Fear and Loathing on the Tour of Ohio, Part II (Return to Part 1)
by Will McLaughlin

Previously, our antihero had just discovered that he had just thrown his money away to participate in a self-flagellation ritual known as the Granville Criterium. With his tongue prepared for over an hour of dragging on the road, the race was started….

…The leaders of the 48-strong field took the U-turn steadily as not to cause a crash in the first 200m. I reached the hairpin just as the front of the race reached the first right turn. Uh-oh. I hadn’t gone 300m and we were already strung out. I nudged, cursed, and elbowed my way up and managed to make up exactly…Two places. I lost that gain when I realized I was going too fast to avoid the construction trench on the corner. I braked hard and grabbed the first available free wheel, behind a Tri-tech rider.
I looked up from the pavement to see a long line of riders snaking around the next right hand turn. I accelerated around the bend and wound up for the brick wall that was now upon me. On the cobbles I stood up for some extra juice…And lost all of my momentum as my rear wheel lost traction (1). Chastened, I sat back down and fumbled madly for a gear that would get me going again.
A ten-foot gap opened up. I put myself into overdrive and powered myself back to the field…Until I had to slam on my brakes as riders ahead of me came to a complete stop at the bottleneck where the cobbled road turned right and narrowed to a five-foot wide parking alley.
I cursed out loud (2) as I soft-pedaled , waiting for the field to smooth out. Did I mention I was still going uphill?(3) I sprinted to the top and slammed my chain all the way down to the 13 as I bored down the hill, just fighting to stay in contact with the Tri-Tech rider in front of me. The bumps on the way down reminded me to pay more attention to my personal hygiene but I knew I’d just have to take it. It would be face-plant city if I tried standing up(4).
As I climbed up to the next corner, the Tri-tech rider in front of me eased up a little. He was probably thinking that it would be all downhill for the next 400m. As I came out of the corner, I felt myself losing more momentum than usual for a corner. False flat. It was one of those irritating ones where a large gear has to be spun smoothly (5) or you’ll lose ground. Tri-tech was not spinning, and he was losing ground. He was splitting me from the field.
Perturbed, I upped my horsepower and weaved around several people who had bitten off more than they could chew. I reached the cobbled descent and plummeted with a death grip on the handlebars, and sprinted at the bottom into the 400m straightaway. We had completed one lap, and I was already redlining.

"This is uncool!" I thought to myself as I flew over the start/finish line, my mouth wide open as I tried to swallow enough oxygen to replenish muscle cells that were awash with the products of anaerobic chemical reactions.
I looked at Tym Tyler up in the starting booth. I tried to discern the eyes behind the reflective sunglasses he was wearing. I tried to discern what kind of mind would design an ordeal like the one I was going through. I failed, of course, they were quality sunglasses. It was a good thing though. I could pretend those eyes were not getting any satisfaction from the suffering going on in the back half of the field.
I coasted to give my legs somewhat of a reprieve before the hairpin, and Tri-tech coasted by me. Damn, I couldn’t lose position in the field like that if I wanted to avoid the ordeal that befell me on the first lap. Too Late. There was no room to go around him. I stayed on his wheel all the way to the brick wall, and watched a gap open in front of this dangerously overgeared rider. More cursing. More sprinting. More pain.
I managed to maneuver around him on the second ascent/false-flat. I was in my own private anaerobic Hell, and I paid for it, too(6).
I had given up all pretensions of getting to the front. My only two objectives, now, were to: (1)Stay in the field. (2) Stay conscious…And stay upright. My three objectives were to: (1)Stay in the field. (2) Stay conscious. (3) Stay upright…And stay in front of Tri-tech. I had several objectives, among them were: (1) Staying in the field. (2) Staying conscious. (3) Staying upright. And (4) Staying in front of Tri-tech(7).
I looked ahead of me to see Jeff and Andy in the middle of the field, but I didn’t really care how they were doing. I was in total agony and I was losing my composure and coherence with every lap. And here was this Tri-tech rider coasting by me in the hairpin, overgeared on the hill. I rapidly lost patience with him and I let him know it every chance I got, but there was little else I could do. He kept passing me right after the S/F line and he kept opening a gap up the brick wall. I hoped against hope that he would crack, but he didn’t, and I didn’t have the tactical nous or the balls to stay in front of him. Tri-tech was my so-called worm of conscience that made Hell unbearable.
Why didn’t I drop out? I wasn’t really in Hell (8). Nobody was making me do it. To illuminate my motivations as clearly(and unembarrasingly) as possible it’s time for….

NW Ohio - An Interlude
Several years ago, when I was young and stupid (9) the Tuesday night Regan Ride was the happening thing. On one particular ride in October of ’94 there was a nasty SW crosswind on the way down to Fulton Co.-Lucas road on the way to Swanton. I decided to be a nice guy (10) and start a second echelon. Almost immediately, Cliff Clermont turned on the afterburners (11).
To my chagrin, not only was no one behind me in the second echelon (in name only) but there was no space for me in the first. Left to dangle in the wind five feet became ten, ten became forty, until the gap steadied at about fifty yards. Cliff attacked again. I managed to up my own pace, but I had to dig deep. I had done a weight workout the day before and my legs were still stiff and unresponsive. I didn’t have the explosiveness to do a 110% effort to chase back onto the steadily thinning group.
Three miles later as the Cliff group made the left hand turn on Old State Line road back to Toledo, I saw Cliff jump again. That (obscene gerund) bastard! I’m not going to quit! I’m going to keep going so I can catch up and beat his brains in with my frame pump.
I was out there alone, matching pace with the group up the road, and the only thing keeping me going was the thought of catching up and doing some sort of physical violence on Cliff (12).
I caught back on on Frankfort road. I was alone in the wind for around twenty minutes; my anger and thirst for violence the only things that kept me going (13)….

End of Interlude

I couldn’t drop out now, with that Tri-tech rider still in the field. I had to stay in, suffer, and finish so I would be totally justified in excoriating him after the race for such poor bike handling (14).
The ordeal continued. Lap, after lap, after lap (15). I was fixated on crossing the line and finding Tri-tech to give him what was coming to him.

It all came to a head with seven laps to go. I’m not sure why it happened exactly, but gaps started opening up. On the second hill a rider five positions ahead of me opened up ten feet. I cursed up and down as I sprinted by him when…Tri-tech cracked.
That should have been a cause for celebration, if he hadn’t been about ten positions ahead of me . All Hell broke loose. People just gave up in front of me. I cursed. I blasphemed. I made obscene comments about other people’s mothers.
I threw it in my twelve and dug a hole for myself all the way to China. I caught back on, with Jeff in tow, at the top of the cobbled descent. I was still cursing up a storm. I got to the bottom and dug deep to stay in contact on the finishing straight. I knew that I would be totally screwed if anyone accelerated up the brick wall. What was going to happen?
As luck would have it (for once) nothing happened. I guess the powers-that-be in the front of the race had had enough and decided to set up for a sprint finish. Who knows? But for me it meant a steady pace for the rest of the race. I rode up next to Andy Hague and was able to make coherent, polite conversation for the first time in an hour.
"Hell of a criterium, huh?" I asked in jest.
"Criterium? This is a circuit race."
I concurred and got back to the task of racing as the pace got faster and faster. With two laps to go the pace had returned to intolerable, but with the finish line in sight I wasn’t bothered. I knew I could hang on.
At the top of the cobbled descent, however, a rider in the top-10 put the fear of God back into us as he lost control on the cobbles and did a 180 degree turn at 30 mph (16, 17). Pucker factor. There was total chaos as people ahead of the crash sprinted away (18) while people behind skidded and swerved out of the way.

Being on the ass-end of the field I had ample time to let panic take control of my responses. I slammed on my brakes and fishtailed for 20 yards, but amazingly stayed upright. Any hopeless fantasy of getting a result went down with that 7-Up rider. I sprinted like mad to get onto Jeff Ray’s wheel and kept motoring, but there was a lot of daylight between wheels now. I held the effort and came around the final corner with 400m to go as the winner crossed the finish line.
I cooled down (19) for a lap and rode back to the car. I spent a little bit of time ranting about Tym Tyler and Tri-tech, but not a lot: We had a long drive back to T-town. We’d get back by midnight at best.

7/17-Bowling Green
I didn’t do this race. Instead, I drove three hours to Krista and Nate (Russel)’s wedding. It was a good time to be had by all. Jason Smith and Emily Landon were there; so was the Donaldson entourage, and Chris Blakely and John Koury, who had also decided to no-show at B.G.
To be honest, I still had a chance to catch the race. If I ran straight from the wedding, hopped in my car, and drove Mach 10 all the way back. I was still half-entertaining this notion until the darker side of my conscience (20) pushed me back from the brink. A good time to be had by all (21).
Those who did not attend the wedding, however, were in for a treat……
I’ve raced in Bowling Green, once. It’s a tight, technical, and dangerous course on a dry day. On this day, however, Jeff Ray told me that a (obscene gerund) downpour (22) found its way right on top of Bowling Green. This tight and dangerous course had been reduced to an ice rink (23). Everyone realized it. Thirty five people went to the start line and gave the crowd a show that even Dan Janssen would appreciate. Everyone went down at least once. Everyone.
A good time to be had by all.

7/18 Findlay
It was a good time to be had by all (24)

A bunch of us congregated back at Andy’s car. No congratulations were exchanged or anything like that. No one had really made any money, except Andy. Everyone was tired and somewhat demoralized. All of us had squeezed work, sleep deprivation, heat exhaustion, illness, dehydration, and overtraining into a week and a half of ritualistic self-flagellation; and we had almost nothing to show for it. One of the guys from Cleveland half-jokingly asked if anyone was interested in a ride the next day. We had a good laugh. After all we went through, we all needed a day off. Besides, there was a training race in Westlake (OH) that Tuesday.

Author's Note 

Will Mclaughlin, 25, an object example of how not to train and race, managed to spend almost the entirety of the ’99 season in a state of chronic sleep deprivation and overtraining. The fact that he was able to garner enough good places to (finally) upgrade to Cat. II is a testament to his perseverance, tolerance of pain, and need to get a life.