Good Rides, Ending Badly

It was another race-free weekend for me, a chance to do some group rides, put some miles in the legs, and flirt with severe dehydration. Saturday morning, with a little time to spare, I rode slowly out to the lakefront for the regular Giro Ride. A few of the stronger local guys were at the stage race in Memphis, or on their way to Masters Nationals, so I was expecting the ride to be a little easier than usual. There were a lot of bikes out at the lakefront. Besides the 40 or so people doing the Giro Ride, there were also the smaller Bovine Paceline group and the GNO Tri groups, both of which leave a few minutes earlier. As usual, the pace remained conversational all the way down Lakeshore Drive and over the Seabrook bridge and Casino overpass, but once we got down onto Hayne Blvd. things picked up considerably. It quickly became clear that it would not be an easy day. In the group was a mysterious rider in an unfamiliar dark jersey. Kenny asked, "Do you know who that guys is?" He was obviously an experienced rider who was riding well. It was a long time before I had the chance to talk to him and learn that he was visiting from Toronto. Anyway, the ride out to the turnaround at Venetian Isles was quite fast. The only thing that hinted at the missing horsepower was the fact that the pace would occasionally slacken for a minute or two before ramping back up. As we came into the last kilometer before the turnaround sprint the speed surged up to 35 mph or so. I can only assume that Howard was on the front at that point. It was way too early, and soon riders were dropping out of the rapidly disintegrating paceline and those of us who had been at the back ended up at the front simply by default. After that, I think the heat started to get to everyone and the pace on the return trip was somewhat less intense. Regardless, it was a good ride. As we cooled down (I use the term loosely) Jay said they were going to do a long ride on the northshore on Sunday, so I added that to my plans.

Sunday morning I was alone heading across the lake to meet the group for the 7:30 a.m. start. As I pulled into a parking spot at the Lee Road school, John Eagan parked alongside and quickly discovered he'd left all of his riding stuff (shoes, shorts, etc.) at home. A couple of hours later we would run into him as we were heading back. The ride started out with I guess ten or twelve riders, and although it was already getting pretty hot by 8 am, the pace was brisk and steady. Somewhere on the back side of the Enon loop we lost a few riders, but since they all knew the route we didn't wait around for them. They were so far back that we couldn't even see them, so we figured maybe somebody had a flat or something. Anyway, that reduced our number to around seven. The pace was really about perfect for me today, and other than the intensifying heat, I was feeling fairly good.

I was running strictly on sugar today. Saturday night I'd been at the welcome party for the new Psychiatry Residents and Fellows where, in addition to a few glasses of Zin and a TurboDog, I'd also sampled a couple of Plum Street Snowballs that had been enhanced with a little Bacardi Rum. This was not great preparation for a long ride in the heat. Breakfast on Sunday had been a leftover cupcake and a 20 oz. bottle of Coke, and for the ride I had a couple of gels and lots of water.

We were only about ten miles from the end of our ride when the crash happened. The last of the traditional sprints on this route is at the parish line on Lee Road. I was toward the back of the paceline and wasn't planning on sprinting. In fact, I wasn't sure anybody was until the pace surged. So I just followed wheels to keep from getting gapped off, but otherwise wasn't paying much attention. Suddenly I heard the unmistakable sounds of crashing bikes as the rider's wheel in front of me locked up and started sliding. Narrowly escaping the carnage, I went right, across the roadside gravel, into the grass, and down into the grass-filled ditch at around 28 mph. I immediately switched into mountain bike mode with my butt hanging off the back of the seat, just hoping there wasn't a big hole or chunk of wood hiding in the tall grass. It was a close one. I finally slowed down enough to turn around and what I saw didn't look good. Jaro was still sitting in the middle of the road holding his left shoulder. There was a twenty-foot long scrape mark on the asphalt. Somehow, nobody else went down, although Jay had ridden right over Jaro's fallen bike. The bike took a bit of a hit. Although the frame was spared, the derailleur hanger was dramatically bent and the derailleur itself was lodged in the spokes. Both wheels were out of true, the bars were twisted almost 90 degrees, and the brake levers were both twisted to the side. Jaro was already saying he thought his collarbone was broken. Anyway, Jay headed down the road to get his car while the rest of us found a shady spot and hung out with Jaro until he arrived to take him to the ER. The rest of the ride was just plain HOT, but at least it was short. It's been about four hours now and I still can't get in touch with Jaro, so he may still be at the hospital. So other than the crash, it was a great ride. I arrived home a couple of quarts low, judging by the bathroom scale, so I guess some rehydration is in order.....