Tom Rosenbauer's Elite Tour Journal

Ride Recap
The weather forecast for today was for 15-20 MPH winds from the south. This was not particulary good news, given that our destination was southeast. And we got those winds, right at the start, as we all left together in our typical mass start. Given the unfavorable winds and the very long distance today, there seemed to be an increased intensity at the start -- nobody seemed to want to get dropped from the pack and be left alone to fight the winds by themself. At one point a couple of miles from the start, the road turned a bit and the slightly rolling terrain caused some gaps to open up in the pack. Several riders erratically sped up to close these gaps and the entire pack started to spread completely across the road as riders echeloned out to get shelter from the wind. Given the uneven, squirrely behavior of the pack, I decided it was unsafe and dropped off the back. After about 2 miles of riding alone, I saw a familar sight: several riders standing by the side of the road. This usually meant somebody was fixing a flat or some other mechanical while their companions waited for the repair to be made. As I got closer, I knew that this time it was different. I saw one rider, Brad Haslam, on the ground in obvious pain as he clutched his knee. His crash was part of a chain reaction of riders who had fallen in front of him as a result of wheels getting crossed. Just moments ago, I had been riding right next to him and some of the other riders involved in the accident. Later on, I learned that he suffered a fractured patella. While Brad's ride was over due to an injury, my ride would be over if I didn't meet the time cut-offs for each of the rest stops. Normally, the cut-offs are based on a 14 MPH pace, but I would later discover that the minimum pacing would be different today. By the second rest stop, I had built up a 40 minute cushion. But heading on to the next rest stop, the route turned south for a 9 mile stretch. Fighting the headwind all by myself, I lost almost my entire time cushion. The rest of the day was a tough slog against a crosswinds and headwinds. I made it to the lunch stop with just 2 minutes to spare. The PAC Tour lunch crew did an amazing job of getting me replenished quickly and on my way to the next rest stop. In the frenzy of getting me restocked with water and food, Susan mentioned that I needed to make all the time cuts and that the pacing between the later ones was faster than the usual 14 MPH. At this point I was surprised to discover that the pacing was nearly 20 MPH to make those in time -- I had been focusing on one time limit at a time, and overlooked the negative splits built into today's cut-offs. I knew that sunset was around 8:45 and thought I could make it in before then. But the time cuts were based on getting in before 8 PM. Within 5 miles of the last rest stop and about 23 miles from the finish, I saw one of the PAC Tour vehicles on the side the road: the crew informed me that they had been instructed to pick me up, along with Luigi, who I had hooked up with in the final miles. Sadly, my goal of riding every mile under my own power was over with. It had been a huge effort over a very long day. Although I knew it was going to be close, I thought I was going to make it and was very disappointed to come up short. Perhaps it was just a matter of time ... I had felt stronger after the first couple of days of the tour, but my legs had felt very tired the last couple of days and each day was becoming a struggle. And although today's ride was unexpectedly harder due to the unfavorable winds, I knew that there were even harder days ahead.