When I got up from my sleep break in Trinidad in the Race Across America last year, things seemed to be going great for me. The last 2 days I had felt good and especially the day before when I rode from Durango to Trinidad. I had felt great and had a lot of fun most of the day. I had moved up to 4th place in the Enduro category. The mountains were behind me and although I was worried about boredom on the plains, I’m a big power rider so flats are good for me.
I was only 90 miles from my home. My parents and in-laws had brought my girls down to see me. It was good to see them and they hung out with me while I got ready to ride. All too soon it was time to continue on.
When I left Trinidad, there was a really strong wind but it was a tailwind so nothing to complain about. Then it became a cross-wind and then a head-wind and then back to a cross-wind. It then stayed a cross-wind hour after hour. I got used to tumbleweeds blowing across the road. I did get concerned though when I saw a couple bushes fly across. The wind was about 40 mph with much stronger gusts. I heard some gusts hit 100 mph. I think those were late in the afternoon when thunderstorms started moving through. At first there were only a few sprinkles with the thunderstorms but a lot of lightning. It was freaky because we kept seeing plumes of smoke from fires started by the lightning and fire trucks headed out to the fields.
Some racers got blown off their bikes. One abandoned from I think an injured shoulder from being blown off his bike. I didn’t get blown off but a couple times I went from a third of the way into my traffic lane to almost off the wrong side of the road.
During the wind, the IT band in my left leg started hurting. I’ve had problems before and it’s when the SI joint in my hip locks up. Sometimes it will pop and start working right again by crossing my leg over my chest and having someone push down on my leg while I try to push up. We kept trying but couldn’t get it to pop. Shanna Armstrong’s crew came by when my wife had me crunched up on the side of the road. A guy from France on her crew had some physical therapy training or something. We couldn’t quite understand what but he offered to try helping. He worked on me for a few minutes. It helped but didn’t get me to where I needed to be.
I kept trying to make as much progress down the road as possible but had to keep stopping and stretching. 11 o’clock at night my crew was able to get a hold of my doctor. They had me as much out of the wind as possible beside a grain elevator as the wind howled and lightning flashed all around. He’s a D.O. and so he tried to help them with the technique for popping my SI joint. They never were able to get it to pop.
Through this section of Kansas, there were several nasty railroad crossings. They crossed at long angles to the road and had rough wood around them. In the darkness it was tough to choose a good spot to cross. On one of them, I lined up so I could cross at 90 degrees. Just as I got to it I got enough light to see that I was ready to go straight into a big hole where the wood had rotted out. I knew I would endo when my front wheel dropped in. I decided to turn back straight with the road which made a bad angle with the tracks. It was worse since the road was wet. It wasn’t raining right then but had been. My front wheel slid on the first track and I went down. I knew there was a good chance I’d crash so I was ready for it. I was quickly back up and not even scraped up. My crew was very concerned and had made it out of the follow van and to me by the time I got up.
I arrived at the Ulysses, KS time station about 2:30 AM local time for a planned 3 hour sleep break. A quick check didn’t turn up anybody with massage or chiropractic experience but my crew was going to see what they could come up with while I slept. I went to sleep a bit concerned but hoped things would work out when I got back up.
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Tags: cycling, RAAM, Race Across America, ultra cycling
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