David Zabriskie, Giro d'Italia team time trial For me there’s a particular point in our medical team’s management of a serious injury situation when I feel the most relief. That’s when the involved rider gets on a plane and heads home. Early this morning our Team Physiologist Allen Lim took Dave Z to a small nearby airport and got him headed to LA to join his pregnant, soon-to-deliver wife Randi.

Allen, Team Chiropractor Kevin Reichlin, and I collaborated to make that moment possible, and I’m both relieved and proud of how we managed the situation. Dave had a serious injury and was never for a moment out of the capable hands of one of us or, later on, those of our amazing soigneurs. And now he’s headed home to the ones who care about him the most. Yeah and wheeew!

Julian Dean, Giro d'Italia stage 2 The rest of the crew are a bit banged up and bruised, but hanging in there with good morale. Julian (left post crash) and Pat in particular have miscellaneous routine crash-related injuries, but are doing fine. A couple of others have minor wear-and-tear issues we’re looking after. However after yesterday’s sketchy racing and record-setting transfer (well-chronicled below by David M and Pat), we can probably survive anything the Giro decides to throw at us.

So much of succeeding over here has to do with temperament… specifically the ability to just take situations as they come and to simply accept them for what they are. It’s a character trait that I think everyone in our Giro entourage has and it makes all the difference.