It was a languid night on the Kissena Velodrome:
Between the warmth and the truth that it was simply after Junior Nationals, turnout for this week’s Twilight Racing Collection was modest, although there have been some Cat 4s and Novice adults, a smattering of higher-category riders, and a variety of children who stayed to race after the late afternoon Star Monitor session:
My older son was a kind of Star Monitor children, although he was racing within the Males’s Novice subject, not the one pictured above. As for my youthful son, he and I have been dug in for a night’s spectating:
After the Star Monitor session, and simply earlier than the Twilight race started, I had the sensible concept of choosing up dinner. So my youthful son and I headed to a close-by pizzeria. Because of this, we missed the start of the night’s omnium–throughout which my son had a crash.
Does it make me a nasty dad or mum that I wasn’t there when it occurred, or does it make me a terrific dad or mum that I used to be getting him a meatball parmesan hero when it did? I’d wish to consider it’s the latter, since had I been there the crash would have occurred anyway, whereas if I hadn’t gone to get dinner there’d have been no meatball parmesan hero ready for him afterwards. However I understand which may be pushing it, and that one of the best I’m more likely to get away with is that possibly they cancel one another out. Certainly, the prosecution might actually argue I’m a nasty dad or mum for involving him in bike racing in any respect.
Fortuitously, in contrast to the mountain bike race crash that concerned a visit to the ER after which a follow-up physician go to that exposed a fractured shoulder, this one was principally only a case of highway rash to each physique and bike:
Following post-crash therapy protocol, I bandaged his wounds in contemporary handlebar tape, and re-wrapped the bars in Tegaderm:
Additionally in contrast to the mountain bike crash, by which he took an ill-timed drink and paid the worth, this crash was completely as a result of a mistake on any individual else’s half, not his. (Because it was defined to me by a coach, that’s. I used to be busy attending to the hero order, as we’ve established.)
Alas, between the crash and the bandages and the packing up of the campsite and all the remainder of it, we managed to overlook his bag–one thing I ought to have had the presence of thoughts to remind him of on this case, on condition that he had each contemporary wounds and a scrumptious sandwich to deal with. Not solely that, however the bag contained his telephone, and by the point we realized we’d forgotten it we have been almost house. (Looking back I can’t consider it took him so lengthy to note, as that’s the longest he’s gone with out a telephone in years.)
It was nonetheless mild out, the race was seemingly nonetheless occurring, and “Discover My Cellphone” confirmed the telephone nonetheless on the observe. Sadly I had no manner of reaching anyone on the race as a result of I’ve no pals, so I dropped the youngsters off at house and instantly headed again to the velodrome, hoping it will nonetheless be there after I arrived, or that somebody had turned it over to the organizers. However by the point I received there the telephone’s location had shifted about ten blocks west of the observe, the racers had gone, and the organizers who have been nonetheless there had not seen it.
Calling and pinging the telephone elicited no response, and so I went after it, trying to zero in on its location and knocking on doorways within the neighborhood of its icon like a deranged canvasser. I imagined a cheerful ending by which somebody had discovered the bag and marveled at each my temerity and the digital serendipity that’s life within the twenty first century, however this didn’t occur, and anyone who did reply the door to me had no concept what I used to be speaking about. And so I gave up, standing forlorn in the midst of Queens:
The telephone’s gone, and but I can nonetheless see it on my display, like a kind of distant stars that’s lengthy since burned out.
