These Guys are Tough

found these pics of the 17/18 RR at Nationals... check out this one and the several following it in the series. Thank God nobody was hurt more seriously...

AWfoSho Update

Thanks to all of you that fought your way through the spotty cell phone coverage to check up on AWfoSho... He's getting pretty familiar with those backboards and ambulances. Fortunately, after several hours in the hospital, multiple x-rays, etc, he was diagnosed with severe shoulder trauma... minimal separation, no apparent fractures. He says it feels just like when he broke his clavicle a few years back. Currently he's all drugged up on painkillers so physically he's not feeling too bad, but emotionally he's a wreck... no crit for him tomorrow and he'd really been working hard for that one. The kidlet is a tough one... on the way home from the hospital he asked, "If it isn't broken, then I can't hurt it. Can I race tomorrow?"

From the boy's mouth in more or less his words... I was up front over the climb to stay out of trouble on the descent, but TK was in the back, so I started drifting back to move him up to where it is safe. About 20 wheels in front of me riders started going down in a bikes and bodies cartwheel. the cartwheel kept getting bigger. Guys were riding up the embankment and going over the guardrail. I tried to get through a hole in the middle, but a bike shot out right in front of me. I tried to bunny hop it but didn't make it and went over the bars. Then I just curled up in a ball and thought, "here it comes." At least one guy ran over me, and Heath Medeiros ended up on top of me...

When I got to him, AWfoSho broke down in tears, not from the pain, but because he knew he wouldn't be able to ride the crit... kinda one of those "I need a hug moments." It'll be tough on him to watch his teammates ride tomorrow.

Soccer Moms

Today I was accused of being a soccer mom... maybe I deserve it. See, I was loading up the minivan with 6 boys, and something like $300 worth of groceries from Giant Eagle (Giant Eagle is PA's answer to Safeway... cept' they don't have no Mike Hernandez racing for them).

So I've spent the last two days feeding four u-23 racers and and 5 junior kidlets. And, I'm not talking about handing up bottles in a feed zone whilst I flirt with the local hotties, although I did hand up bottles to the u-23 guys during their RR today. We even got to play our own small part in Max Jenkin's RR win, handing him a bottle as his fledgling break formed. I'm talking about huge quantities of pasta and sauce, whole loaves of bread, watermelons, two dozens of eggs, etc, etc, etc. In all honesty, $300 worth of groceries disappeared really fast.

Then after feeding them, there are dishes and laundry and waterbottles and... and when that is finished, TK is shouting at me, and I quote, "Hey Steve! My shim is being a (well, he referred to a female dog)" For those of you not in the know, that means he needs help adjusting the saddle on his tt bike. Then Garden's aerobars are slipping and El Gigante's disk "feels like the brakes are rubbing." And AWfoSho's "cassette is making a funny noise." And Sean's crankset is rubbing on his frame. And Chris's crank is hitting his powertap sensor. And Davitamon's wheel stops are lock-tited into place. And TK left his aerohelmet at home. And everybody's shoes need to be stuffed with newspaper because they rode in the rain.

Then, it is time for dinner again. Or at least time to start backing the dump truck full of pasta up to the hot tub so as to get dinner started...

So, I guess I could be confused with a soccer mom, but then again, a real soccer mom wouldn't be rudely awakened from his nap in the back of a rented minivan so some kid from some far away state can borrow a pump because his soccer mom forgot his pump when she drove him out to pre-ride the race course...

TT's are tomorrow. Can't wait for the racing to start... maybe then these kidlets won't have enough energy to see who can eat seven saltine crackers in 1 minute, thumb wrestle over who has to take the trash out, or accuse their shim's of being female dogs.