What should have been a total non-event, hopping a curb onto the grass at a park, resulted in me hitting the curb, flipping over the handlr bars, and landing on my shoulder.
The images shows the outer-most part of the collar bone (i.e. clavicle), a floating bone fragment trying to push through my skin, and then the other half of my collar bone. Hasn't actually hurt so much this time around. The worst has been the agonizing hour or so at the hospital, deciding whether to go with surgery (a plate and screws), and the second-guessing since then. I went with the (two) surgeon's advice and did not request surgery. Maybe next time...haha?
Riding home at dusk, it was getting hard to talk to my buddy because my lips were going numb.
I had a waterbottle in the back pocket of my jersey because I'd removed my bike's bottle cages.
Once I got home, I briefly contemplated cleaning my filthy bike, but decided getting in the shower before I started shivering was a far more attractive option.
Gran Fondo Whistler is a 120km ride/race from Vancouver to Whistler, with a total of 2400m of ascent - yeeha!
I left after work on Thursday with team mate Charles, and we gunned it all the way to Kamloops, where we stopped in a random, dodgy, highway-side hotel. Next morning, we had the beats cranked as we made our way through at least 19 bouts of rain and fog...no wonder it's so green!..and got to Van by noon.
Once in town, we hit up a great bakery, Uprising Breads, and we met up with buddy Sean, who is now well and truly the high-rolling lawyer type, complete with massive, 300 sq ft, downtown Van condo. Did a short ride out to Kits' Beach and the UBC campus. That evening we walked to registration, and saw the beginnings of usual Friday night mayhem on Robson & Granville streets.
Ok, it's Saturday morning we're up insanely early, and riding the city streets, silently joined by other cyclists, converging on the start. Wild atmosphere...as the sun came up, 4000+ people have ammassed for an early rendition of the national anthem. A blast of the air-horn and the 150 Giro riders (the Gran Fondo's race group) clip in and accelerate toward Stanley Park and the Lion's Gate Bridge. It's pretty sketchy riding...the course is set up for a fun ride, so typical race course logic, like avoiding the use of pylons, was out the window. There is a strong cat 1/2/3 field in the hunt for a share of the $12,000 prize money, so pack-ninja skills are paramount. Right after the bridge, all 150 of us fill the sweeping exit ramp and try to maintain a good line to avoid crashes, all at around 50km/h - everyone's trying to look a few riders ahead to be aware, when suddenly there's a police motorcycle parked on the side! The pack is gutter to gutter, so no chance of swerving - luckily I was in the middle of the pack, and sailed past it unharmed, but I heard tyres lock up, followed by a thuds and crunches of bodies and bikes hitting a large stationary object. Ouch. Charles said he was one of them, but after sliding in sideways and a quick hip-check to the motorbike, he bounced back to straight and kept going!! Others were not so fortunate.
Next is a right turn onto Taylor Way and a hammer up the hill. Another crash, but this time low speed. Then we are on the highway. I understand the view is quite nice, but to maintain position in the pack, avoid unaligned pylons, and wheels of riders doing the same, and keep up the pace, I honestly could be riding in a tunnel. The pace is good through the rolling terrain, until we hit Furry Creek: go time! The pro boys are leading the charge up the hill, others that were at the front are going backwards; it's the general panic of selection #1. I can't quite hang with the leaders, but cresting the hill, I'm quickly joined by a dozen or so motivated dudes, and we quickly start a rolling paceline. A few kilometres of hard work and we catch the leaders as we come into Squamish, the half-way point, and we're joined by another large chase group soon after. Not long to recover: another major hill and hammer time!
Time to hurt...this time I feel better, but I can't sit on a wheel...gaps are opening ahead. I work my way forward, but I can see a major gap ahead. The yellow jersey of Gord Jewett pulls past me and he bridges. C'mon, I tell myself! Embrace the pain! I'm behind just one wheel, but I see a gap open ahead, and can't summon the energy for the sprint to make the gap. As we came up on the plateau, the 15 leaders are already ramping their speed and losing us. A group of about 10 assembles with me...paceline time! No, the group is spent. The leaders are still just a up the road. Ian Auld of Top Gear launches an attack to bridge. I also hit it, catch up, and we do some motivation-assisting two-man pacing up the hill, hurting like hell. But we aren't making ground on the leaders, and the group behind us eventually starts gaining, so we shut 'er down and assimilate back into the chase group.
There are motorbikes coming by, giving us the splits for the leaders and chase groups - cool! But we're down by 4 mintues now. I try a couple of times to get a good paceline going, but any time I raise the tempo, I'm off the front, and the four or so Trek Red Truck riders are pulling, content to let me dangle but not put time into them, so I eventually settle in with the group.
10km to go: a young lad from Picci attacks, joined by a Trek Red Truck rider. They get about 100 metres out, and another TRT rider attacks, joined by a 4th. I'm boxed in on the gutter. From then on, we know that this is the race. 5km to go...attacks are going, but no one can bridge to the breakaway. It is keeping our pace very high though, and we catch the break.
1km to go: The Welcome to Whistler sign suddenly appears. Nearly done! With so many TRT riders, one of them must be saving themselves. Plus there's probably fresh legs amongst the slackers in the group. There's a right and left turn just before the finish, so I attack. I hit the corner at speed and get a small break...but I'm hurting and there's a short downhill right after, so the group gets in my draft. We're strung out. There are hundreds of spectators, and I'm shocked at how loud the cheering crowd is. I lead around the last corner. But the finish is still quite a ways...I'm blowing up as the group swarms with 100 to go...I roll through in 24th.
How to do a lead out for the competition, by Lachlan. Starting 40seconds in.
What a fun race! Chatting with riders later, I hear Tyler Trace of TRT took our field sprint for 15th, and Andrew Pinfold of US pro team United Healthcare took the overall.
Sean came up that arvo and we stayed to party in Whistler Sat night, then knocked off the drive back to Calgary in one shot on Sunday.
I've been hearing great things about the Bow 80, an 80km MTB race that links up a bunch of awesome Kananaskis trails, so I was pumped to join Stappie, Bunnin, McNeil, Baylee, Bakke and a couple of other hard men for a pre-ride this past weekend.
We left via Station Flats, and everything was going great for about the first 45 minutes, which is when I did a bit of a superman down some rock-strewn single-track. My left side took a bit a beating, but I was able to keep going. No problem...only 6 and a bit hours to go.
I managed to pull myself together for Powderface, but after a bit of gravel, got introduced to real MTB climbing...instead of the usual 100-metre steep spin-up, it was an hour of so of pretty consistent switching-backing as we worked up Jumping Pound Ridge and Cox Hill. I blew to bits.
I eventually caught up to Bakke in time for the thunder, lightening, rain, and reaching the exposed mountain top. Nothing like a few 3-million-volt bolts of lightening to keep you from dilly-dallying. We made it to the descent without incident, and Bakke then got to put on a bit of descending school - when he was in sight, that is. But he waited at regular intervals, while I bumped, crashed and careened down the hill side in typical fashion. No other major injuries, but every little fall involved another body-shot, charlie horse, or corked calf, which was taking its toll!
Note the interesting seat angle...thanks to a ditch seen a little late
Eventually we reach the bottom, at Dawson Creek, and had only 30 or so km of foot-deep mud to negotiate until we got on the Tom Snow double-track to get back to the car park. The others looked fresh and clean, I guess they'd had half an hour to kill while they'd waited. Took almost 7 hours on the nose.
Props to Bakke for the well-timed pants change
As a little post-script, I continued the fine tradition of education-by-injury: turns out the canteloupe-sized rock I took to the kidney did a number on my obliques and/or psoas, which is worst when I try to sit up in bed...like I needed another reason to stay lying down!
