Vince Gee

Mr. Glass

On each daily training ride, we split the team into two groups. Group one (slightly faster) is the classics group. Group two (slightly slower) is the stage race guys. The second group is not as critical to be fast just yet so they can go a bit slower tempo.
In the movie “Unbreakable” Samuel Jackson portrays a character nicknamed “Mr. Glass.” He has a disease that renders him very fragile and can have a broken limb at the slightest accident.
We were only about 20 minutes into our daily training ride and Palo Salvoldeli portrayed Sam Jackson’s character and crashed. He was unlucky and broke his collar bone. It was a sad part of a, until now, great training camp. Lucky we have a team doctor in each team car following each group. So, Dirk and the team doctor took Paulo back to the hotel so they could then transport him to a proper medical facility.
I grabbed two pairs of wheels and two big (1.5 liters each) of water and hitched a ride with some journalists so Dirk could go back and the riders could still have some team support. I instantly thought “this ain’t getting me shit” as two pairs of wheels and 3 liters of water could be easily gone through instantly due to the bad road conditions (two pairs of wheels — poof) and it was hot (3 liters of water — poof). That thought of low supplies came to rest as Dirk showed up about 40 minutes or so later and I jumped back in the team car with plenty of supplies.
So, “Mr. Glass” is hurt with a broken collar bone and I’m sure he is disappointed in his initial entry into our teams (real) training camp opener.

CClinton

Owner of Promechanics.com and long time professional race mechanic.