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Originally Posted by bluegoose
Steels experience was a bit different from mine. hopefully he can update you on the day.
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About 5 minutes after dropping off of the back of bluegoose's group I was riding with a friend who was doing his first century. He was riding very well and really should have gone ahead with the faster group but he was nervous about hitting the 70 mile mark for the first time. Anyway, we were on a lovely piece of chip and seal highway in a 2 man paceline. He was experiencing some numbness in his arm apparently (I was riding in front and couldn't see him) and was shaking it so had it off of the bar. I signaled that I was moving off of the front and moved out. He was not watching and didn't see me until it was too late. He went down HARD and was bleeding pretty badly from his fingers, one of which looked really bad. He had all the requisite road rash at the hip and elbow as well. We flagged down a passing motorist who took him back to the rest stop we had most recently left (between 5-7 miles behind us). I rode my bike back thinking my day was over. When I got there they were tending to his wounds and after about 20 or 30 minutes, he decided he wanted to try and finish.
Well, by this time the only people anywhere near us are the slowest of the slow. But, we decided to ride to the next stop and see how he felt. I pulled for him for the next approx 7 miles while he got his legs back under him. Then I flatted on some gravel. It actually cut my tire but it was not bad enough to end my day. I have very tight tires, and as I was putting the last inch of tire back on I punctured the new tube, costing me another 5 minutes. By the time we got rolling again there were only a few people behind us.
After another 20 miles, I was feeling the extra 10-14 miles I'd done (no computer so I'm guessing). I am the least fit that I've been for a century and so was starting to feel worn as we rolled into the next rest stop. It was mile 70 something for me. My friend was feeling great at that point and so when we left that stop, I bid him adieu and rode with an old dude up the last of the challenging climbs. At the top of the climb, I expected to see my friend and inquired about him as at this point he was fairly famous among the support staff. Nobody had seen him and the woman he had climbed the hill with said she had dropped him and that he hadn't come up the hill yet. So, confused, I waited a while for him and then figured he may have skipped the stop all together. I never saw him again until my friends picked me up on the road home. Thankfully, I'd gotten my 100 miles in due to the 2 swithbacks I had to do so I was happy about that .
It was a beautiful day and a beautiful ride, but like one of those dreams where you have to get somewhere and you just can't seem to get there. Hopefully I've used up my bad luck for a while.