Today started off a little rocky.  We overslept by an hour and Benno had to knock on the motor home window to wake us up.  I guess the cumulative fatigue is taking over and we needed the sleep.  It was nice to have the extra snooze, but it made the morning ritual a bit hectic. We made it to the start on time and had the usual rude wake up call with a long uphill climb on cold, tired legs.  We found our groove though and were motoring along through the course.  As usual, we made up time on any technical and downhill sections.  We were having a great day and had finished “heartbreak hill #1” and “heartbreak hill #2”.  We only had 40 km left in the stage and were still comfortably in 6th place in the women’s field.

That’s when a baseball sized rock jumped out and attacked Cristina’s front tire.  We were riding down a rocky, but not too technical descent.  I was behind Cristina and saw here skate a bit on a rock and go down.  Luckily, the train of riders behind us was able to divert around her.  Unfortunately, she didn’t get up quickly and I could see in her face that something was wrong.  The first words out of her mouth were, “I broke my collarbone.”  Not the words I wanted to hear, but since she’d broken the other one before, she knew the feeling all to well.  She could also feel the bone sticking up in a strange way under her skin.

So the process began to get her out of there safely and get help.  All the riders around us were really considerate and medical help came pretty quickly.  Luckily Cristina had packed some strong pain meds in her hydration pack, so we could at least stave off the pain for a while.

Bobby, our team manager has taken her to a nearby town for x-rays and perhaps surgery.  She will be there overnight and tomorrow we will know more about how bad the break is.  So now, both Specialized teams are officially out of the race.  Christoph Sauser also had to withdraw yesterday because his teammate was suffering from a knee injury.  It’s unfortunate news, but we’re all regrouping and trying to decide what to do from here.  Christoph will head back to Stellenbosch with some of the crew and race a 55km race this weekend.  For me, stay tuned.  We will have a team meeting tonight over dinner and a beer!  Our teams are definitely not alone in our troubles.  The camp is littered with people who are injured, lamenting their choice of teammates, or suffering from the heat or some other various ailments.

The good news is that we’re both OK and the South African adventure will continue for a few more days, just in a different format.  Stay tuned.

Photo courtesy Gary Perkin

Broken collarbone........OUCH!

Little morphine to help the pain....

The long walk....