The Crashes

Not pretty, but it worked well enough.

Crashes are like flat tires.  They always seem to come in batches.  We've had a big batch of them this week.  Things started out pretty nicely on Monday.  The weather has been getting steadily warmer, the wind has been dropping down to normal, and there hasn't been any rain in the forecast all week.  I did a nice solo ride on Monday out to the Lakefront and Lake Trail, trying my best to take it easy.  Then on Tuesday I headed out early to meet the morning levee group.  Since the Wednesday Night Worlds have started up again on Lakeshore Drive, the Tuesday and Thursday ride pace has relaxed just a bit. I know I have been a little more reluctant than usual to blow my legs up on Tuesday morning, especially since I've been trying to do both a morning ride and the WNW on Wednesdays.  So anyway, the Tuesday ride was nice and smooth with the speed mostly in the 22-24 mph range.

Part of the aftermath on the lakefront Wednesday

We were about half-way back when Brian got on the front and just started towing the whole line of 15-20 riders at 25-26 mph.  He had been up there for a couple of miles, I guess, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a big dump truck veering off of River Road and flying up the road that crosses the levee. He was probably going 30 mph and there was no indication that he saw us approaching.  For a moment, before every started screaming "Truck!!!" I didn't think any of the riders saw him either.  Granted, it's difficult for someone driving up the levee to see what's coming at that particular spot, but anyway, there we were in a long paceline going around 27 mph when the screaming started.  This was a full-on panic stop.  Brian reacted a little late and skidded off to the left, landing in the grass.  Everyone else pretty much locked up brakes and hoped that friction would win out over momentum.  I was near the back and had a little more time to react, but as I was coming to a stop I heard Rick's tire explode.  He had locked up the wheel and worn right through both the tire and the Mr. Tuffy, and blown out the tube. The truck driver, and the supervisor, came over and talked with some of the riders as the rest of us gathered ourselves up out of the grass and Rich went to work on Rick's tire.  Judd had a big section of old tire to use as a boot, but even that wasn't big enough to keep the first tube from blowing right through the huge hole.  So I cut a piece of the blown tube and tied it around tire and rim to try and keep things together.  We still had about ten miles to go. We had to take the brake shoes off, of course, but luckily it held well enough to get back to the cars.

I thought for sure it was broken

So yesterday I went out to the training race after work, a bit late as usual, and caught the group somewhere on its first lap. I drifted to the back since I knew it would take me the rest of the lap to get warmed up.  The pace was around 26-27 mph mostly, and the group was pretty big, so I wasn't too uncomfortable as my old lungs tried to adjust to the increased effort.  We rounded the loop at Seabrook and were heading back east at a solid 27 mph when suddenly the whole front of the group exploded sending ten or twelve riders to the ground. For a moment it looked like I had nowhere to go and would end up plowing into a mountain of riders. Luckily, I slid to a stop up against the curb just in time to keep from plowing into the tangled pile of bikes and bodies, and even better, nobody rammed into me from behind.

Cracked downtube, ripped out bottle cage mount

VJ was on the ground, all scraped up, with his front tire blown completely off the rim, saying his back was hurt.  He was back on his feet pretty soon, however.  Riders were already calling for an ambulance and tending to their injured friends.  Noel was standing there holding his bike with the derailleur hanging by its cable and chain.  Someone had plowed into it from behind and snapped the hanger.  Looking around I saw the top of a saddle on the ground, its carbon rails completely missing.  A little while later I found John Thompson's Eddy Merckx missing its saddle and with a big crack in its down tube. He himself had likely suffered some broken ribs and possibly a punctured lung (haven't heard anything definite yet).  Brian Baum, who had crashed on the levee the day before, was feeling lucky because he had landed right on top of Brian Bourgeois, and although he might have whacked his head on the ground a bit was relatively uninjured.  His phone, on the other hand, had probably saved him some skin and serious bruising.  It was bent to the shape of his back, the screen was completely shattered, and the back side looked like it had been the victim of a belt-sander. The other Brian on the other hand had a cracked helmet and some road rash on his face and elsewhere.  Another rider was clearly going to need stitches between a couple of his fingers where there was a deep gash.

Noel's broken hanger

It was only a few minutes later that I noticed Woody lying on the concrete near the seawall holding his collarbone.  It looked like it was broken and he was looking more pissed off than in pain.  The road season is just about to really get going, and so this is precisely the worst possible time to be breaking bones.  As I learned a few minutes ago, it was just an AC joint separation, which will probably take at least as long to heal, but probably won't keep him off the bike as much.  Three riders had already raced off to get their cars, and a few minutes later we had all of the injured riders and their bikes en route to hospitals or homes.  By then it was about the time when the training race usually ends, so the rest of us rolled on down Lakeshore Drive and everyone split off to head home.  I think that was probably the biggest crash we've ever had out there, and that's going back about thirty years.  It sounds like there was just a little lull at the front, causing things to bunch up for a moment, and someone crossed wheels with someone else and it went downhill from there.

Brian's phone, bent to the shape of his back and shattered

Meanwhile, there's an appeal of a USAC disciplinary hearing later today involving a rider/race director/official and a La. club involving some questionable actions taken last year.  The rider in question has been sending stuff to all of the area email lists and including the USAC conference call number and code.  I have been trying to keep that traffic off of the LAMBRA email list since it is clearly inappropriate, especially since LAMBRA is affiliated with USAC.  It is a matter among USAC, the club, and the individual, and the last-minute effort to get other people in the region to interfere with the hearing does not seem like a wise move to me.  I haven't been directly involved, nor should I have been, so I guess I'll find out the final verdict tomorrow.  This is the most significant disciplinary thing we've had to deal with since the City Park thing back in the 80s.