first day of the Tour, first road ride crash

first major crash on a road bike today!

7 AM ride out of the shop this morning, with me, Cathy, Brendan, Igor, and some other dude. Cathy and I went out on the 28-mi loop yesterday, and due to being delayed half-way through by the thunderstorms, had to ride hard to get back to the shop before it got too dark, so it was 9 PM by the time we got in last night. still, we went out again this morning, but decided to cut short the usual loop so Cathy, Brendan, and I headed back towards the shop after we reached Madison.

with about a mile left to go, Cathy and I were both drafting Brendan at 18 mph when suddenly out of nowhere I saw Cathy go down right in front of me and had barely enough time to swerve a bit to the right to avoid running her over. I still crashed. Brendan heard the crash and turned around to find Cathy and me both lying in the road on opposite sides of the right lane, our bikes still tangled together in the middle.

luckily, there was no traffic at that moment but soon cars and trucks in both directions was stopping and their drivers getting out to see if we were okay. the police were called, the medics came, an ambulance arrived. all I had was a scrape on the arm (see photo) and a bruised hip (photo forthcoming, once it gets more purple). unfortunately, Cathy went down much harder than I did, and cracked her helmet. x-rays showed later that she had also broken her elbow, but she was too disoriented from the fall to even realize it at the time. as to why she crashed in the first place, we still aren't sure. she can't really remember what happened, and from what i saw examining the scene afterwards, there was nothing on the road that could have caused it.

it all happened so fast. moral of the story: wear your helmet, kids. and be careful.

also: after seeing Stage 1 today, there is no way Lance is not going to win his seventh this year. in non-double-negative form, he is totally gonna win. the way he passed Ullrich today was both amazing and awful. dear lord, the man is fast. hopefully OLN won't be too busy covering his sheer dominance to also devote more airtime to hottie coverage. today was a little weak on that front.