Livin' man... Just Livin.': Pace Bend RR: Sunday, Bloody Sunday.

This was a race to remember always. For starters, I'd like to say this: Trek Bicycles stands behind their product 100%. Sure I ride Trek and I have for a while, but Trek really helped me out and got back on the road in virtually no time. Thanks.

Back to the race. I did this race last year and the course is very rolling. Think KU campus hills for 6 miles, and 13 laps of it. But it's so rolling that the hills are fast! 40 down and 26 up! Woo Hoo! I'm really good at coasting downhill 25 guys deep in a 130 man field. The players were everyone from Saturday's Walburg race, and a few more guys all in teams. Orven was again the team to beat as they only had 13 good riders on their team. Blah! C'mon, at least make it fair. Actually, they weren't too organized. The speed was really too fast for anything to get organized.....

Basically the race was pretty simple to read. With only a few big (numbers) teams there and everyone on the hunt for break aways because Saturday one worked nothing was going to work unless the mix was right. Oh, and everyone was watching the Orven riders. Everyone! One move got away and that ended up being myself, three other riders and FIVE Orven riders. Five. Can you believe that? Crazy. They were trying to get us to work and drive the break. Why would I want that? In reality, they should have all gone to the front and driven the break whether or not the rest of us pulled. Then gotten the break so far ahead that the peloton was never going to catch..... THEN started attacking. But alas, that was not how it worked. We started arguing over who was not going to be taking a turn (I was one of the "nope" riders) and started not pedaling. So everyone caught us and we were back to square one. In the end, it was a field sprint, which is where my troubles begin.

So... there was just riding along (JRA) when all of a sudden, the guy in front of me decides to crash his bike in the middle of the sprint finish! BAM! I'm on the ground and it HURT!

The damage: One shredded team kit of clothing, One broken frame, one fractured olecranon (elbow), 8"x8" of skin lost if you add it all together, multiple lacerations, three massive hematomas (hip, calf, elbow), two stitches installed by Steve Tilford in my hip, 4 stitches installed in my elbow by Annalyese- a super cute med student, one refused dose of morphine in the ER (while getting the stitches), and one fractured rib. I guess it could have been better, but it definitely could have been worse.

Also, Cathy Walburg crashed too. She's okay, just has a Texas sized hematoma on her thigh, and some road rash. I'm not really sure why there were so many crashes... nearly every lap we raced there were people lying on the ground. Barry, the promoter, is the only one who knows why each crash happened, so he should be able to figure it out. I didn't think that the course was unsafe at all, except for the finish/ feed zone where there were way too many cars and people walking around on the road. I know that the entire Women 4 field was on the ground sometime during the race. That's right, Sunday, Bloody Sunday.

The left leg: