March 24, 2012

Day 4

So I drank too much wine last night. I felt it this morning, and all day. The weather was not optimal, it was spitting when we started, and we never saw sun all day. This is no good for my tan.

 

Josh was with us today, he's a young British guy who works as a pro for Andy though he's only available on the weekends. Tim also joined us today since he found that he could ride without pain. We headed off, going the opposite direction from usual, under the highway, up a local road, under the highway again, then around a couple of roundabouts. BOOM, down went three riders in front of me from the greasy road surface with the light rain on the roundabout. Josh, Colin and Dan went down instantly and I had to find some road around Dan with him sliding across it. I managed to release the inside pedal and tripod around Dan. I stopped, still upright, just before the dirt. That was my one freebie. For the rest of the day we were dealing with roads that were just a little wet and we were nervous. 

We went down a very steep road towards the town of El Torqual, it was a little wet and I was afraid to stay off the brakes because the speeds were getting very high. I saw a sign that said 10% down, I looked at my Garmin and it fluctuated from 14% to 17% down. We managed to come through unscathed, but it was still nervous. A little later Tim had to readjust in the middle of a corner from a Land Rover filling most of the road and he went down and scraped his hip pretty bad.

Richard wasn't feeling great, so he was on and off his bike a few times, climbing into the van on occasion. That helped out Jamie who had a mechanical and couldn't use his bike.

We enjoyed some great rolling curvy roads, though there were some fairly sudden corners. Then it was my turn: On a reducing radius right turn I hit some gravel and my rear wheel came around and I was heading for the guardrail. It seemed to be slow motion, but at the same time I couldn't regain control, though I thought I should have. I dumped the bike and hit the road hard. I quickly checked my hip, and my brand new shorts were not ripped (Yay!). I had a jacket and knee warmers on, so there was some protection but I could tell there were some scrapes in places. Most of the group was behind me and they gathered around me to make sure I was alright. The bike was fine, and I wanted to get moving before I stiffened up. So I got right back on the bike and was at the front of the group until our next stop, about 20 minutes later. The adrenalin was pumping hard. 

 Wayne, Dan, Colin and Tim.

 Tim had his covered in the last shot! So he wanted a do over.

When we got back I got right in the shower, and thankfully found that there was no major damage. My hip wasn't scraped, my right forearm was a little torn up but not bleeding and I had a couple of scrapes on my knee but also no bleeding.