The Fall of Rome

The underbelly of my ride =(

This is the downtube at the watercage. From my own scene re-creation, I am guessing that my Tacx water cage didn't break soon enough. It was secured to the watercage boss but either the impact or some other rider running over my frame ripped the watercage off which consequently took a lot of carbon with it.

The crash took place on the last lap of the Gila downtown criterium. I was moving up along the ride side about 10th wheel or so. Two riders up ahead ran into each other and went down. I saw it happen then I see the Giant TCR Advanced sliding across the pavement. In my head I was calculating my speed, the speed and direction of the frame and hoping that my collision calculations were incorrect. But nope, I was spot on in my geometric calculations, a skilled that escaped me in 9th grade as I sat bored out of my mind in math class. I can't remember exactly what happened other than the pain of flying over the bars and landing on my head and back. Rudy Project saved my head, cracking on the back side of the helmet. Jersey was torn in two spots with some nice war-like blood stains on my new gloves and undershirt(a result of the puncture in my back). After landing, the first thing I did after praying that no one would run over me was make sure I had feeling and movement in all my limbs. Fortune was on my side as I escaped with only road rash and most likely a slight concussion. I say that b/c I felt nauseated all day on Saturday and into Sunday morning.

The humor in the situation, which is how I need to look at it b/c there was nothing I could do and there is nothing I can do about my poor Wilier was the woman who helped me at the scene. Here I am all beat up, frustrated, and bleeding with my poor broken velo. She is picking up the water cage and the bar end caps. She kept forcing me to take the bar caps and my broken water cage. Her thoughts and intentions were good but look, I just lost my beautiful bike and this woman won't feel rested until she knows that I have my bar end caps regardless of how crappy I look. I finally took them which pleased her. Unfortunately the bar caps weren't mine. So I left with a broken bike and a few bar caps that weren't mine. So glad I got those bar caps b/c my weekend would have been ruined had I not =) lol

chow,
Roberto