JC Rolls dirty. Photo: AP Photo/Laurent Ciprian
We don’t like to talk about crashing. Talking about crashing before you crash feels a lot like tempting fate and talking about it after you crashed feels a lot like a fisherman bragging about his catch. But crashing is the worst part of our sport apart from getting hit by a car, which has all the worst part of crashing give or take a few tons of metal and possible disembodiment or death.
Waking up the morning after a crash is a feeling that can only be understood by someone who has woken up the morning after a crash. The wounds will have kept you up much of the night, not being able to sleep on one side (or both), which is somehow always your favorite side to sleep on. The lack of movement overnight will mean that the wounds themselves are tight and sore, and the force of the impact will have the result that you know the precise location of every organ within your torso.
Men don’t like to act like they’ve been hurt, unless they’re in a long-term relationship, in which case they will pretend anything hurts so long as no one aside from their partner is around. Under these same circumstances, they are highly susceptible to debilitating cases of Man Flu which require loads of coddling, soup, and beer in order to cure. Outside these two extenuating circumstances, we jump up from any accident and pretend nothing happened, like Inspector Clouseau. Pro Cyclists epitomize that spirit to the maximum, frequently coming off at speed, removing loads of skin, and hopping back onto their bicycles as if nothing happened.
Geraint Thomas, possibly the most Rule Compliant rider in the modern Peloton, epitomized that today with his crash:
Barguil just wiped me out. It was a tight right and he just came around on the inside and knocked me straight off the road. I got back up and started chasing.
Which is also the same thing he did when he got blown off the road in Gent-Wevelgem. Except this time he head-butted a telephone pole and highsided into a ravine first. The race doctor apparently asked him his name to test him for a concussion and he answered with, “Chris Froome.”
JC Peraud came off alone a few days back, for no reason that anyone can articulate other than, “a touch of wheels”, which is what we say whenever we crash for no reason, even when riding alone. He came off at speed, on some of the roughest tarmac imaginable. He was skinned alive, effectively. And, as with Geraint, he got up and not only finished the stage, but rejoined the field. Double stud with a side of Steak Tartare.
And those examples are just from the last three days of racing. The last three days.
Crashing is part of life as a Cyclist. We risk life, limb, and skin. We fall off, we climb back on. Crashing is learned; we know how to fall to minimize “important” damage. “He didn’t crash right,” we say, as if there were a mysterious way to crash right.
We don’t talk about crashing because as a Cyclist, if follows us everywhere we go. It is always there behind us, like the shadow we feel on the backs of our necks when we come up the basement stairs.
Talking about it only makes it real, and crashing is already as real as it needs to be.
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I notice no one is talking about it...
@Oli
Hardieharharhar
MIC DROP!
We parry with the man with the hammer regularly climbing switchback after switchback, so much so we lose sight of the battle that lurks with the lady of fate come the descent.
Her kiss still lingers with me as I stare at the fragmented carbon of my beloved 3t bars. The fractured and crumpled body of my right brake lever.
I recently recovered from a 40mph fight with a guard rail. I am happy to be alive and kicking...
For fear of being shunned I'll spare you the pictures of me.
GT: I just watched the post race interview. What a cool cat. Very. What did he say? I head butted that wooden pole thing... no biggie... or something like that? The Sky Train with the Welsh, Brits and Australian, I like these guys. I see Kennaugh had to withdraw. That sucks.
Jean-Cristophe: Ya gotta love the racers that start off on the mtn bike. Granted he's a little tiny kinda guy so not the kinda of racer I kinda associate with but certainly one tough sob that's for sure. You'd think they coulda slipped the guy in to some new bib shorts to finish but god forbid he'd jump in a car to accomplish that I guess. He was damn near demonstrating the dangle. Ouch.
My son (10yrs) races BMX. What shits me to tears is that they teach them to act like bloody soccer players when they come off! They have a little spill and the PA starts screaming at them "stay on the ground. Don't move". The first aider comes out and checks for trauma and usually they are walked off between two helpers.
What sort of bollocks is that? Get up I say, get on your bike and finish dam it! We'll sort any injuries at the finish line
OK, they are worried about agrivating spinal injuries but the severity of the crash is obvious that's not an issue. At that age they doing all of 10 or 15km per hour! The adults, the "pros" as they call them absolutely fly but not the little ones. I tell my son if he feels ok, get up!
@wilburrox
I think that's the skill in that piece of photography, Ciprian has managed to catch him from an angle where the elbow keeps his modesty intact (unlike the rest of him).
This is very timely, not just because of Geraint's horror crash, which apparently didn't really bother him too much... but I had a crash last week, and am struggling to ensure Rule #5 compliance.
So I am riding along on my way to work, no cars, beautiful scenery, 30kmh+ pace. ..... and all of the sudden a bee or a wasp gets stuck in my helmet and makes a huge terrible noise like he is going to sting me directly in my brain. I panic, hit the brakes way too hard and flip over the handlebars.
I skid to a stop on the asphalt and once I get the helmet off... the wasp is gone, but my ribs are bruised, elbows have no skin left, and worst of all one of my brake levers is slightly scratched on the bike. At work, I go over to the Doctors and they clean it up, call over 3 or 4 other doctors and nurses too look at the guy with asphalt instead of skin on his elbows...
Perhaps not 100% rule nr 5 compliant, I asked my wife to pick me up from work in the evening ;). Looking at the pro riders and how they manage to keep on riding the TdF is amazing.
@Oli
I don't know when you last had the +1 badge, but you fucking earned it, my friend.
I like that G's only complaint about the incident was losing his (now discontinued) favourite Oakleys.