Maybe one day...

...when this city/country finally gets its head out of its ass, things will change.  Maybe.

Hmm...all we need is an oil crisis, a protest, and the will to change.  Oh, and the realization that human life is more important than the automobile.  Sadly, we have a long way to go as it seems we are headed in the complete opposite direction.

Rebuilding

This past Friday marks the start of the road back to the bike with my first "ride" since I was hit.  I was cleared by the doctor to start spinning as my ankle allows so I attempted my first "workout" on a spin bike.  After an easy and lengthy warm up, I added a little resistance to see how things felt.  I made it 15 minutes before I started having pain in the front of my ankle, forcing me to back the resistance down.  Despite only being able to ride 45 minutes, it was nice to be doing something again...moving forward so to speak.  Unfortunately the spin bike wasn't completely comfortable due to my other injury, my left collar bone/sternum.  I was forced to support myself mostly with my right arm or ride sitting up.  I'm a long way from being back and I can't even imagine riding a real bike until my collar bone/sternum are in better shape.  I can imagine the pain the first time I hit a bump.  Two more weeks of physical therapy before the doctor decides to move into more aggressive treatment.  I'd be ecstatic to not need any additional treatment however progress seems to have stopped with the collar bone/sternum.  At least the ankle seems to be healing so I have the spin bike to keep me entertained in the meantime.  I guess the up side is that I'm on the Vince Clune training timeline now.  I should be ripping by August/September haha!

Why Tour of the Battenkill is so awesome...

For two years now I have repeatedly blogged about riding in the Battenkill valley, racing the Tour of the Battenkill, and Cambridge NY in general.  Unfortunately it probably isn't something you can put into words, you really have to experience the roads first hand.  Having ridden a fair amount in Europe and the eastern US, the Battenkill valley is one of my most favorite places to ride, and the Tour of the Battenkill is definitely my favorite race by a long shot.  After a strong finish last year, I had high hopes for this years race.  The new course was good with a punishing final 18 miles and I was closing in on my best form in quite some time.  Unfortunately it wasn't to be, the universe had other plans for me.  None the less, my wife and I still headed up to Cambridge for the weekend to support my teammates, much better than sitting on the couch being depressed.  For me, it was a very tiring weekend physically.  Although I am making significant progress healing up, I am still nursing injuries and this was the first real venture out of any significance. 

The amateur races were held on Saturday and our boys did the team proud.  Ben won the cat 4 race and Jimmy finished 5th in the cat 3 field.  I knew Jimmy was going to be strong when we reconned the new course a few weeks earlier and he was climbing really strong when we hit the last kick in the groin, aka Stage Rd.

FGX Racing Cat 4 Tour of the Battenkill crew (Ben holding the winner's chocolate milk)

Sunday brought the UCI 1.2 Tour of the Battenkill professional race.  Since I know the roads rather well from all my trips up to Cambridge, we hopped in the Jeep and headed out on the course for a better view.  Wow were we in for a treat.  Upstate had not had rain for two weeks and this was the driest I have ever seen the course which meant one thing...dust, and lots of it!  Our first stop was at the top of the first Meeting House Rd. climb some 45ish miles into the race.  What a sight, that's all I can say.  It was good to see the pros working just as hard as us wannabes.  The race and its caravan was impressive, very cool to see a professional race on the same roads I ride and race.  Our second stop was on the opposite side of the course, a serious kicker of a climb (somewhere around 20%...on dirt!) known as Juniper Swamp.  No racer refers to it as "Juniper Swamp Rd." but rather simply Juniper Swamp, the infamous climb that has been walked up in races similarly to the Koppenberg in the Tour of Flanders.  We just barely beat the peleton there and hung out as the long dropped riders came through.  Once the race was through, I decided to drive Juniper Swamp to head back to Cambridge for the finish. Two dropped pro riders were struggling up the base of the climb as we were heading up and when they moved over I pulled along side and put both front windows down and offered a ride.  It was funny to see their white teeth shining through their dirt covered smiling faces as they latched on, one on each side.  We talked on the way up and unfortunately they both had bad luck some 20 miles back.  They were likely cutting the course back into town since there was no way they were finishing, they didn't want to make their teams wait.  When we reached the top, they thanked me over and over and I wished them well.  Unfortunately I didn't think to offer them a ride back to town until we were well on our way.  I was more focused on getting them safely up the climb.  Hopefully their ride back was as comfortable as possible.  Once we were back in town, we watched the finish and called it a day.  While I kept the walking and physical activity to a bare minimum, it was an exhausting few hours for me since my body was still recovering.  We retired to the hotel for burgers and drinks.  Amazingly, the hardest day for me to watch was Sunday, the pro race.  The beauty of the sport definitely struck a chord that day.

It's not everyday...

...that Francesco Moser shows up to compete in one of your local races!

http://nyvelocity.com/content/gallery/race-photos/2012/moser-goes-new-york

A little behind...

Thomas Eddison Films, 1899???  It looks like those fixed grear hipsters were a little behind the times haha!  What a piece of history.

In the blink of an eye...

It was over in a matter of a few seconds. The shock however lingered for weeks. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the great start to my 2012 season was over. My form that was approaching and likely to eclipse my best season ever (2008) was gone, over. The never ending legs that I could simply ask for more no longer mattered. Suddenly the things that seemed so critical were no longer important.

On Friday, 30 March, I set out for a training ride much like any other day. Except on that beautiful day, I took off work early to get a long hard ride in on the other side of the Hudson River. All I wanted to do was suffer through some hill repeats and enjoy the beauty that is Henry Hudson Drive and the Palisades Park. Unfortunately I never made it there. I came to an intersection, the light was green and the intersection was clear so I proceeded straight through the intersection...except I never made it to the other side.  Instead, a full size work van traveling the opposite direction made a left turn and sped across the intersection hitting me on my left side, what cyclists know as a "left cross."  Moments before the impact, I saw the van speeding toward me however there was no escaping the inattentive driver this time, he was simply going too fast to give me any option other than a direct hit.  And a direct hit it was, throwing me well clear of the accident up the side street.  Weeks later, it is a memory I have yet to shake.  To add insult to injury, I was also a victim of the "I never saw you" excuse...except that I was right there in plain sight in broad daylight for all to see in a bright white jersey.  "I never saw you" is an admission of negligence, not that that amounts to anything in this country.  Miraculously, I suffered no life threatening injuries.  I have suffered injuries however this is not the place nor the time to go into it, I'll let the doctors and lawyers deal with that.  I'm lucky, it could have been so much worse.

Since the accident, every day has presented its own set of challenges.  Initially it was the constant physical pain, then the mental toll had to be dealt with once everything settled in.  Now I am left with the lingering after effects.  Unhealed injuries, doctors, physical therapy, lawyers, missed work, and on and on.  The disappointment has been overwhelming at times on so many different levels.  The lack of rights a victim has as a result of "the system" is staggering, sickening.  And in the end it almost equates to more punishment for the victim.  Maybe one day I'll go into the full story because it is an eye-opener, but for now I'm simply trying to move on.  I'm thankful every moment of every day that I'm still here and in one piece.  And the craziest thing of all is why I am even in this situation in the first place...because one careless person was in a big ass hurry to get to where, the next red light a few hundred feet up the road?  Yep, that's what it amounts to.
Be safe out there.