Crashes

Soooooooooo............ I did my first road race of the year last Sunday in Sequim. Flat (good), cut one lap off the total (good), nice weather (good), beat to crap from Saturday's mountain bike race (bad), lots of crashes for a really wide open and flat course (bad).

At least it's not just Cat 3 bozos:

Milan-San Remo didn’t end the way Tyler Farrar would have liked.
The Garmin-Slipstream rider -- fresh off beating eventual winner Mark Cavendish in a bunch sprint this week at Tirreno-Adriatico – crashed out with a possible broken clavicle.
Farrar flew back to his home base in Belgium on Saturday night and will be treated by doctors there, but team officials are worried that the injury could take Farrar out of the upcoming northern classics.
“It’s looking like he might miss the classics, but nothing is confirmed,” Garmin-Slipstream sport director Matt White told VeloNews. “We’ll know more later. If it is broken, it’s unfortunate because he’s on the form of his life.”
Farrar crashed as the peloton was barreling into the day’s first feed zone ahead of the Passo del Turchino with about 175km to go. The official medical report states Farrar suffered from traumatism to his right shoulder.
Farrar is an integral part of Garmin-Slipstream’s classics team and the team was expecting more from his this year.
“We had a couple of goals for Tyler in the northern classics. Martijn (Maaskant) will our man for Flanders and Roubaix. Tyler was our leader for Ghent-Wevelgem,” White said. “We’ll see how fast he can come back. It depends on how bad the injury is. When I broke my collarbone in 2004, I was back training on the bike in a week. It’s only March. There is still a lot of racing to go.”
White also expressed satisfaction with how the team performed in Milan-San Remo.
Julian Dean was 19th and Ryder Hesjedal was 31st, both finishing with the front group.
“The team rode well, discounting the bad luck with Tyler. The team was great in putting Julian in position on the Poggio. Julian was on the third wheel, but he got blocked in the final sprint. We were hoping for a top-10, so we were close,” White said. “It’s been a great block of racing here in Italy, with Monte Paschi, the stage win at Tirreno and a good ride today for the boys.”

And then there is this one:

Lance Armstrong crashed hard in Monday’s opening stage of the Vuelta a Castilla y León and was transported by ambulance to a hospital in nearby Palencia, Spain. First indications appear that the seven-time Tour de France champion seriously injured his right shoulder and might have broken his collarbone. The pack was roaring down a narrow farm road over rough surfaces. It appeared that riders clipped wheels, sending at least a dozen skittering to the ground. Armstrong was knocked off the road and was sitting on the ground, cradling his right arm, an indication that he injured his shoulder. Initial reports indicate a likely broken clavicle, but there are no official medical reports yet. A photo from Spanish TV can be seen here. Astana teammate Tomas Vaitkus, who also went down in the pile-up, approached Armstrong, but he waved him off. Vaitkus remounted his bike and continued in the race. The crash occurred on a narrow road as the peloton was ramping up its speed to reel in two attacking riders with about 20km to go in the 168.3km first stage from Parades de Nava to Baltanás in northern Spain. The 37-year-old Armstrong waved to a race doctor and was helped into an ambulance. Race organizers told The Associated Press that he was being treated at the Rio Carrion hospital in Palencia.
Spaniard Joaquin Sobrino (Burgos Monumental) went on to win the stage ahead of David Vitoria (Rock Racing) and José Joaquin Rojas (Caisse d'Epargne). Armstrong returned to Europe this month and completed the 298km Milan-San Remo on Saturday, finishing 118th. The Castilla y León race was his first European stage race since winning his seventh and final Tour in 2005. Armstrong is scheduled to race the Giro d’Italia, May 9-31. Riders with broken collarbones typically return to competition between four to six weeks after the injury