Friday, February 22, 2008

Funny TOC Story

From Slowtwitch

One of the Slowtwitch guys was riding on the sidewalk day before yesterday trying to watch the race. All of a sudden he starts hearing a frantic call, "you in the red jersey! Hey, YOU!" So he thinks a course marshal is trying to get him off the course... but he's not on the course, he's on the sidewalk. So he rides faster, and still the guy is yelling at him.

He finally turns around and its a CSC rider frantically trying to get him to give him his rear wheel. CSC rider takes his broken Zipp rear wheel off, hands it over, takes the poor slobs rear wheel and speeds off after telling him to go to CSC at the finish line.

After some rigamarole he gets the hotel that CSC is staying at, and finally gets patched in to Bobby Julick. Seems there was some road furniture on the course, Bobby hit it and the neutral support and team car were nowhere to be found.

Sound hokey?

Check out that rear wheel with the snazzy yellow tire! Geez, what a story to tell.
From one of the traveling refs:
I am a traveling Course Marshal with the Tour and I was working that corner and all I can say is that Julich is an amazing rider. He came down in a pack of about 20-30 and was in the back third. We were flagging like crazy but because of his position he could not see the median. He pulled his front wheel up at the last second, nailed the curb with his back, bounced up on to the front wheel (as if about to go over the bars), rode up onto the far sidewalk (there was a little opening where the curb was reduced as if at a cross walk), regained balance, and rode on. Neutral support was ahead of them and team cars were still stuck on the hill. He immediately threw his hand up for a wheel, looked back and realized he was alone, and so he continued on. Your story is making the rounds of the entire race entourage. I believe you will get hooked up pretty good...Anon
Wow, I'd hang that wheel on the wall and remember that day for the rest of my life! Too cool!

1 comment:

hfang said...

Karen,
Nice story, and great picture of Bobby. I had a nice chuckle.

If you take a look at the chainring of Bobby's bike... it's a pretty unique shape. I know he's tried O'symetric rings before but this is a bit different than even those.