When things go bump

I cycle therefore I fall.......a lot. 

Some people believe that I'm just a klutz (which I am, lol) and can't handle a bicycle but it's more a case of I train with mostly guys and thus tend to push kinda hard sometimes.  Thursday's fall wasn't quite that though. I'd gone out on a training ride to Griffithville with James and a couple of others and we ended up getting caught in a thunderstorm that was preceded by some fairly strong winds.  James & I were almost back to the shop incident free when the bike went out from under me in the middle of a turn.  Wasn't going particularly fast (12-15 mph) and wasn't on the brakes, just hit a patch of oil that hadn't been washed completely away by the rain.  Rain + oil + skinny tires = very, very, very slick :-(.  No time to unclip just felt the rear wheel slide out from under me and down I went on my left side & uttering a very loud "FUCK".  Quite an interesting sensation feeling my helmet-encased head bounce off the pavement.  Yeah, that would have busted the melon wide open.  Anyways got myself unclipped, got up to make sure there were no busted bones then rode on to the shop where we got my hoods back into place and made sure the brakes weren't hanging up on the rims.

This left me with road rash on my left leg and shoulder, big bump on my outer thigh, plus some bruising on my arm (can't see it because of the ink though) and face.  Oh and very, very, very sore.  Difficult lifting my arm up past shoulder height and couldn't sleep on my left side......It didn't crack my helmet but left a nice size dent.  Brand new helmet too, grrrr.

Anyways, good thing there was no permanent damage because I'd signed up for & even did some fundraising for the CARTI Tour de Rock, 62 mile option.  No way I wanted to miss that after the generosity of my friends in donating money!!! Thanks to them I met my $250 goal :-))))

Saturday..........it was hot at 5 am and there were heat advisory warnings so between the wipeout and that I knew there was no way it was gonna be fast for me.  My only goal was to FINISH the 62 miles this year.  Thankfully I found that once I started cycling the hip and shoulder didn't bother me too much but my neck was getting godawful sore, ugh......

Despite the wind my group was able to keep a fairly decent clip thanks to a couple of the guys pulling us along at 20-24 mph for much of the ride.  Oh yeah, that wind was hellacious. I took my turn at the front a couple of times and each time was getting knocked sideways as well as being pushed back by it.  Sometimes it doesn't pay to not weigh very much and have a lightish road bike.  It was during one of the sections that we were doing over 20 mph when the guy behind me said hey, I think you've got a flat.......yep, I was cruising along in the line at that speed with a flat tire thanks to being able to draft. 

Ended up having a small piece of wire in the tire that punctured the tube but thanks to the Searcy pit crew and a few missteps with the co2 cartridges they got it changed very quickly.  Still it caused us to lose a lot of momentum.  I wasn't the only one with a flat yesterday though.....there were flats & blowouts everywhere!  One of my friends ended up blowing out after our last rest stop.  Oh and water bottles were all over the roads.....combo of potholes and people missing their cages while drinking on the roll. 

James had opted for the 50 mile route and he caught up & passed me while we were changing out the guy's tube that had blown out so I pushed hard to catch back up & rode the last 10 miles in with him.  A couple we're friends with caught up with us during that time & we got to visit with them for a while too which was quite nice :-)))). 

Hopefully my finish line photos turn out good. I finally learned how to pedal without holding onto the bars last month and I went through with my arms upraised even though it was killing my left shoulder. Been wanting to show that off, LOL!!!

Huge thank you to CARTI for having this event, all the volunteers, & the sponsors.  Everybody was very enthusiastic and whenever I'd say thank you to somebody they'd reply with "No, THANK YOU for riding today".  Awesome, awesome event and the goody bags were fantastic.  When going through mine afterwards I literally squealed when I found that my favorite mascara was part of the swag this year.  There were even Arkansas Travelers tickets for that night--that would be my only grumble is that the tickets were only good for that one game. No way was I gonna be able to stay awake to drive back down for a 7pm start time.  As a matter of fact, I fell asleep during the movie we were watching and was in bed by 10 minutes 'til 9 last night.