Resurfacing - Tales from the Broom Wagon

Wondering where I have been? So busy with work and kid stuff that I have hardly had time to breathe, but its on the downhill slide of business now, thank goodness. We have been having fun through much of it. Last weekend my kids and I went to the Junior Road Racing Camp at Snow Mountain Ranch (near Winter Park) for an amazing weekend. The kids had races, informational clinics and team rides. I helped make it run smoothly. I had a lot more fun than I expected. The kids did a time trial race to determine skill, strategy and speed. Then they were put into compatible groups for temporary teams. Each team had 2-3 coaches and a person who drove a support vehicle - the broom wagon. That was me. My job was to follow my group of 11 junior riders and their coaches in my van. I replenished their water and accelerade drinks, gave them food, helped them with altitude sickness and helped many get started when they could not clip into their peddles. The kids were champs. Some riders were well equipped and knew what they were doing, others were newbies and had equipment that they didn't understand. But they also had heart, power and determination. One young rider had a mountain bike that might have weighted nearly as much as he did, but he kept going, even though he could have gotten in my van. Other times another cyclist became so tire that he had to push his leg with his hand to keep it going, then the coach came and pushed him for a spell up a hill. "Hold on tight, I'm going to lend you some of my strength for a while." It was touching to see the tenderness in the coaches and the growth the kids experienced. Everyone of them was a champ. All and all the kids in my younger group (which included Ellie) road about 50 miles in the mountains. Ethan's group did closer to 65 between the various rides. At the end each team gave out select awards. An eagle for leadership, an antelope for speed, a bighorn sheep for hill climbing, a buffalo for heart and strength, a fox for thinking ahead and developing a good strategy. Ellie was thrilled when she got a fox. Cyclocross camp will happen in October, and we already can't wait.

On a more scary note, Sunday evening Ellie was going to show her grandma how well she rides. She had not gone more than 15 feel when she crashed. At first we did not think much of it, then, upon closer inspection, we saw that she was really hurt. She had a bad case o road rash, a set of wicked bruises and a broken helmet. We spent most of the evening in the ER. The doctor was a cyclist and said the if Ellie had not been wearing her excellent Rudy Project helmet, that she would have been seriously injured, she might have even sustained permanent damage. She had fall so hard that a curved part of the helmet was flattened. You can see the imprint of the gravel in the foam and the plastic parts on the outside. On the inside the foam is broken clean through. Only glue is holding it in place. The helmet did just what is was designed to do - absorb the brunt of the impact. Ellie is fine now. She is stiff, her bruises are a variety of ugly colors and her scabs are itchy, her head hurts, but she is okay - she even plans to race tonight. You can bet she will be wearing a new helmet. There were times when I would let my kids ride their bikes on our street without a helmet. The irony here was that this accident happened right in front of the grandparent's home, within feet of where I was. She was going slow enough for me to run ahead of her, and yet she had a terrible crash. My kids will never set foot on a bike without their helmets on first - their lives depend on it, Ellie's did on Sunday.