The wheels had been set in motion a year ago, after I was hooked by the gritty, hardscrabble racing that has ruled the roads of Fitchburg, Massachusetts for a half century. Now, on a beautiful New England afternoon, with the wife and bambino safely off to my parents… I was piloting one of three cars full of Illinoisans that were converging on the race headquarters of the Fitchburg-Longsjo Classic. Spidermonkey Mike Shea and Illinois official/ICA jack-of-all-trades and all-around cycling savant Nikki Cyp had left the Windy City on Wednesday with enough bikes and gear to fund four years at your local state college. Monkey Dan Pollard and Burnham’s Chris Curran, Nate Iden and myself had flown in to Bradley Airport and rented some American heavy metal to round out our caravan. After the short but scenic drive along the Massachusetts border, we all met at the Courtyard Marriott HQ hotel within 15 minutes of each other, an excellent way to kick off a weekend that wouldn’t tolerate any logistical breakdowns.

We quickly stowed our gear, took a 30-second break to stand slack-jawed in front of the massive Fly V Australia mothership that was overflowing with DeRosa’s latest creations, and piled into our Fords for a preview of Sunday’s TT course. With heavy road racing on Friday and Saturday, Thursday was the best chance to ride the 8-mile out-and-back circuit, which usually kicks off the event but had been moved to the 4th of July to reduce the holiday burden on the race’s volunteers and budget. It was also a great chance to shake down the bikes after their cross-country jaunt, and to appreciate the lakes and the canopies of deep green pines that we miss out on in the Midwest.

After offending a bus full of kids returning from Christian summer camp with our cyclist vocabulary, we left the TT course for a quick moto preview of the next day’s circuit race. My 2010 Fitchburg-Longsjo experience peaked at this point… With Nikki’s help I was able to drive all four of my fellow racers up a 400-meter ‘finishing climb’ that was at least 20 percent grade. After watching them turn white, then green (Nate was about to open his phone and move up his flight home) I let them off the hook… the hill was a wrong-turn I’d taken last year and was across the street from the actual race course. Good times.

Thursday dinner was fine Italian, wines from a brown bag and drawing glares from the evil little Garmin development kids at the next table.

FRIDAY. JULY 2. THE CIRCUIT CIRCUS. Spidermonkey Trent Wiliams rendezvoused with Dan for the opening Cat 4 circuit race. Dan looks like a big-bad Chitown critter, but he’s had success at Snake Alley, so the circuit race didn’t scare him off. I missed their race, but word is that both Dan and Trent hung tough until the stair-step nature of the climb whittled them off the main field. They both finished on the same lap with the leaders and were safe from the time cut… Afterwards, Trent just wanted to survive for the time trial and Dan was dreaming of .8 mile, fastflatcrits.

Our Cat 3 field rolled out about 90 strong. Nate, Mike, myself and Chris Curran, resplendent in his blue Illinois road champ jersey. Amazed at the idea of having both lanes to race on, I moved right up to third wheel, which is a shame because apparently I missed two guys who decided they’d rather be mountain biking go cycling off into the woods. This race had a nervous tenor that I didn’t remember from last year, perhaps because a pecking order had been established in 2009 after the opening time trial. There were more attacks this year and information about time gaps was seriously inconsistent. I found a great rhythm for attacking the climb and managed to stay around 10th place for most of the laps. Mike was right next to me on many of those slogs up the hills and we noted that it was a nice, safe pace to be. Alas… fatigue and impatience combined to wreck havoc inside of three laps to go. A pile-up on the previously-benign backstretch sent one rider to the hospital… when we saw him six hours later, he couldn’t remember a single detail of the race.

A cruel hand then descended upon our Mike Shea… a rider ahead knocked a cone into the path of the peloton. Another rider overcorrected and maneuvered directly into Mike. In a fraction of a second, Mike’s bike was on the ground and Mike’s helmet had made the ultimate sacrifice. I was still unaware of Mike’s demise when, with two to go, yet another wreck… this time in a 40mph section of the course wide enough to fit five Semis. I was simply lucky as this tangle erased several riders directly on my right. I realized at this point I hadn’t seen Mike, Nate or Chris in a good while, so I worked to set myself up for the uphill pitch. It was simply a game of chicken moving into the final corner, and I lost. I was third wheel 20 meters before the turn, but two racers snuck up the inside and stole the fast line into the bend. Compounding my mistake, I’d made the decision to big-ring the sprint based on watching the masters field. When I scrubbed speed to adjust for the guys moving across my line, I lost my momentum and the big ring became the big problem – I was way overgeared, way overexerted and I slowed to crawl, giving up a mind-numbing 30-spots in the last 150 meters.

After the race, I had the surreal experience of not finding ANY of my travel companions, and I immediately thought of the crashes. Indeed… Dan, Trent and Nikki had escorted Mike to the Leominster Hospital. Many, many thanks to Nikki for her ER vigil and acting as Mike's proxy. Fortunately, back at the course, Chris Curran had only broken a shifter mid-race and was on board a SRAM NRS bike. He and Nate had chased the field and avoided the time cut and were at the SRAM tent monitoring repairs. My being on same-time with the leaders was of little solace when we learned later in the day that Mike was out of the race. Although he’d been cleared by doctors, the officials made the call that a head-injury and his failure to complete the distance (hey, he was in an ambulance… makes that kind of difficult) precluded his starting the road race. Probably for the best as his fork had given up the ghost as well, but Mike had driven 18 hours for a 30 minute racing experience and still had three days and another 18 hour drive home in front of him. Heavy times.

Later that evening, Nikki was checking the race communiqué and reading off the bevy of race penalties. Then she stopped laughing and looked at the number on my bike. “Ummm……” I’d been fined $20 for riding without a helmet? EH? Anyone who knows me through cycling knows that I am THE helmet tyrant. I hung on to my innocence for the remainder of the weekend. I was ready to appeal to the highest of high powers, just on principal. Alas, after talking to some locals I was informed that NEBRA officials will fine you for simply straddling a bike without a helmet, as I did for the 30 minutes while Chris’ bike was being worked on. If I thought I was committing a violation, I probably wouldn’t have done it in front of the five neutral pit officials. All hail the kinder, gentler Midwest Officials.

Friday dinner was a chicken parm sandwich, two Centrum Ultra and side of spite.