Saturday, June 16, 2007

Crash and Roadburn

Today was the Ride and Stride to support our local American Red Cross. My wife and son decided to do the three mile stride while I did the 35 mile route of the ride. We've done this the past two years as well. The last two years my parents have joined us for the fun but this year they had a wedding to attend so they were unable to come down for the ride.

Temperatures have been rather HOT here in central Illinois this week and the forecast high for today was 95. Hydration was definitely the word of the day.

The first surprise of the day came when I picked up my map and realized we weren't going north to Towanda as we had the last two years but were instead heading SW towards some of the same area I rode in last weekend's 61 mile ride.

Since this is Illinois I was not surprised to find the wind blowing as we began the ride. Of course it was at our back the beginning of the ride which had me thinking about the ride back into the wind. GREAT! But it was nice while it lasted as the wind pushed me along and I was able to cruise at 20-22 mph while the route continued East.

It was short lived as we soon turned South which meant riding with a fairly decent cross-wind. The route actually had some fun little hills which was a welcome change from the relatively pancake flat route of the past two years. I even managed to break 30 mph which may have been a first since moving to IL.

The first rest stop was at the 17 mile mark. Gatorade, bananas, and PB and J. Not the best of rest stop fare but it hit the spot. I didn't stay long and was soon back on the road now headed back to the west. About 5 miles into the next leg things got interesting. I was cruising at about 15 mph. Our next turn was a left turn off of the country road we were on onto another smaller country road.

I didn't scrub a whole lot of speed and instead leaned into the turn pretty good. Unfortunately there was a large amount of gravel built up right where these two roads come together. The result was one of the better cases of road rash I've had in awhile as illustrated by the following pictures.








Luckily it all happened too fast for it to really hurt. One minute I was up enjoying the ride, the next I was laying on the ground hoping nothing was broken. Lucky for me damage to both myself and the bike was minimal. I got away with some road rash and a pretty good bruise/ swelling on my left side and the bike was fine with the exception of some of the bar tape getting torn up pretty good.

At the next rest area I was able to get cleaned up and apply some first aid ointment and was good to go.

After that the rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. My average fell off some thanks to the wind I got to ride into for most of the rest of the way but still managed to maintain a 15.4 mph moving average for the ride.

At the finish line I met back up with Heather and Joshua. Joshua was playing in the splash pad area they have at Tipton Park where the ride starts and ends. Heather informed me that Joshua had tricycled the entire three miles of the walk save for a short section that he walked. Looks like my dreams of him being a professional cyclist will live to see another day!

The post ride lunch, as always, was excellent. Pork chop sandwiches along with a ton of sides to choose from.

Now time to get ready for the metric century at Pedaling for Kicks July 7th. Can't wait!

Ride On!

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