Tommy Nankervis

Form Wreckers

// May 8th, 2009 // A Day Down Under

Hey there readers. I hope you are still reading my Missing Saddle page, and enjoying the new look. I must give a huge thanks to Curtis, the Missing Saddle front man, who had to re-do the whole site after it had been hacked, and still was able to get my new look page up and running. I am also working on updating my other pages in the coming days, so there should be a new list of links, new photos on the photos page, and also might update my biography page too. Pretty exciting stuff going on over here!

The not-so-exciting stuff invloved a pretty high-speed crash last Friday. Luckily, or unluckily, my SRM computer, which broke in the crash, was able to tell me my last recorded speed; 55.5km/h!

So do you see these things below?:

Well in the race on Friday, in the Mei Prijs – Ereprijs Victor De Bruyne (or Hoboken) race, I didn’t see them. Not these exact ones, but the ones that were on the course in the race. They have them in every race we do, and we refer to them as “form-f—ers” or “form-wreckers”, for obvious reasons! The thing is, in every race, and this one for the most part too, there is a person standing there in a fluro jacket, waving a fluro flag, blowing constantly into a whistle. For some reason, the one that I hit had no-one there, and I was just following the wheels in the bunch, and the other guys must have seen it and swerved, and I went straight into it, no brakes, no warning, just bang.
Most crashes you know what is about to happen, but this one got me by surprise. There were four in a row, and I either landed on the fourth one, or whatever, I don’t know, but a few other riders landed on top of me. One of them was my team mate and room mate, Mitch. He ended up worse off than me, having to go to hospital with a dislocated or separated shoulder, and get stitches in the elbow.
I smashed my hlemet to bits, and must have landed on the back of my head, and shoulders.


I had a splitting headache for the next two days, so I am very glad I was wearing such a good helmet!

Here are a few other styles of “form-wreckers”. They are everywhere, and if you hit them, they take all of your form away. I think I have it back already, as my back is starting to feel better, where Mitch “T-boned” me, right in the asthma puffer! I am still sore, with skin off, but was lucky enough to walk away, and I was able to race the next day too. Very lucky really!
Check out the various types:

As you can see, mostly they just appear in the road where we ride/race.


These ones are hard to see too, as they sit so low, and there so many of this type that you cant expect to have a person stading at all of these to warn the riders.

In other news, our team mate Wade Wolfenbarger had a serious crash at Ronde van Overijssel in The Netherlands on Saturday. He hit the ground head first, and was airlifted out and put in an induced coma. The good news is he is ok now, and while he has a fractured cheek-bone, he is back in a Belgian hospital, and we were able to visit him last night. He is in good spirits, and hopefully will be out of hospital shortly.

So there is a bit of a crash update. Everything is going well here, and I will try and get another update out shortly. The Giro d’Italia starts tomorrow, so best of luck to all the riders, particularly my friends racing on Cervelo Test team; Jezza Hunt, Teddy King, and Simon Gerrans. I hope these guys do some serious arse kicking all week/month!

Tasmania has the cleanest air in the inhabited world.