Tour le Fleur Day One

Greetings from the Comfort Inn somewhere North of Jackson, Mississippi! The first day of the Tour le Fleur omnium was today. We had excellent weather and a challenging course for the criterium. The course was a 1-mile long circuit through an old and very upscale neighborhood. This was a fairly non-technical loop with a 0.35 mile stairstep climb leading to the finish. The rest of the course wound through the neighborhood streets mostly downhill, with speeds reaching about 39 mph. I rode the master 35+/45+ race, which had a rather thin turnout today. On one of the first few trips up the hill, there was an attack that split the pack. After a while, the lead group include Jorge Merle from Dallas, Four guys from Mobile Velo, and me. Not exactly the ideal break for me!! The Mobile Velo guys were very aggressive, launching attack after attack. I chased down one or two breaks, Jorge chased down another, I chased down the next one. When the next attack came by Ed Chapmann, on the climb of course, I hesitated, hoping Jorge would cover it. When he didn't I looked back and discovered he was already off the back. Damn! One Mobile Velo guy off the front and three on my wheel. For the rest of the race, I spent nearly all of my time on the front. Every time I would ease up, an attack would go and I would have to chase it down. The Mobile Velo guys did a good job. I tried my best to get one of them to take the lead during the last couple of laps, but they having none of it, so I ended up sprinting from the front at the finish and of course one of the guys came past me, so I ended up 3rd (which was 1st in the Master 45+).

The Cat. 1,2,3 race handed Realdo a similar experience with Troy (Herring) off the front and the first chase group containing Realdo, Hunter East and four other Herring guys, so he ended up doing a lot of work and coming in 6th.

We headed over to Macaroni Grill after the race and had a nice dinner or lunch or whatever it is at 3:30 p.m.

Tomorrow is the road race, so we're all hoping for some bigger fields. Anyway, here are the unofficial results:

Cat. 1,2,3
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1. Troy Porter
2. Chris Alexander
3. Hunter East
4. Frank Moak
5. Tim Reagan
6. Realdo Jessurun (NOBC)
7. Bain Foote
8. Brian Bunch
9. Kenny Bellau
10. Tracy Martin
11. Scott Kuppersmith
12. Branden Morvant (NOBC)
13. David Coppinger
14. Brian Boudreaux
15. Matthew Espey
16. Noel Puentes
17. Eddie Delgado
18. Eddie Chapmann
19. Robert Kelly
20. Ben Schuler
21. Chris Stokes

Ca.t 5
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1. Jason Ham
2. John Hendrickson
3. Michael Rauch
4. Scott Gurgan
5. Matt Mitchell
6. Chris Emery
7. Jeff Foote
8. Bob Bell
9. Dylan Jason
10. Felipe DeVega
11. Paul Rogers
12. Jay Bookman
13. John Schmitt
14. John Grady
15. Stephen Jason
16. John Smith
17. Mark Yoshida
18. Andrew Parks
19. Francis Asprodites (NOBC)
20. Brooks Branham (NOBC)
21. Justin Homes
22. Gary Gray
23. Cary Watkins

Cat. 5
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1. Jason Miller (NOBC)
2. Pasquale Montalaro
3. Michael Riley
4. Paul Koehn
5. Brooks Abel
6. Sebastian Alvarez
7. Jason Redd
8. D. Bell
9. Doug Wilson
10. Michael Bradford
11. John Rauch (NOBC)
12. Brady Kendall
13. Chase Harrisson
14. Brad Smith
15. Bobby Stevenson
16. Nate Duncan
17. Carter Lusk
18. Marion Kerr
19. Don Boykin

Master 35+
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1. Ed Chapman
2. Larry Carbonneau
3. David Field
4. Jorge Merle
5. Jimmy Olson

Master 45+
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1. Randy Legeai (NOBC)
2. Rick Selby (NOBC)
3. Lee Hammond
4. James Rosati
5. Bob Stores

Women Cat. 1-4
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1. ?
2. Amy Bergen (NOBC)
3. Talor Ehrens
4. Jackie ?

Junior
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1. Dylan Jason