at the feed zone earlier that day. We were
going through this feed zone in the valley,
and we’re riding at around 25 mph. I had
both hands in my back pockets, and I was
adjusting my food and getting ready to put
an extra bottle in my pocket. At that point,
I hit a pothole, and the pothole took me
straight to the sidewalk. I was still trying
to get my hands out of my pockets when I
slammed into a woman who was walking
on the sidewalk with her husband. I hit this
woman flat out and knocked her down. I got
up from the crash, and I see this woman who
is probably 80 years old, with wide open eyes,
just shocked. She has no clue what happened
to her. She’s sitting there on her back looking
straight up, and it’s like she’s frozen in time.
I’m asking her if she’s OK. ‘Oh my god, are
you OK?’ She never responded.
I was world champion at the time. I was
wearing my world champion’s jersey,
standing over this woman with no idea what
to do, when her husband looks at me and
says, ‘Greg, Greg, she’s going to be fine. Go
on, get on your bike. She’ll be fine.’
I’m standing there worried about this
woman, and her husband tells me, ‘Go on,
she’s fine!’ She’s clearly knocked out cold. I
ask, ‘Are you sure?’ and that’s when I realized
that my middle finger was dislocated and
pulled to the side. I tried to get everything
together, and I’m like, ‘Holy shit.’ I had to
put my right hand on my middle finger, yank
it outward, and then put it back into place. I
got on my bike again, and man, I’ll tell you,
adrenaline is a powerful natural drug. It took
me a couple of kilometers to catch back up.
I never really thought about my finger
again until I was at the top of the climb
going into the very final turn to the finish
line of Alpe d’Huez ready to sprint for the
win. I wanted to win that stage. I came into
the turn a bit too fast, but that’s not a bad
thing. I tried to soft brake, just to control
my speed a little bit, but when I went to hit
my front brake, my finger wasn’t working.
So I compensated too much on my rear
brake, grabbed it way harder than I should
have, locked it up, slid around the turn,
lost all of my momentum, and got second
place to Bugno. I won that Tour, but it was
my last good ride on Alpe d’Huez. ]p[
