Me and My Big Mouth

On our way to Time Station 39 (Bloomington, Indiana), I mentioned to Jody that today had been so uneventful, I had no idea what I was going to blog about.

Me and my big mouth.

Jody and I caught up to Team Beau&Babe about 2/10 of a mile in front of the Time Station at the corner State Route 46 (to the left) and College Mall Rd. A lot of construction was going on, with some of the lanes closed, so it made for a rather confusing intersection.

We could tell right away that “Beau” and his crew were disagreeing over where to go. Beau was fairly adamant that they were supposed to turn left (incorrect), whereas his crew was telling him to proceed straight through the intersection (correct). We think that Beau was thrown off by the CVS Pharmacy on the left, because the route book says the Time Station is the CVS Pharmacy on the right, past the intersection.

Luckily, Beau listened to his crew. Since we were just ahead of them, we would have directed them to the Time Station, anyway.

Fast forward a few minutes to the Time Station.

Jody and I were hanging out, chatting with the Time Station volunteers, and also talking to RAAM owner Fred (we’ll probably see a lot of him until we reach Annapolis), trying to figure out when Reto and Strasser would be passing through. Since it took “Beau” 4:10 to make it from the last Time Station, we used that as a ballpark figure for the two solo cyclists, too, so we knew we had at least a half-hour wait.

A little while later, one of Strasser’s crews arrived and updated us as to the two riders’ positions. According to them, Reto was close to arriving (whatever “close” means) and Strasser was about 20 miles out.

I told Jody that I was actually a bit worried that one or both of the riders might get confused at that intersection back down the road, just as “Beau” had been. I even said something like, “Man, at this stage of the race, it’s so close that one little mistake like a wrong turn can cost a team the win.”

I then nudged him to walk back to the intersection with me, but he didn’t want to.

After some hesitation, I finally decided I’d go there by myself, to see if I could see Reto or Strasser coming.

When I got pretty close to the intersection, I noticed that two of the Time Station volunteers had just finished putting up an additional sign there, pointing the way to the Time Station (straight). Although the intersection was a zoo, with all the traffic, construction cones, and construction vehicles, and I wasn’t sure therefore just how visible that sign was, I felt a bit more reassured that neither Reto nor Christian would not understand that they had to go straight.

I also saw a few members of Strasser’s crew close to the intersection on the lookout for their rider (and probably Reto, too), so I didn’t feel it was necessary for me to hang out there any longer.

I really wish I had, though.

About 10 minutes later, one of Strasser’s crew members came up to me, Jody, and Fred and told us that Reto had turned left at that intersection, rather than going straight through it. They even offered us photographic proof, but none was needed.

Jody and I took off in his car, up the road to find Reto. As soon as we caught him, roughly 9 minutes later, we pulled him and his support vehicle over and told them that they had missed the Time Station.

When the crew realized their mistake, one of them said, “But there was construction there.”

They didn’t argue with us, however, and instead listened to us as we explained to them exactly what they had to do. (While we drove down the road to find them, we contacted headquarters to confirm how to handle the situation.)

They were going to have to drive Reto back to the point where he left the course (that crazy intersection), put him back on a bike to ride the loop to the Time Station and back to the intersection that he had missed, drive him back to the exact spot where we pulled him off the road, and then put him back on a bike so he could continue the race.

Reto remained incredibly calm when he realized what had happened and what this meant to the race standings. He just shook his head in disbelief and said, “That’s going to take at least 20 minutes.”

Jody quickly showed the crew a map on his phone so they would know how to ride that loop, and when they said they understood, they took off with us behind them.

When we got back down to the intersection, one of the two crew members helped Reto with his bike and then directed him along while the other crew member remained with the vehicle.

We told her we were sorry for what happened, and she shrugged her shoulders and said, “These kind of things happen with such a long race. We’re all tired and mistakes happen.”

She also wondered why race headquarters hadn’t called them to tell them to stop, rather than have Jody and me chase after them, since that surely would have saved them time. All I could tell her then was, “I’m wondering the exact same thing.”

By the time we all got back to the point where Reto could continue on his way, he had lost exactly 30 minutes, which meant he went from being tied with Strasser to being 30 minutes down.

What’s more, Strasser was less than one mile back down the road.