Sports and Spinal Bike Clinic at Hains Point

In conjunction with Sports and Spinal PT, Cyclelife racers Sonja Evers and Christina Briseno put on the first of many bike clinics which will be held Wednesdays from noon to 1 PM (excluding next week.) Today we practiced double and single paceline drills and discussed proper group riding etiquette. In two weeks we will practice cornering and bumping (in the grass.) The turnout today was great and we all had a lot of fun! Come and join us next time at Hains Point at noon on the Wednesday, June 8th. 

Tour of Washington County

Worker Chicken with Goat and LJ in tow

Last laps of the TOW crit

 TOW was a great success! Cyclelife powered by Specialized put it down and dominated. Check results here:

http://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?permit=2009-1380

Fat knees and bruised hips

As the events of last weekend slowly fade into memory, two more items to share. The above picture is one. And second, Michelle informed me last night that as I was sitting in the middle of the hot pavement, post-crash, shell-shocked, I made the comment: "I knew I was going to run over either a person or a bike..." It was only after Mitch got home that she realized I chose her.... I blame that decision on my alter-ego.

Mitch's fat-knee is healing up nicely. Fortunately, I did not require any stitches in my fat-hip, but the bruising is still pretty darn awful looking....and feeling.

I ran over my teammate today

So it's a great day when you can get off your bike and walk, knowing tomorrow, you have the ability to get back on and ride. Unbroken, but for your spirit.

Considering the recent wrist fracture our teammate Wendy has had, I cannot complain about a severely bruised hip, a little-bitty road rash on my elbows and waist and an egg on my inner right knee. The advil and Pinot are already helping me along. Unfortunately, Michelle had to make the dreaded hospital visit for some stitches to her knee. I think some of her knee skin is still on my 53 tooth chain-ring.

Church Creek: Women's Open Team Time Trial. All we had to do was finish to win. Even if one of us got a flat, just two had to finish....

15km from the finish, Sonja riding in the front hit the lip (1 inch drop) on the surface of the road and with the skinny tires on a TT bike and less ability to maneuver to stay upright, it was a slide onto her left shoulder as she slammed into the paved road. Michelle, second in line, and an inch from Sonja's wheel, hit the pavement next. She likely would have survived more unscathed, but for me, third in line, on aero bars, an inch behind in her draft. I recall hearing screaming, some carbon scraping, and then watching in slow-motion as I rode over Sonja's new Specialized TT bike (on loan from Chicken, sorry Chicken!) and those nice wheels. It hurt me to ride over those wheels, in the half-second my brain thought about it, before it hurt more to fly my Specialized ass over handlebars onto the black sticky-tar road.

Big thanks to Michelle from All American Bicycle Club (?) who scooped me up from the burning pavement to place me in the grass. More thanks to the local couple driving by in a large pickup truck who picked us all up and put our three bikes and Sonja and me in the back of their truck bed. There was a lot of blood in this truck bed. Not ours. It was deer blood, some guts, and smatterings of deer hair...and a big trash bag of beer bottles, which I grasped onto so it wouldn't fly out into the road as the couple carted the three of us back to the school and our cars.

We tried to think of a cool story.

Yeah, we were out there pacing at 27mph and all of sudden these three deer darted across the road and took us out. Yeah, that's what happened. You think we look rough? You should have seen the deer.

You'll note my chain ring tracks on Michelle's skinsuit. Unfortunately, I left a chain-ring tattoo running from her torso straight down to her knee... (see above picture) ; (

So we don't take ourselves too seriously...

Courtesy of the Washington Post (http://comics.com/affiliate/washington_post/?ComicID=70). Thanks to Maile Neel for sending my way.