Details on the crash

This is the best picture I could find so far, but will post more as I find them...that's me somewhere on the right side of the picture.


Congrats to Matt Smith of Trek/Vitamin Water for the win.

This was a 40-mile Criterium and I was feeling great. Played a bunch at the front and then settled back into the pack to rest up a bit for the finish...I knew it was going to come down to a sprint finish and was licking my chops for it.

So here it is, final lap and I'm sitting top 10 (should have been up a bit further). We came out of the final turn and had a long grind to the line. My sprint was great, I was starting to gobble up positions and would have been in the top 5 or 6 at the end.........

Then two guys tangled in the center of the road up ahead of me (probably about 2nd/3rd), they went down and slid to the left. I tried to avoid it, but it was all very fast and I had to lock up the brakes. The rest is a bit of a flash, but I think I skidded out sideways (rear to the left) and then my tires gripped and flung me hard to the left and I superman'd into the metal barriers. I barely missed the barrier with my head (though, I did crack the helmet) and took the brunt of the impact on my left collarbone. Sort of bounced back out and got nailed by a rider from behind.

I felt ok...tossed the helmet out of anger and then felt my collar bone with my hand...it was crazy swollen (softball) and a medic looked at me and said "broken collar bone". The spectators had some interesting looks of shock as they peered over the (well moved) barrier. They put me in a neck brace and strapped me to a board, gave me a 2 min ride in the ambulance to the ER. I spent about 5 hours there. X-rays showed no break/fracture (SWEET!), but there was a small puncture on the top of my collar bone area (the fleshy part between the two bones. They were afraid that whatever punctured me was deep enough to hit my subclavian vein (see pic below), so they prepped me for a Cat Scan. Luckily, the cat scan showed no leakage, so the finally said it was just a large hematoma.
I'm extremely stiff/sore. My bruising has spread across most of my chest. The swelling has come down a bunch. I'm just happy that nothing is broken and I'll be able to get back on the bike as soon as it's comfortable to be on the bike...as of right now, I don't think I could even handle riding across a sidewalk crack, so it will be a bit, but not as long as it would if I had broken or fractured anything.

Big thanks goes out to Jason Mindeman (Trek/Vitamin Water). He drove me up to the race and stuck around the hospital for the 5 hours I was laid up there. He took my cell phone out to the waiting room and made the necessary calls to inform my family and friends. All this while starving and dehydrated from the race (at least I had an IV drip to rehydrate myself!). Once released, a much needed stop at Culver's took place.

Also, some familiar faces from the Nor-Cal scene (Russ and Greg White) popped in to see how I was doing. Those visits and all the text messages and calls were great. Thanks everyone.

Bodies heal, bikes don't...and my bike looks untouched! :-)