cyclintom

The Foxy Fall Century metric was listed as a 60.8 mile ride. However, the actual miles on my bike was 70.65.

Now that would seem to be much of a problem but the buzzards who like to fly low can figure their efforts pretty well to the length of the course and if you tell them it's 60 miles and it's really 70 they burn out at 61 miles.

Which is what happened to me. Well, not TO me but to someone else that did me in.

I was with a group that likes to ride as fast as they can for the distance which turned out to be very often above 20 mph. At first that's fun but it loses its luster pretty rapidly when you start getting close to 50 miles. I could tell that something was up with the guy really pushing the pace because he was starting to look for reasons to stop instead of just slowing down. Finally we approached a RR track in the last 10 miles and just as we arrived the signals turned on and the guy happened to be leading stopped cold.

I could see the train was still a quarter of a mile down the track and the other way was clear so I just continued on. So my group was stopped at what turned out to be a long train while I was riding at 20+ away from them.

Finally I came to the turn that signaled about 3 miles left to ride. I was passing everyone and a guy hopped on my wheel. As we got back on the UC campus there was a car stopped in the left hand lane a little short of the left turn where I needed to go. I slowed a bit and the guy on my wheel went from the left lane over in the the bike lane. I pulled over enough to pass the car and he started moving cutting me off from that lane. As I looked up the guy who passed me was making a left turn from the bike lane in front of both me and the car!

I t-boned him I think. And I was going maybe 17 or more at the time. I must have gone down on TOP of him. I had some real pain in my right side up near my armpit. But other than that I don't even have ROAD RASH! That's the first road fall I've had that didn't have road rash as an integral part.

No damage to my bike except the derailleur hanger was bent slightly out of alignment. Already fixed that.

He was busy making his getaway while I was really hurting in the street. I saw a taco'd wheel on his Colnago Master UltraLight and he was limping pretty good. I don't think he liked the comments I made at 120 dB.

I hope he's OK and didn't damage that beautiful bike. He made a dumb move but all's well that end's well.

The moral of the story is to keep your eyes open and don't do something wrong because you're tired and assuming that the car and therefore the guy next to him are all going to turn left.

I'll have some pain and probably some pithy comments for a couple of days but in the end I'll be out riding on my regular Tuesday ride. Well, I think I will.