Saturday 4 April 2009

Bad Things Happen in 3s

Driving up to Walkersville this morning, a couch jumped out of a pickup's bed and landed in the middle of the lane next to the one that the truck had been driving in. This lane that the couch landed in, coincidentally, was the one I was in. Having about, oh, let's call it zero time to respond, I nailed it. Neither the couch nor my car came out the better from the experience. Most of the front of my car is now missing. At least it was drivable, so on to the race I went.

Nice warmup, checking out the wind direction, feel great at the line. The first few laps pass pretty uneventfully, but the race is pretty fast and hard. On one of the early laps there was a crash on the section of Old Frederick (after the turn immediately after the feed zone) where the shoulder goes away. I was off the front as this happened, so I knew nothing of it, but when the little break got caught the field was markedly smaller. The race continued, three guys jumped off the front and the field continued to get whittled down. A bunch of hard efforts went in, and there we were at the feed zone once again. Things are pretty strung out at this point, we're hauling along in the gutter, just at the point where the shoulder stops, and the guy in front of and to my left goes to the right off the road and into the dirt. I go into the dirt and pretty much stop cold and shoot off my bike. Three or four other guys wind up on the ground as well. I have nasty road rash and a trashed frame. Another guy apparently broke his collar bone. What the final tally were of crashes that happened there today were is anyone's guess. I heard of two others. With a left to right wind that section is fatal. The worst news is the 1-2-3 race crashed into the cleanup vehicles of the original crash. FUCK!

Driving my significantly f'd up car home, with my f'd up bike in the back, I get a call from my wife. My 96 (97 in 12 days) year old grandmother is being moved to hospice care. This is not exactly an unexpected development, as there aren't many pieces of a person that are designed to go that long, but it's still tough. I was much closer with my mother's parents (their deaths were pretty devastating when they happened) but man do I think my father is a freaking awesome guy, and though my grandmother did some STRANGE things - I'll leave those skeletons to her closet - she is largely responsible for my father, and for that at least I owe her a great debt.

I think I'm taking a pass on tomorrow. My nerves are shot.

10 comments:

Chuck Hutcheson said...

Wow.

BB said...

been there.

chris said...

feeling ya..but gotta get back on the horse...less the horse is not available...cheers stay golden pony boy

Chuck Wagon said...

The horse is headed to the glue factory unfortunately. When I woke up this morning I thought that I'd I had a bike I'd race. Alas, no.

Update on the Scot is that he broke his other collarbone but no head trauma.

hfang said...

I saw the sofa on the side of the road, wondering what happened.. The guys with the pickup truck was on the other side further up, scratching their head. Sucks! See you out there soon.

Unknown said...

Man, that sucks, I feel for ya. Relieved to hear the Scotsman survived.

crispy said...

Jesus dude. Sometimes the universe is just tellin' ya to stop while you're slightly behind. Good thoughts sent your way man.

Greg said...

a couch? that's fuckin mentally challenged!

RayMan AKA StingRay said...

Good racing with ya.

I was right behind you when the crash started, fortunately for me, that cross wind was so strong it helped me slow up enough to skirt around the crashing bodies. What really sucked was having to go all out to bridge back up to the pack.

Really glad to hear you didn't have more injuries.

TerribleTerry said...

I think your bike must've gotten broken in that couch crash. Bummer you didn't notice it until you got to the race.....