CHAMPION, PENNSYLVANIA
The USA Cycling National Championships were held over a two-week period at Seven Springs Ski Resort. I saw an article in the Somerset (Pa.) Daily American looking for volunteers. I contacted Rachel Shaffer, the Seven Springs volunteer coordinator, three weeks before the event. She gladly accepted my offer and told me she would use me Saturday and half-day Sunday as a course marshal.
One week before the event, I hadn’t heard anything from her so I contacted her midweek to simply ask when and where we meet. She emailed me and said that we would meet at the Center Lobby at Seven Springs Saturday at 7:00 a.m.
I left my parents’ place in Friedens shortly before 6:00 a.m. for the 35-40 minute drive to the ski resort. I arrived around 6:40 a.m. but did not see a volunteer check-in, something I expected. I did see some folks with orange vests on and figured I should have one as well. A Seven Springs bus was leaving and a couple of cars followed. I jumped in my car and followed as well. The bus drove out to Trent and then at certain intersections of country roads either stopped to let someone off or the people inside waved to a volunteer already in place.
At one point the bus pulled over and a woman, Rachel I discovered, got out to talk to the people in the car behind the bus. Then I pulled up beside her and introduced myself. She replied that I was late and that she already filled all the positions.
I started to do a slow burn. I had driven from Northern Va. to volunteer. I didn’t have a second car and rented a car just to volunteer for this event. Rachel backed off the “you’re late excuse” after I pointed out to her that I was at the Springs by 6:45 then stated that she simply used the same volunteers she has been using all week. She said she didn’t need me.
But she said she would give me a t-shirt. Big effing deal.
I pulled out a copy of the email she sent me in which she wrote my reporting time was 7:00 a.m. She looked at that, realized that she had been caught in her lie, and then stated that she could use me back at Swiss Mountain (Seven Springs) so that I would “at least get to see the course.” I figured that was a “nothing” assignment and indeed when we reached Seven Springs, after dropping off all the real volunteers, we stopped by some condos about 50 yards off the main road. The condos weren’t even on course. I wasn’t needed.
Further, there were no cars at the condos. No one was parked there. I was to guard an intersection of an empty parking lot that wasn’t even on course. What a bogus assignment. I immediately went out to the main road and told the policeman I would help him. I put on my orange vest and we waited for the first activity.
The policeman had both police and race radio and I was glad I wasn’t stuck on the course out in the country with no information. Throughout the day I would have updates on where the riders were.
The 17-18 Men started at 7:30 a.m. from the ski resort. It took perhaps 6-7 minutes for the peloton to leave the resort and climb the hill by the golf course. A State Trooper led the procession over the hill followed by 7-8 motorcycles. As they crested the hill, all but five or six of the riders were still in the peloton, which started with 175 riders.
As they descended the mountain road it was foggy and cool but visibility should have been no problem. There was some moisture on the road from the morning fog. The peloton flew by sounding like a swarm of bees. Just as quick as they crested they were gone.
The 15-16 Men group should have passed 10 minutes later (scheduled start 7:40 a.m.). But they didn’t. We waited some more and still no group.
They were to race on a “lollipop” course. The stem, about 8 miles, would go out to a loop, of about eight miles. The 17-18 Men would go first, followed 10 minutes later by the 15-16 men. The older group would do three loops on the course before returning while the younger guys would do two laps. Once out on the loop, there would be numerous riders, of both age groups, circling.
Still, the 15-16 men didn’t come by. The first indication of a problem was around that time a fire truck from Seven Springs went screaming down the hill. Soon a number of ambulances and police cars raced down the hill, just out of sight of our vantage point. We started to hear bits and pieces coming from race radio and knew something was bad. Later we saw two life-flight helicopters circling above.
There was bad news. There was a crash at the bottom of the hill. More than three dozen cyclists were injured. The 17-18 race went on but the 15-16 race was held for a couple of hours.
The following article appeared on the KDKA website:
Dozens Hurt In Seven Springs Cycling Accident
(KDKA) SEVEN SPRINGS
Two people were flown to the hospital and dozens of others were hurt after an accident at a biking event in Somerset County. “It’s unusual to have a wreck but when you do it usually involves a lot of riders,” Steve Gottlieb, a cyclist from Alexandria, Va., said. Witnesses say two cyclists bumped into each other causing a chain reaction collision, involving approximately 37 participants. “As soon as I hit them I flipped over the handle bars and landed on top of my head,” Logan Von Bokel said. “I got some road rash on my arms, but most of the pain right now is in my back and my neck.” Emergency officials say two people were flown from the scene with serious, but non life-threatening injuries. USA Cycling declined comment accept to say there was an accident. Von Bokel says he plans to heal and ride again. “Crashing is always a possibilty in bike racing – it’s just something you have to learn to accept,” he said. (© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Anxious parents soon came out the road and wanted to drive down to the crash site. We couldn’t allow the cars on the course but some walked the half-mile down to the crash. Later, a Seven Springs bus went down to bring back riders with minor injuries. Some came walking back on their own. Some had been attended to, evidenced by the bandages on their bodies. I met a couple of riders coming back. One carried two pieces of his bike. He actually thought it was pretty cool that his bike had snapped in half.
The leaders of the race had gone through and were unaware there had been a crash in the main field. The winner of the day was Ben King, of Charlottesville, Va., who simply destroyed the competition. His winning time was 2:23.05 and the next three finishers, Nick Bax, Cheyne Hoag, and Danny Summerhill, were all 7:41 behind. Coming in the 18-20 positions at 8:47 were Jose Blanco, Taylor Phinney, and Ryan Zupko.
Once the riders were safely off the course, I was able to ride a little on the course. I rode out to Trent and then on the way back met up with three women from Team Cheerwine. I chatted for a while with Chrissy Ruiter (pictured left) from Bend, Oregon. All the women seemed very nice.
On the rollers, I was keeping up fine but don’t know if I could have stayed with them all the way up the three-mile climb. But then I clunked a gear shift and it about threw me off the bike. The chain caught and just stopped. I was still pedaling. They passed on by and I circled back down the hill to shift. By then I lost 100 meters on them and never regained it. But we were soon at the top of the Seven Springs hill.
In the afternoon the 17-18 year-old women got rolling I was surprised when only 14 crested the first climb. I thought that was a breakaway but was more surprised to learn that was the group. Well, 15 of them. The winner on the day was Lauren Shirock at 2:21.22 (two loops). Sinead Miller was second at 2:00. The Mens’ 15-16 winner (also two loops) was Nathan Brown coming in at 2:03.07. The Women’s 15-16 winner was Coryn Rivera.
This was a complete screw-up by the volunteer coordinator at Seven Springs. But in the end, I made my own assignment and it was one of the better ones. And I got a t-shirt.
