much less one this difficult! Frankly, Jafer was relieved that it was up to Thomas to keep Oscar protected as long as he could and thats just what he did. Oscar rode to a well deserved 14th place, followed by Thomas in 31st, then Jafer in 64th.