Road Race Day

I'm running a day behind on keeping you posted. Sorry about that - I'm having a horrible time getting files uploaded. Enough of that....on to racing.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was the Road Race. I am not particularly fond of road races because you basically see them start and see them finish. You have no idea how they're doing except when you're at Nationals and someone on the course calls you. I'll get to that in a minute.

The day was brisk and we were all full of anticipation. James felt great and was confident, but slightly nervous. As he signed in, I kept thinking about what the finish would be like. He knew the competition and he knew he could compete.

Well, this is how his race ended. Even if you haven't been to many races, you know that there's a finish line and usually the rider is trying to go fast. You guessed it. This wasn't a typical finish. As a matter of fact, it was the first race James didn't finish.

I called Keith well past when I thought he would call to let me know how it was going out on the course. He said he hadn't seen him come by. (Later we realized he had, but there was a lot going on out there.) He soon called back to say he had flatted. A few minutes later another parent told me he had gone down. Soon I was hearing all kind of stories. Very, very tough on a mom who was trying to hold back tears.

We got the real story when he came back. The course was a lollipop, i.e., a "stick" and then 3 loops and then back down the stick. Before he had even gotten to the loop, someone at the very front went down. I won't get into too many details, but at this age there are good bike handlers and not so good bike handlers. The not so good variety are very dangerous and you want to stay away from them. James successfully avoided the crash, but the guy behind him couldn't avoid him. He rammed right into James's deraillieur. (I'm probably not spelling that right, but it is the piece that is part of the gear mechanism....kind of important piece of equipement. He got back on his back an completed a circuit when Coach Kelli to stop and save energy for the next day.

When he got and we were able to examine the damage, we saw how mangled it was. Someone there were handlebars from someone's bike stuck in his bike for a while. Neutral support tried to help. There was just no helping the equipment (or mechnical in bike speak). After most of a day in the bike shop, it was fixed enough that he was able to race on Wednesday in the crit.

Sorry, you'll have to come back tomorrow if you're not a Facebook friend or a Twitter follower. It will be worth the visit.

To put in a plug for Christopher....he has been a total trooper. I am not sure if there is much of anything he likes less than going to a bike race. His daddy has been really good to take him to parks, etc to play and explore while I've tried to keep James in water bottles and clean clothes. Hopefully, he'll enjoy the rest of the vacation.