It’s Fun Going Down At 33mph: Carl Zach Cycling Classic Criterium....

I don’t know why but the Carl Zach Crit is an evil race. My day kinda ended quickly. The race started out extremely fast. I was holding on pretty well. Then 5 laps into it a couple guys go down...hard enough that the race had to be neutralized and stopped. So after going balls out for about 12 minutes we had to stop, sit and cool down for about 10 minutes. We got started back up and it was as fast as before. Then 5 laps later the worst case scenario for me.....

We were going up the left side of the finishing straight going about 33mph. We were getting scary close to the barriers. All of a sudden, one guy about 4 wheels up from me gets pinched off into the barriers. His bike breaks in half on the spot. His impact pulls the barriers out on to the course. Yeah, I didn’t even have time to hit my breaks. I went straight into the chaos. I slammed into a person? A barrier? Who knows...but the next thing I know I’m superman for about 2 seconds and then bounce on the ground...about 5 times. I stop 25 feet farther from where the crash actually hit. A lot of guys behind the 5 of us that went down couldn’t handle it and evacuated the race immediately because they were scared to race anymore. I just laid on the ground. My right shoulder kind of hurt and my right leg. Looks like I tore up mostly my right side. The medics helped me last. Ok, I was probably the least hurt anyways. They checked me out and asked if I wanted to get bandaged up or get back into the race. “I want back in the race!” I could quite use my bike though...didn’t know what was wrong with it and Dallas took it back to the car. Later on I found out that the front wheel was totaled and that was it. So the again neutralized field got all lined up again and I went over to neutral support to get a neutral bike. I got back into the race and made it to about 20 more laps before getting pulled. Its hard getting a bike too big for you and pain starting to set in. At least I got back into the race. More than the others can say from that crash. Many people were very surprised to see me back on the bike after a crash like that. People on the other side of the course said it sounded like a really bad car crash. I could definitely believe that, because that’s what it pretty much was...just on bikes. So I got pulled.

I went over got some sweet bandages put on (the fish-netting) and talked to some friends and strangers asking about the crash. I met Nick Reistad’s girlfriend’s Dad at one point. He saw the crash and said it look horrific. If I’m going to be in a crash it better be worth it. So we were talking and a woman interrupts us from behind. “Sorry that you had to crash. I saw you on the ground and thought your race was done. But thanks for the entertainment!” She then hands me a 20$ bill. Sweet! I guess I should crash more....well hopefully not. Lots of people talked to me...some of the officials, Eddy Van Guese (however you spell it), and just fans. It was pretty exciting, though, I can tell you.

So later that night the pain and the stiffness really set in as Dallas and I drove down to Evanston’s Crit the next day. My shoulder could not be moved much and when I got out of the car when we got there I fell back in. I could barely walk on my right leg. It hurt so bad. Damn...will I race tomorrow???

We’ll have to see....

Ciao ciao....
Waitey