The Agony and the Asphalt

By Sal Ruibal
USA TODAY
May 11, 2009

I don't know about you, but I would rather crash a NASCAR race car upside-down at 180 miles per hour than fall off my road bike at 30 miles an hour.
Carl Edwards flipped over at warp speed April 27 at Talladega and walked away with a headache and a smile.
Christian Vande Velde hit the tarmac at 30 miles an hour Monday at the Giro d'Italia cycling race and broke two ribs as well as heavily bruising his spine and pelvis. He left his race in an ambulance.
Edwards raced again the next Sunday. Vande Velde is out of the three-week Giro and he may not mend in time for the July 4 start of the Tour de France.
Does that mean Vande Velde is a wimp? As they say in NASCAR, aw hell no!

The difference is that Edwards was swathed in a cocoon of safety devices and garments that kept his body from being mangled by fatal G-forces, flames and jagged metal.
Vande Velde was protected by about a sixteenth of an inch of argyle Lycra when his body bounced off the asphalt.
The only real safety device he was wearing was his helmet. The closest thing to an air bag on a bike is a packet of GU in your rear jersey pocket.
To see what Vande Velde experienced, drive your car thirty miles an hour down the highway, open the door and fall out.
Vande Velde did that and got back up on his bike.
He didn't get too far, but he tried.
The next time you lose your patience and honk at a biker whose 25 mph pace is slowing your arrival at Burger King, think about the consequences. A fender bender for you is a life-ender for him.