12 Hours of Oleta

After Wifey and I shoveled 6-8 inches of snow last Wednesday we made our annual trip down to North Miami for the 12 Hours of Oleta.

Going in I knew Oleta was not gonna be an "A" race for me giving it's the middle of the off season up here and I'm no where near any kind of racing shape.....unless we're talking about a donut eating race, then hold onto your pants....cuz there's gonna be a throw down. But Wifey and I use it as an excuse to get the Hell out of the cold/snow and head back to our home state of Florida. Not to mention the people....and no, I'm not talking about

.........sadly, that picture took up an hour of my time. Funny the amount of time it takes to find just the right picture...yeah, that's it.

But back to where I was....we both miss the people down South, call it southern hospitality if you want but I just think people seem happier down there....most people up here outside the cycling world are just gruff at best.

But to the damn point......for those of you that have not done this race before I highly recommend it. It's a great location right on the river less then a mile from the beach, the course is fun/fast and the Berger's of Goneriding know how to run a race/series.

As always the race started with a lemans start to thin out the herd, and as always I ran like a wounded hipo:

But once I got on the bike things were going well, not great I give you but well. The course was in perfect shape, dry but not dusty and really fast. The course was changed up a little from prior years (for the better I think personally) with a couple of the "climbs" taken out and the first part of "Gilligan's Island" added back in.

It took half a lap for riders to get placed right (anyone that's done a lapped endurance race knows what I mean) lap one ran straight into laps two and three with no problems....aside from nearly choking myself with a Kind bar (note to self, don't ram a whole damn bar in your mug at once....it can be done sure, you just won't be able to breathe for a minute...which is always great when you HR is upwords of 165.)

Even thou I was giving up 3-4 min's a lap on the two leaders and I felt great, on lap three I knew I had a couple small problems I needed worked out. First being a newish pair of Sole insoles that were killing the outside edge of my feet and second....lets just call worn out bibs and say things were not sitting/staying in place right. That would explain my face in this last picture atleast...



So after lap four I ran out to the FJ got the thinner insoles for my shoes and started lap five with all things right in the world......for about 10 min's.....then I had a brain fart.

I was on a bridge that I've ridden 100 times (about 16-18 inches wide, 50 yards long with a couple small twists and about 18 inches off the ground) and then it happened. No idea what happened but I put two and two together and got the normal three of what I must have done.

My front wheel slipped off the right side of the bridge just enough to drop me down onto the rotor which bent 90 degrees under the weight of my awesomeness......(yeah, that's it) and I dropped straight down on the bridge itself left elbow and knee first before falling down to the ground to the left and pulling the bike with me....and still clipped in. Needless to say I hit like a ton of bricks and it hurt like Hell (so if any seismic activity happened Saturday in the area around one...that was just me....sorry.

It did not take long to figure out my day was over, the rotor and handlebars were easily fixiable, the body not so much. I knew the knee was not broken, but I could hardly move it. Luckily I was a short walk to a dirt road that led to the pit area, so onto the shoulder the bike went and off I hobbled.

As normal at races I had more then a few people ask if I needed help in any way, including the local Cannondale rep that sat with me asking questions I now know he already knew the answers to just to make sure I knew who/where the Hell I was.

I want to say congrats to Sebastian for a great race thou, the man was killing it. And I look forward to trying not to make an ass out of myself next month at Santos.