Friday, June 13, 2008

Oh Matt!!

I debated with myself about posting the video below because it might hurt somebody's feelings. That debate lasted about 0.1 seconds.

Matt's a great guy, but this deserves to be seen...

The Nature Valley GP shows a tiny clip of Matt's 2005 crash in its promotional video, but seeing it in its full glory is much better, don't you think? Even Bob Roll was chuckling! (Since nobody got hurt, it's ok to laugh a bit...)

Let's hope nothing like that happens to the SB locals (Aaron Olson and Mark Shimahara) doing this year's NVGP!

Also, if you want to check out today's action, look for the local Minneapolis TV station's live Webcast. Women race at 4:45 PST and the men go off at 5:45 PST.

[add/edit] Well, a day later and I've had second thoughts about posting Matt's crash, I mean, it was probably a bit traumatic and it had an impact on the race since gc leader John Lieswyn (sp.?) lost time and was passed up by Shawn Milne (who took the gc lead temporarily). So on the group ride this morning, I asked Matt's good friends Zach and Ben if they thought he minded the crash incident being resurrected, and both responded with a definitive "No". And then I asked Matt. Clearly he doesn't find it as entertaining, even in retrospect, as I do, but he's a self-confident enough guy to not hide from it. Besides, you have to respect a guy who goes after it as aggressively as he does. Also, in the end Lieswyn took back gc.

Did you know that all the protagonists mentioned above have a somewhat local connection? Matt lives here of course. Milne has spent a couple winter months training in SB with his friend Tim Johnson. And Lieswyn was in the area a few years back when his wife worked at a veterinary clinic in Ventura. So you see, the whole incident is kind of SB-relevant anyway!

6 comments:

Kk said...

Hi Marco,

Thanks for that. After all the broken necks, legs, pelvises and deaths from bike crashes it's nice to see a good ol'fashioned pile-up where everyone walks away!

Oh and in case you missed it, I live at the top your lunchtime Thurs. pain fest. I think I'll join y'all next week... ;+}

Marco Fanelli said...

kk- Yeah, I normally wouldn't treat a crash so lightly, but fortunately this one didn't have any terrible consequences. The thing that's most interesting is how many people piled into it, despite Matt being way over on the far side of the road.

I saw the view pictures on your blog. It looks to be far above the top of OSM. We sometimes climb to the ridge on Thursdays, but usually we're too lazy! Everyone is welcome to join us, and you don't even need a road bike! We meet in the Giorgi Park lot just before 12:00.

Unknown said...

Well, it's a natural human emotion to watch these crashes and feel some sort of glee.
I hear that when soldiers are in active combat and their comrade goes down, they have a bit of hysterical glee, thinking they are so frigging glad it wasn't them that went down.
As we recognize that it could have just as easily been us in the video, maybe we get a similar rush being so frigging glad it wasn't us that crashed.
I know I'm weird, but I'm not alone, as people buy DVDs of tour crashes.

Marco Fanelli said...

Miss anony-

Yeah, that's it... I'm always gleeful I don't crash when I ride off-the-front of a field consisting of the best pros in the US...

...and then I wake up.

:-)

Dubbayoo said...

I'd give Matt a pass on that one. He was 'pretty much' out of the way til the guys coming up made the same mistake he did. They're no less liable than he is, IMO. If he had not gone down whoever hit him still would have.

Marco Fanelli said...

dubbayoo- Yes, the amusing aspect to the whole thing is the big pile-up, NOT Matt's original crash. Who among us hasn't done something similar? (If not, maybe you haven't found the edge of the envelope yet!) I once hit a pedal on a botts dot (friggin Merced) and took pretty much an identical trajectory as Matt did in Minneapolis. Nobody piled on top of me though.