Long Ride, Crash on the Side

This was the first morning I felt like I needed to strap on the headlight to meet the 6:15 group. Our annual tilt away from the sun becomes more noticeable each day, and despite the persistent warm tropical weather it makes me think of Fall. You know, those three or four days we get between Summer and Winter around here.

There was a nice group of 15+ riders today for the long levee ride, and it didn't take very long before Rob and a few others started to push the pace. Not far past the Country Club, a small group split off the front and I think if The Donald hadn't made a long and determined effort it might never have come back together. Anyway, everyone was back together by Williams Blvd., and when the pace eased back down to reality, which in this case was 26-27 mph., I finally had a chance to reach back and pull my Oakleys out of my pocket and put them on. They were, of course, all fogged up, but I had already had enough dust in my eyes at that point, so I wiped them off with my already wet jersey and made do. A big surge just past the bridge finally split a few guys off the front as somebody ahead of me eased up. I eventually went around, but my meager 27 mph effort wasn't even putting a dent in the gap so I finally sat up too.

The ride back stayed pretty slow for a long time and although it eventually got going fast again somebody (Todd?) flatted and most of us stopped to wait. By the time that was fixed and the pace was back into the upper 20s, we were around the Country Club. A few minutes later, with the Huey P. looming just ahead, Eddie D., and Dan D. got a small gap on the group for a little while. As they were coming back to the group on the left side of the road, a pair of sunglasses somehow ejected themselves from Eddie.

They hit the ground just ahead of me and bounced off my foot, but amazingly nobody ran over them. Eddie, already riding along the left side of the bike path, turned to look back and when he did, he dropped his front wheel off the left edge of the road. Instinctively, he leaned back in to try and get back onto the asphalt (which is hard not to do, but practically guarantees a crash). At that point I was just starting to pass him on the right, and the last thing I saw out of the corner of my eye was his front wheel alongside me at an impossible angle with "road rash" written all over it. As he hit the deck I swung as far as I could to the right because it looked like his bike might take out my rear wheel. I was able to stay clear, but Dan, who had been on his wheel, wasn't so lucky and plowed right into him as he and his bike body-surfed along the bike path.

Nothing was broken, but Dan and Eddie went down pretty hard. There was a three-foot long stripe of red on the asphalt that turned out to be the material from Dan's red jersey which now sported a ragged hole across the upper back. It looked like Dan got the worst of it. There was blood oozing from his elbows and right knee, and his hip had a big patch of road rash as well. As we rode back toward home, he was gradually starting to feel the burn of sweat as it started getting into all of those skinless patches of raw meat.

I did not envy his morning shower!