andy reagan only the interesting stuff

William and Mary races, big crash

Saturday's time trial was uneventful, I crushed it about as hard as I thought I could, dropping over two minutes off last years time with the same wheels and no aerobars. Although I did have an aero helmet, and the foam pads on my bars were awesome. Ben Warren started 1min behind me, and did catch me, but I kept in my sights the whole time.

Ben Warren's very own B+ field started 1min behind me, he was too afraid to make it two!

I finished 12th or 13th, can't remember exactly, but it wasn't really where I wanted to be with the effort that I put in...but I think that changing up my position would have helped tremendously (lowering seat, titling forward, moving forward to accommodate for more stretched position in psuedo-aerobars).

Sunday

I should first mention that the directions were wrong, but with Lauren's GPS and her driving skills we were still able to get there in plenty of time for my race.

It was again warm enough for just the jersey and shorts, which was awesome, and despite starting in the way back, after an aggressive sprint out (may or may not have been across the yellow haha) and some aggresive cornering, I was right where I wanted to be.  I sat in for awhile, we were doing three laps.  Here's a look at the course:

A pretty flat, very scenic course

It was pretty funny during the first lap, a guy from some team that had three riders went off the front early, and of course nobody really bothered chasing with so long left, until his teammates sprinted to the front and both pulled hard to bring him back!! What do these people think?!?! Haha...chasing down their own teammates.  Actually I just remember now, I heard one navy guy lecturing another to not chase down any navy attachers haha.

Brandon from VCU is pretty cool, and he has a strong guy on his team Sam that he thought I should try to work together with.  We decided that Sam and I should attack the second time we come over the start/finish hill, so about three of four miles from that hill, Sam and I got on the front.  We pulled all the way to the hill, not too hard, and went up the first and steepest part of the hill fast but not attacking yet.  Then we kept the pace up on the flatter section of the hill, and hit it hard up the last part.  I was on the left, and it was pretty sweet to be out front attacking going by the crowd! A pretty sweet picture of Sam and I hitting it out in front of the field is below:

Sam and I attacking hard!

The attack didn't stick, we never really got away, although I do think we strung the field out.  There were some other strong guys with us up front, and we all decided to attack again out of the next corner while people were still tired.  So we all went, there were maybe like 5 or 6 of us in on it, but somehow the remainders of the field stuck on.  So we were in a group of 30ish, and it was going to be a field sprint I took it.  We rode out the rest of that lap, and I got in the second row of riders once the whole road opened up and we were at the bottom of the hill.

I felt fresh, and took off up the hill on the left.  I was going hard up the steep part, when the guy in front of me went down...and I went right over him.  From my wounds, I've figured out  that I took the hit with my left knee and right handlebar, rolling onto my right knee, shoulder, and elbow.  I was the second to go down, and landed facing the oncoming riders, and it all went by so fast but I'm pretty sure I got hit by like 5 other riders.

Bloody and hurting, I got up and started pushing the bike, but it wouldn't roll.  So I picked it up and put it on my shoulder only  to realize I had no skin on that shoulder.  I carried the bike further, only to notice the smashed handlebars and was so pissed that I crashed, with Lauren and her dad there, when I had such a good chance to finish well and felt so strong, that I just threw the bike on the side of the road and walked up.

I bet it was quite a sight to see me walking up the road, with blood pouring out of every joint.  When I got the bike back, the most amazing part, besides the handlebars, is the amount of blood on the bike.  Here a pic of what it looked like:

OUCH!

Poor bike...anyway yeah I slowly got medical attention as the pain began to set in, my left knee was pretty deep.  Most painful of all, because of all of the nerve receptors in our hands, was my finger on which I had lost most of the skin right on the tip.

The good news is  that all of injuries are "just flesh wounds" (I'm thinking Monty Python quote here) and no bones were broken and my head didn't hit the ground.  In retrospect, I'm also really glad that my handlebar crushed the way it did, as I think that it absorbed most of the energy of the impact allowing my frame and fork to remain intact.  The shifters, aside from their covers, also appear to be fine, which I'm attributing to them being noticably loose before the race which allowed them to move before being demolished.  Even the one on the trashed handlebar side is fine.

I made it back to Tech just fine, and David had left the light on, door unlocked, and had a much awaited bed ready for me when I got to his townhouse.  Minus the crash, would've been a near perfect weekend, but all in all it's OK, I should be healed up by the time school starts again!  The bad part is that I was planning on getting in some good  training in the upcoming beautiful weather, but looks like I'll have to just chill for the week.