Yesterday was surprising in a lot of respects.  At least surprising for me personally.  I woke up after a bad nights sleep.  I was feeling pretty crummy and wasn’t looking forward to racing a hard, hot criterium.

But, that changed after I went out late in the morning to ride an hour to get my legs  woken up. I felt pretty great, like really great riding.  It was pretty windy and when I was riding back along the Mississippi River, nearly directly into the wind, I was going consistently over 20 mph without really trying.  That changed my mindset completely.

So, all of a sudden I started thinking of the race as a race instead of a survival/training day.  I really didn’t warm-up at all.  I rode down the hill a little over a mile and then a couple laps of the course and that was it.  It was going to be hot, at least hot compared to what I was used to, in the mid 80’s.  Plus, it was tailwind up the climb, which makes it just that much hotter.

The course is a little under a mile and is pretty much 1/2 up, with tailwind and then a headwind descent into a couple tight corners.  Then start all over again.

I didn’t warm-up because I’ve found that if I ride earlier, I can start fine, plus I wanted to keep my core temperature low.  There is no reason to be hot before a endurance sporting event.

I was called to the line, so didn’t have to mess with the rushing the line.  The race started super tame and pretty much stayed that way.  A few guys took off after a couple laps, but they never really got too far ahead.

I was feeling great.  I don’t think I am riding great, but feeling great makes riding uphill a lot easier.   I could pretty much move around at will.  I could tell after a few laps that a lot of guys were suffering towards the top of the climb.

Then a disaster.  The headwind made the descent pretty neutralized since no one really wanted to put in a lot of power at the front when everyone else was coasting behind them.  So it got bunched up at the bottom corner.

After about 11 laps, I was in towards the front, but sandwiched on both sides, when the guys taking the inside line swung a little wide, thus squeezing the outside line into the curb.  And that was it.  Someone fell and chaos.  A couple guys hit the curb pretty hard and I had a guy lying right in front of me.  I skidded into him, but didn’t flip.  Then a couple guys ran into me from behind and I did a tommy type tip over, but didn’t hit the pavement.

I was stuck and was a little worried about the guy I’d run into.  He didn’t look so good.  I asked him if he thought he was okay and he said he was just stuck at the bottom of the pile.  He sounded alright. I casually checked my wheels and made my way over to the finish stretch to take a free lap.

This is when it turned south.  I rode past the start/finish line and the official said I was done, along with about 10 other guys.  He said there wasn’t a free lap.  I was thinking, WTF?  I didn’t hear the head official announce at the start that there wouldn’t be a free lap.  I was staying with Tom Schuler, the race director and couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t have a free lap on a course such as this.  It was less just a tad less that a mile around, with lots of places when people could have a mechanical and crash, obviously.

So, I just rode over to the house that Jeff Bradley’s team was using as a viewing area, sat in the shade and had a beer.  As luck would have it, Tom Schuler was there and I asked him why he didn’t have any free laps.  His flippant reply was, “For what, a mechanical?”  I just glared at him for a few seconds and walked away.  I knew that nothing that would be coming out of my mouth would have been appropriate for the situation.

Tom was a Pro, won the US Pro Road Championships, was on the 1980 Olympic Team, and even won Athens Twilight and Sommerville.  I wonder how many free laps he’s taken in his career? He knows good and well what a free lap is for.   Crashing in bike races is part of the deal and the free lap rule makes it so riders that have mishaps can still finish the race.  I’d like to hear Tom’s real explanation for not having one.

I was disappointed because I wanted to finish the race.  I wanted the race miles and efforts in the heat.  And I wanted to test myself against those guys when I could actually pedal good.  And I didn’t get to.  I only rode 30 minutes.

The field was already pretty small, about half of the 80-90 starters.  I could see by the faces of many of the guys still racing that they were suffering on the climb, in the heat.   And the field started dragging.

About the time I crashed, Grant Erhard, a young rider from St. Louis, took off on a nearly race winning move.  He soled the next hour, only to be caught a couple laps from the finish.  I know Grant from an early season road race last year, Froze Toes, where he outsprinted me for the win.  He was riding pretty good then and much better now.  He deserved to win the race, the field was so done, but that didn’t work out.

3 guys caught him and then spit him out the back with just a couple miles to go.  Josh Johnson, Bissell, ended up winning the sprint and the race.  Grant dragged in for a respectable fourth.

I didn’t really talk to any of the riders that finished after the race.  I would have liked to know if it just got so hot or the hill just got that much harder the last half of the race.  Everyone looked pretty beat.

The race is very good.  The spectators are there, and great.  Lots of house parties.  The course is fantastic, if you like hard criteriums, which I do.  It has an old time bike race feeling, which is refreshing.

All that is good, I’ve still never finished the new Quad Cities Criterium in Davenport.  I’ve paid $100 in entry and have ridden 10 or 11 laps.  That is about $10 a lap.  Plus, a broken hip, so I’d have to say that this hasn’t been my luckiest race.

At least I was feeling good.  I didn’t have a super amount of power, but feeling good is better than not.  And I’m not hurt, which is great.  Overall, the weekend went alright.  I wish I would have raced Muscatine now.  Saving energy isn’t what I needed to do.  I need race miles.

We packed up and drove the 6 hours back to Topeka.  It was storming the whole way back. Crazy lightening and heavy rain.  We got back around 2 am.  Man, the midwest has been getting pummeled this spring.  It is supposed to rain Thursday thru Saturday this week.  I hope, for Brian Jensen’s sake, that it isn’t raining on Saturday.  Saturday is Dirty Kanza and riding 200 miles on gravel, in the rain could be a nightmare.

The Tour of Kansas City starts Friday too.  This is the 51th year of this race.  It is a three day stage race, with a time trial on Friday night and then a hard circuit race on Saturday and a criterium on Sunday.    Raining for Cliff Drive on Saturday might be a challenge.  The course is great, but not so good in the rain.  There is one corner that is hard to get around when it is dry.

Okay, I need to get on to house painting now, while it’s dry.

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday was terrible.  It wasn’t horrible, it was just terrible.  I’m not sure where to start.  It is late, real late Sunday night, early Monday morning now.  The race was at 2:15 and it was 75 minutes, I guess.  That was nearly 12 hours ago.  Man, a lot can happen in 12 hours.

Brian Jensen called and decided he wanted to try to blow off some steam after his Dirty Kanza fiasco and we stopped in Lawrence to pick him up.  It was the first time he’s raced his road bike this year.

We got to the race and warmed up.  Then the race started.  Easy course around the stadiums where the Chiefs and Royals play.  No big hill, no tight corners, not really a course that I like that well.  The sprint was 500 meters downhill with a slight tail/crosswind.

I felt okay.  Pretty good actually.  It seemed like it was going to be a field sprint, but you never know.  I kept trying to get off the front, but it seemed like I was pretty marked.  At least it seemed that way to me.  Lots of guys chasing me and when they got on, they wouldn’t pull, even if I kept pulling for awhile to give them a break.  They always said they were working for someone else. Man, I hate that line.

Brian and Bill both got in a few moves, but they never went anywhere.  Then two guys got away with 4 or 5 laps to go.  I wasn’t going to chase them and no one else seemed to be too interested.  Then two laps to go and it started getting a little squirrely.  Faster and everyone trying to move up.

On the last lap, I planned to be as close to Lee Bumgarner.  The guy is the perfect lead out downhill.  He is big and powerful, like 2000 watt powerful.  I had talked to Garrick Valverde about him and said he should start his sprint on Lee.  I was floating behind Garrick and when Lee jumped to the left, Garrick lost his wheel.

Shadd Smith jumped to the right and around the last corner he jumped with Garrick on his wheel, then Brandon Krawczyk, 3rd from the day before, Lee, 2nd from Saturday, then me.  The two guys were right ahead and I was focused on staying on Lee.

Like I said earlier, it was downhill and a slight tailwind.  Garrick jumped by Shadd, then Brandon went and Lee got beside him.  I was still behind, hardly pedaling, still 200 meters from the finish.  I couldn’t believe it.  Still fresh with everyone in the wind in front of me.  Then disaster.

Someone on my right got into trouble, just when I started winding it up to get off my seat and sprint. Carnage.  From the left, someone came over into my rear derailleur and bam, done, no derailleur.  I was already going over 40 and just coasted the last 150 meters and still ended up 19th.

I guess there were a lot of guys on the ground.  It was a high speed fall.  I hoped everyone was okay.  I went to the car and Trudi came back and said that Bill was on the ground about 300 meters from the finish.  He’d crashed 3 laps to go.  I ran down there and he was sitting on the grass with a couple paramedics helping him.  I asked him what was wrong and he said he couldn’t breathe and his ribs on his back were killing him.

The ambulance came and they checked him out.  I talked to him some and decided to take him to the hospital ourselves.  I figured it would save the ambulance ride cost.  We went to a local hospital and it worked out amazingly.

We got him checked in and the doctor ordered x-rays.  They came back a collapsed lung and two broken ribs.  They called a pulmonary doctor and about 15 minutes later he came in wearing jeans and a t-shirt.  They guy had a small kit and pretty much poked a hole into Bill’s chest, stuck a tube into it and then vacuumed the air out from between his lungs and rib cage, I guess.  It took about 10 minutes.

They sent Bill back up for another x-ray, which was good, lung back, and then we got some pain killers and drove back to Topeka.  It took 4 hours, but he didn’t have to stay the night in the hospital and on Tuesday he has an appointment for another x-ray, and if that is good, the tube comes out and then it’s just the bad ribs for 6 weeks.

It was a very bad crash, but it could have been much worse.  He hit a curb at 90 degrees going around 40 and flipped over, but landed on thick grass.  There was a sidewalk just a couple meters further.

Brian is probably thinking about retiring from road racing again.  It was a super ugly last lap.  He didn’t fall, but most likely witnessed a ton of guys laying around.

I spent most the night trying to piece a  Di2 rear derailleur back together.  I have a couple Ultegra ones, that are toast, but finally just used JB weld and fixed my Dura Ace one.  I used a couple bolts from the Ultegra parts derailleurs too.

So, it is nearly 2 am and I am still planning on heading out to Vail tomorrow morning as early as I can get moving.  Maybe Trudi will drive some and I can sleep.  Kind of mentally spent from yesterday.  Bill can’t go to altitude with his collapsed lung issue.  Like he feels like it anyway.  Bad luck.

I have a Garmin and pair of Oakley glasses that were given to me after the crash at the finish.  If anyone out there knows who is missing either, just email me at [email protected].