Six ST riders, Darcy G and Matt J (Cat 5), Ferenc J, Dave H, and Chris H (Cat 4), and Thomas Y (Cat 1/2/3) headed to Devon for the Morgan Construction Devon Grand Prix of Cycling. Below is a brief recap.
First of all, I discovered it's possible to stuff three bikes, five sets of wheels, and gear into the back of a Ford Focus hatchback, so Ferenc was able to ride up to Devon without having to hold a disc wheel the whole way. Proceedings got started Friday night with a short, twisty 2 km prologue in the rain. No one was really interested in crashing in a 2 km prologue, so we all turned the gas down a notch and finished safely.
Saturday morning was the 16 km TT, which was a flat, fast T-shaped course. Nothing really dramatic to report: we all simply put our head down and pedaled as hard as we could for 16 km. Saturday night was the crit on a what I thought was a fairly narrow four-corner course. Standout performances include Matt's 4th in Cat 5, and Dave, Ferenc and Chris going 4,5 and 7th in Cat 4. Thomas hung on to finish with the group in the 1/2/3 crit, and had a good suffer face going the whole time. My crit? Let's just say I had a bad weekend.
Sunday's road race meant disaster for the cat 5s. With 20 kms to go Matt was in great position sitting 5th wheel when a rider made a sudden move to the right, taking down at least three riders. Matt rode to the finish in obvious pain. The medics cleaned him up pretty good, but a trip to Devon was required for x-rays. I'll let Matt tell the rest of the story. It's so good to know that Jenn and Matt like to share everything, including road rash and broken helmets.
The Cat 4 and Cat 1/2/3 road races resulted in good results for ST racers, but I'll let them tell their stories.
[Update: Results are here. Thomas was second on GC in cat 3, and both Chris and Ferenc were in the top five in cat 4 (Dave did yeoman's work in the early break in the RR).]
8 comments:
Yikes, picture doesn't look great, heal up quickly Matt
Hey Matt,
That sucks. I hope you recover quick for your trip.
Cheers,
Kyle
Good effort guys. That crash didn't need to happen and hope you are ok Matt.
Matt. Hope you heal quickly.
Cheers, K
Matt,
I Hope you're feeling well and that you recover quickly.
Ian
Speedy recovery Matt!!!
I was wondering where the heck you were after the race! Hope it's just road rash and nothing more severe...
Congrats on the impending upgrade to Cat 4!
Thanks for all the well wishes. In spite of a lot of discomfort and pain in many places, I am doing good and hopefully on the road to recovery. Given what happened I am very lucky not to have broken any bones. Darcy, thanks for looking after me post the crash; you are what defines a great teammate. Thomas, thanks for hauling me back to Calgary and putting up with three hours of me complaining. And of course to Jennifer, thanks for taking such good care of me and for wrapping up all my wounds (without puking) in bandages, gauze, band-aids, second-skin, polysporin and whatever else is covering my body. Race and accident report to come once I can type with both hands.
Matt
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