Tucson- Day 6

What an eventful day. I was too tired to write about it yesterday but now I’ll try my best to accurately say what happened. And don’t freak out because everyone is alive and there are no broken bones or concussions, or anything too bad.

The plan had been to do Lemmon one more time but that will have to wait; because of the wind we went to do Gate’s Pass instead. So we didn’t swim, and we went for a run this morning on the trail along a wash. The three Manitoba girls stuck together for about a 45 minute run. We all met up at the van and on the way to our drop-off point we ate some packed lunches. It probably wasn’t a good idea to try starting out as one huge group. Some of us dropped off a bit when we did the climb that is the reverse of Gates Pass. A few miles from the bottom our guys went off for a longer ride while we stuck with Alberta. The first incident of the day happened when Darian lost control and hit a hole on a downhill, wiping out. When most of us caught up to him we were concerned, but hadn’t actually seen what happened. We were told he was alright, but his road rash was pretty bad, so Eleanor took him to the hospital to get cleaned up better.

So we kept riding and took some wrong turns but realized outr mistakes and got back on the right route. We also rode some awful roads but eventually got to our turn around point, 50km out. On the way back we were on the smoothest road of the day when things went wrong. We think some wheels rubbed farther up in our large pack and everyone started to go down. Claire seemed relatively unhurt but had some bike damage, including derailleur and hangar. Ashlyn and Maddy got the worst of the crash. Maddy went flying, leaving her bike behind mostly undamaged. She however was splayed out on the highway for quite some time. Her arms were up awkwardly and we were quite worried that something was broken. But once we got her up she was mostly alright, but very sore and battered. Ashlyn took the road with her face. We worried about lost teeth or a broken nose, but there were some just scrapes, a lost bracket, and a bloody nose. She bled all over her face, the sidewalk, and me and Mackenzie. He also went down and had a sore wrist and some bent wheels, but seemed to get away pretty lucky. Joel was the first to manage to stop but as he fishtailed to avoid the bodies and bikes, he and I almost went down too. It could have been a lot worse. I for sure thought I was going down also; I hate that that feeling right before a crash when you know it’s going to be bad but can’t do anything about it. It sucks that it’s familiar by now.

Anyways, it was really scary to see everyone go down but I tried to help everyone as soon as I could. Mack, Joel, and I went out into the road to direct people around the crash. We also tried to piece together what had happened. A woman stopped her car to help and called 911. The first response was the police, followed by paramedics. It was quite the crew that showed up to help, and very quickly. The girls were in shock but luckily as they were checked out there didn’t seem to be symptoms of concussions. Both looked pretty bad, but didn’t actually have to go to the hospital. It was also good that we had several adults to help deal with it and a phone to call for help.

Once everyone was off the road and being taken care of we had some logistics to take care of. Gary was still out in the van and Tyler and Ben were riding. Angie sent out Alberta minus Claire and Mack, and me as the token Manitoban with Trevor to get the Alberta van. We rode about 17km back to the parking lot, very carefully. I was really not excited to get back on the bike, as I was still shaking and didn’t feel like riding in a pack anymore. But once we got riding it was better. We regrouped with everyone at the parking lot with the two vans, and then went off to find Tyler and Ben. It was really too bad that everyone’s ride had been cut short, but the two guys had been waiting quite a bit because we had no way of telling them about the crash. No one ended up actually doing Gate’s pass. It’s a short section, but very steep and quite the challenge. Most of Alberta and I ended up doing about 67km, and the other two guys did more.

Once back at the house we couldn’t get inside, and had to wait for Eleanor and Darian to come back from the hospital with the keys. The girls started washing out their wounds in our cold hot tub. Finally everyone was accounted for and we made a quite transition back to Alberta’s house. We brought the food we needed to have a burgers and dogs pool party for their last night. I think everyone still had a good time together. We hung out and it was great to spend one more evening with the Alberta team. As we were trying to leave Darian was still quite loopy from the meds they gave him at the hospital, but couldn’t find one of his shoes. We all searched the yard, house and pool; no one could find it. Finally Tyler opened up the filter thing and there is was, underneath a mole. The guys got the creepy little rodent out and chased it away. It was the weirdest thing. Anyways, it will be a few months till we see most of those friends again, so it was hugs all around and we headed home, exhausted after our crazy day. I’m glad we got to spend so much time with Alberta; they really are a great group. Another few days of training are left for us. I’m hoping everyone can keep their spirits up and wishing for speedy healing to our athletes that went down.