One Helluva Week

The weekend went pretty much ok. Got in a nice ride on Saturday, even with that nasty gash in the tire. Working BikeJam was a good experience for me. I'm still a rookie at some things as an official, even though I work a lot of races I've never been a pit ref for a race where the pit actually had business. It was a great learning experience and now I know how to do the job really well at future races. Some of it was easy - races that stay together don't require much in the way of scoring - how many times do you need to write down "F" for field? Some of it was hard. And we had a great time over at Lisa's post-race. I didn't get home until after 11pm... good thing I can nap on the train going in to work on Monday morning.

Monday morning the hamstrings bitching about spending most of the day Sunday standing around was an omen of things to come. Rest of the day was ok, no big excitements, nice pleasant yoga class. Tuesday all hell broke loose with the race scheduled for Saturday that I'm Chief Ref for.

Tuesday evening was a bright spot though, cause I was riding the Ordu and really enjoying it that evening. The Serotta was over at the shop getting the new, narrower bars put on. It was a good evening.

Wednesday saw the continuation of the thrills and chills relative to the race. Two days of emails, phone calls, conferences calls and careful considerations led us to conclude the race had to be postponed. Pain in the ass for all but the risk of someone getting hurt was too high, better to race next month and have safer conditions.
The whole thing was really draining. I actually had to have my chiropractor wait to work on me while I finished up the last phone call with the promoter. Thankfully he's very active sports-wise (coaching his kids' teams stuff like that) so he was totally sympathetic when I explained to him why I was being ever so rude as to be on my cell phone at that moment.

Whew, got all that behind me. Though I ended up staying up late just to unwind. Legs were feeling progressively better as the week went on. Thursday... always a good day at the point, big bunch lots of options for pace. But by the time I got there I was tired and unmotivated. But I knew that if I found some folks to ride with, I'd be fine. The bunch was big and I debated joining in...sometimes when it's that big it's just a little too sketchy for my tastes. I pulled into the parking lot, picked up Kenny and did a lap with him. We did a little ring spin lap - lots of fun. Pulled in to the lot again to hook up with Angie and some others. But then Iris went by riding with 2 others - a woman with a CapHillBikes jersey and a guy. I was chatting with an NCVC rider and decided to chase on to that little pace line. I had no trouble doing so and when I got up there I noticed the NCVC guy had come along for the ride. I went to the front near the end of the lap and easily rode away from the group. Then let them pass and hooked back on for the next go round. It was definitely a busy night at the Point. Probably 80-100 cyclists total (not all in one bunch), walkers, runners, skaters, and of course cars and tour buses. Definitely a night to ride very heads up....

The woman with the Cap Hill jersey (turns out her name is Lindsay) was on the front, then Iris and then me. I don't know if the guys were still with us behind me or not. I don't much worry about who is behind me, I stay focused on the important stuff - what's going on ahead of me. So we come around the point and Lindsay picked up the tempo. No problem. We were right at the speed limit (the powertap download shows it as 24.9mph) when disaster struck. There was slow traffic ahead, we took the left lane - why not, we were going the speed limit. But then the car in the right lane that was going slow decided it was going to come into the left lane to get around some walkers (I believe there were 3 walking side by side sucking up the entire right lane) and didn't bother to check that it was safe to change lanes. I know I yelled out, but I was third wheel and the guy had the windows closed....

Lindsay reacted well, did her absolute best to swerve to avoid the collision, smartly slammed on both brakes so she didn't endo, but still hit the car - her right side taking the impact. He was going slower so he stopped first. His driver's side mirror, the one that he should have used!, broke away when her hip hit it. Mama Duck mode kicked in, even though I didn't know her at all. I stopped. I stayed with her. I checked over the bike. The cops came. I told them what happened. Iris told a different story. I shrugged when the cop told me that. I couldn't explain the difference. I just know what I saw from my perspective. Thinking about it now, I write it off to the fact that she probably isn't as hyper aware when riding as I am so she didn't have a clear picture, maybe she was riding a bit too much head down too.

The good news - rider and bike appeared to be pretty much ok. Still, we sent her off to the hospital in the ambulance so she could get checked out well and maybe some heavier duty pain killers. She's got to be hurting a lot today. Manny took her bike so it'd be safe - the cops offered to lock it up, but well, folks don't understand what bikes mean to cyclists (nor do they necessarily understand the actual dollar value).

I know the driver didn't do it on purpose. It was an accident. And I think it really scared the hell out of him and his family, I really hope it did and that he'll be a better driver because of it.

It was comforting to see how the cyclists responded...definitely a sense of looking out for our own. And yet by the time I got home I was deeply depressed. I'm still depressed today. Not sure why. Certainly not the first mishap I've seen. Maybe it's just the sum total of the week's events. I don't know.

Hopefully the weekend will go great - ride tomorrow, race Sunday, ride Monday. First I gotta get out of this funk.