Day 4

50 mile circut race today. 9 laps, with a decent climb through the start/finish and first couple miles of each lap. I once again went off the front a couple times early and gave a weak attempt at a time bonus sprint on lap 3. Just after the start/ finish on lap 6 I blow out the side wall of my 125 mile old rear tubie. If you're keeping track I got 25mi out of the front and 125mi out of the rear. I mean what's the deal? Anyway, after the slowest wheel change in bike racing history, I am back chasing. I chased for about half the way up the 2 mile climb, then the wheel car comes up and lets me hold on while they take me over the top. On the descent, I chased back through a few follow cars and a couple moto's and was back in the race. Ryan flatted int the same place on the next lap and also got a bit of help and rejoined the field. On the last lap it was clear it was going to be a field sprint, so I got on the leadout of the team who had the yellow jersey, and Baumann was on my wheel. It was pretty windy so we were echeloned across the road a bit. Something happened at the front and sent everyone swerving, the next thing I know, my face is scraping along the road and people are running over/into me. This all happened inside 1 mi to go. I get up and check myself, no broken bones, but plenty of other broken stuff. Here's a list:


Force Shifters
Front Tubular Tire (that's 2 in one day)
New Shoes
Helmet
Rear Ksyrium (That belonged to some other dude)
Shreaded Jersey
Shreaded Bibs



If the picture were better you could see all the holes, to which I have matching holes in my skin.

Sweet huh?

On top of all that I lost the most skin I've ever lost in my life. I sat in the ambulance as they took scissors and cut off all the flaps of skin I had hanging off parts of my body.



So all in all I think this was the least successful 3 days of racing I've had in my life. Don't you worry though, I'll be just fine for Redlands.

Tomorrow I have a big day of tracking down and replacing bike parts, in order to get the bike rideable for Redlands. Hopefully I'll have some more positive updates in the near future.

P.S. Ryan and Phil ended up 4th and 5th on GC and made some skrilla.