4 June 2006

Racing this week

It's been one of those weeks again, the kind that feel as though they are two of three days long, instead of the good old seven.

We raced yesterday in the top of Holland, almost the furtherest north you can go. Not much to see up there, but a wicked day all the same. Racing was sweet, we had some good control of the race, chasing a few breakaways down, but only managed a 5th. A really bad crash on the last 5km saw about thirty riders go down, worst crash of the year I think. There was a fair bit of carnage on the road by the time that we got there (last car in the caravan), girls were three high in a tangle of bike and person. We had one of the girls, Luise Keller down and looking bewildered and bloodied. Moving through the mess, I managed to get to her off the road. She wasn't too bad, with a couple of nice gashes to her knees, and a pile of skin left on the road, but a few stitches later she was sweet. I have seen some pretty gruesome accidents in my day (mostly my own), but seeing bloodied riders laying motionless on the road always scares you a little. I always want to grab for the camera, but think that it's not so much in good taste. There was the best chainring gash to the leg that I have ever seen, kind of just opened it up, exposing the bone and tendons for all to see. Give you a rundown later on how she is, and see if I can get a shot of the scars.

Leaving this morning for sunny Spain, looking for a nice 25'c this week. But racing the Durango-Durango Emakumen, Sarria on Tuesday, just a one day race. Then on Thursday we start in the stage race the Iurreta-Emakumeen XIX Bira. We have the last six remaining girls racing, with the rest of the team injured or recovering from injury, and lucky we didn't loose Luise yesterday. So hope we don't lose any more this week.

Righto, off to finish packing the truck, drive 1350km, and get ready to race.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Benny
What's happened to your web page counter - maybe too many prizes handed out?
Great to see your new computer is up and running, having 10 fingers must help!
Regards
Lee F