Up for Air (Long)

Pro/1/2 riders line up for the criterium start

It's been a busy week.  It all started about a week ago when, after considerable debate, I decided to register for the 50+ masters category at the Pensacola Classic stage race.  The fact that the road race was only 25 miles had me looking seriously at the 40+ option, but as the clock ticked toward the close of pre-registration I could see that the 50+/60+ field was going to be nearly the same size as the 30+/40+ field.  Also, I recognized a few names and knew it would be competitive. Brian had lined up a condo on the beach, so left NOLA in the early afternoon, arriving a bit before John, Mignon, Celeste, and Isaac.  That gave us lots of time to pick up packets and hang out at the other condo full of bike racers where there was food and adult beverages.

The Saturday morning road race was on a long 25-mile course with basically one strategic climb. Once we got past the considerable congestion on the side road near the start line, our race started out fairly slowly.  Eventually there were some attacks and little breaks, but nobody was letting anything go for too long in a 25 mile race, especially not before "the" hill.  I'd missed the break last year on that hill, so I wasn't about to take any chances this year. Naturally there was an attack there, but I didn't have too much trouble staying in contact this time even though we shed a few riders. Things stayed together to the finish and since I was feeling pretty good I was definitely interested.  With 500 meters to go I was up near the front on the left side when the pace ramped up prior to the sprint.  At 300 meters the sprint started in earnest but when I got nudged across the centerline I hesitated for a moment. One rider had opened a little gap and when another came past me on the left I went too, quickly dumping it into the 12 for the final 200 meters.  I was closing in on 2nd place, but the finish line came up a little too early, so I placed 3rd.

I was still hanging around the finish line when the Cat. 3 race's big pack sprint arrived, and didn't even realize at first that there had been a crash at the line.  One of the LAMBRA riders riding back from the sprint spotted me and said that Ben Bradley had gone down really hard.  I rushed over there to find him on the ground surrounded by people after having crashed head-first into the bumper of a car that was parked on the shoulder just past the finish.  Apparently he'd gotten nudged to the left and hit the barricade that was up against the big officials' trailer, clipping the wheel of one of the handcycles on the edge of the road, and then slamming into the car.  We would later learn that he had broken his jaw in a couple of places, broken a few metacarpals, fractured a vertebra (C7), and probably sustained a few other injuries.  His helmet was broken in a number of places.  The ambulance arrived and parked itself right in the oncoming traffic lane, completely blocking the start/finish with a big Cat. 4 pack sprint expected to arrive any minute.  They finally convinced them to move the ambulance before the race arrived, but the riders ended up having to finish in just the left lane which of course kind of screwed up the sprint. All that they posted for road race results were the chip times, I think without bonuses included.

The evening time trial was in a much better location than last year, heading east on the beach road with very little traffic.  I rode the three miles to the start with John and then did my usual disappointing time trial, pushing me way down on the GC list.  We headed over to a nearby restaurant for dinner later that evening.

I was up in the dark Sunday morning in order to make the 7 am start time for the 50+/60+ criterium in old Pensacola.  I'd ridden the course a couple of times before and really liked it.  The half-hour race was good and fast with one rider escaping fairly early and finishing ahead of the pack. With a lap to go I was second wheel behind a rider who seemed to be determined to pull us all around to the finish.  Coming through the second-to-last turn I knew he was going too slowly to survive and was trying to keep my options open, fully expecting a stream of rider to come flying past on the right.  Coming into the last turn I caught a glimpse of Tom Gillis, who had been providing a lot of the power in the group, coming past. I went for his wheel through the turn and sprinted hard for the line.  It was a repeat of the road race finish.  I got my wheel up to about his bottom bracket before crossing the line in 3rd place.  I ended up 6th on GC, one place out of the money.  I have no idea how they came up with the GC times.  All they posted were stage finish times from the chips, to the thousandths of a second.  I tried to figure out how they came up with the GC time they showed for me but based on the stage times they posted I couldn't even come close. I guess if you don't show all of the details, nobody can complain. Anyway, I remain very unimpressed and disappointed with chip timing.

I was still hanging around at the criterium for the Cat. 1/2 race, which strangely wasn't the last one on the schedule, when a medic from Sacred Heart trauma center came up and asked if I knew GW Wenzel.  Apparently he'd crashed and probably broken his collarbone and this guy needed someone to take charge of his bike since he's come there alone. Brian had wanted to get home earlier, so Celeste was driving back with me, I also had Mignon's and Isaac's bikes.  So with three bikes on the roof and three in the back we headed to the hospital to find GW and check on Ben who was scheduled or surgery that morning.

We found GW in the ER, still waiting for an x-ray, and got his truck keys so we could drive back to the race, transfer his bike to his truck, and drive back to the hospital.  I made him a little map to his truck because I was not entirely sure he'd remember all of our conversation after looking at what was left of his helmet.  Then we went upstairs to find Ben.  His parents were still waiting for him to come out of recovery when we arrived, but a few minutes later they said we could see him.  They had spent a very long time piecing his jaw back together with metal plates and wire, so his lip and face were quite swollen and there was still a lot of nasty bloody stuff draining out of the tube in his nose.  He was still pretty groggy, but we were glad to be able to see him before heading back to New Orleans. He was definitely going to be staying in Pensacola for a while and even now I'm not sure if he's back yet or, for that matter, if he will be back in New Orleans or in Plaquemines where his parents live.

Work has been really busy this week with a grant proposal that was due this afternoon. I arrived at the office on Monday to find the carpet completely ripped out, along with big sections of the wall, black plastic taped up, and our huge commercial dehumidifiers and air scrubbers running.  I turned on my desktop computer and immediately blew a circuit breaker.  Crap.  I ended up going back to the house in order get some work done.  Then the next day we're on the interstate driving out to Metairie to visit a friend in the hospital when the car sunroof virtually exploded.  I guess a rock popped up rom a truck that had just cut in front of us.  At any rate, it was really loud.  It sounded like someone had fired off a shotgun on the roof. I'm still trying to get that fixed. At least it didn't happen on the way back from Pensacola in the middle of nowhere. So anyway, I'm just now coming up for air and trying to catch up on things.  I still haven't gotten the Pensacola results in the way I need them in order to update our LCCS points.  Maybe tomorrow?