Tour of the Gila

This is before the start of the third day of the Tour of the Gila (the fifth day for Art and Mike, shown in the picture). They met the previous week at another stage race in Arizona. Thank goodness, too, Art was staying with the coolest host family and he didn't mind sharing the space. That made the trip a complete experience. Two stage races in two weeks. I can't imagine. And they were having fun with it. It's an 11 hour drive each way to get to Silver City, NM. This was my first stage race--only 3 days, but that was plenty.

The point of this picture is simply to show how short I am. Well, Art is 6' 7", the tallest bike racer (wait, tallest person) I know and Mike is well over 6'. They and our host family were really supportive when I came home banged up from a crash on the second day. That was my first real road rash. I've crashed a few times before (not in races), but nothing that amounted to anything. Tegaderm bandages rule. I'm glad to have the shock of crashing out of the way. I think I'm a little less scared of racing and crashing now (as strange as that may sound).