Friday, May 7, 2010

Joe Martin Stage 2: Down and Out

Got up this morning and had my breakfast, legs were feeling amazing, and I was ready to roll. Race didn't start til 12:30, so all of us just hung out this morning, had some good coffee and TV. Have been working on my senior paper presentation in free time.

Got down to Fayetteville and a Wal-Mart parking lot at around 11:30, numbers were already pinned up and bikes ready to go so we hung out and waited to roll out. Started at 12:30 with a group of 100 guys. Winds were out of NW at around 14mph, so it was gonna be a quick first 50 miles. Stayed towards the front of the rolling enclosure (Local Police/Sherriff keep whole road open for us). Now the SHIT HITS THE FAN....

About 25 miles into the race, after a fast downhill on flat roads, two guys touch handlebars and the domino effect starts. About 25 guys went down along with myself and Lou. When I got up, my rear wheel was not functioning and I had to get a spare. By the time this happened, I was chasing with one other guy, we picked up Lou up the road and another couple guys. After about 1 hour of chasing, we made it back to the peloton....Good? So I thought. After a few miles we hit this steep pitch of road where the feed zone was. This hill was a little to difficult to run a feed zone on if you ask me, guys are lunging and trying to get over the hill with the group and try to get fluids/food at the same time. I found myself gapped a little bit and got in a group to get back, but when I tried to organize a chase, the guys wouldn't help. We lost sight of the peloton, and after about 5 more miles....a motoref comes and tells us we went the wrong way? I never saw corner marshals anywhere. When we backtracked, these corner marshals suddenly appeared out of no-where to point us in the right direction. Nice job nutjobs....hicks...failures.

After this I was just so pissed, that our group called it quits. We had 50 miles to ride, not having reached the headwind sections and 10 mile climb of Mt. Gaylor yet. No chance to make the time cut, so my first Joe Martin experience was cut way short. My legs are good right now, and I wish bad luck wouldn't always happen to me.....always seems to.

Lou and I rode with the lead wheel truck to the finish. To make matters worse, I couldn't find my rear wheel in the truck and still can't so I have no idea where it is.... It mustn't have been too bad after the crash and someone else must have it on their bike as a spare as well...Hope we get it back. It is actually Jeff Bradleys nice carbon tubular...

So overall, one of the those days I need to forget, but can't, and was one of the worst I have experienced on a bike in terms of depressing and bad luck. I have a bruised ego and to make matters worse.... a jammed left thumb and a bruised sternum.....

Tomorrow, Lou and I are gonna head out when the peloton rolls, and hit up 3 hours or so of riding and a coffee shop or two.

Sorry for the painful post, hopefully my season can get better....

4 comments:

Paula said...

Bummer! Keep your chin up. There are better races ahead. These life experiences are character building. Hard to swallow now, I know, but tomorrow is another day and there will be another time. Take care and try to make the best of the rest of your trip. Paula

Anonymous said...

"Nice job nutjobs....hicks...failures."

You need to grow up. Volunteers make these races and are human. Without them, there would be no race for you to to wax your ego in.

Carson said...

Yep I wax my ego all the time....so high on myself. Grow a pair and tell everyone who this is. Everyone who knows me well knows I am far from egotistical. Thanks.

Carson said...

And yea it was my fault for the critisism but I guess you never have before...so yes I'm terrible