Time to kill...

If you have some you should read this and this. Myerson's personal account of the punch, that sounds like the first hand account Crusty gave after seeing the incident, and an account of the Sachs bike stomping incident from Nathaniel Ward who saw the whole thing.

Myerson...

" Bike racing is just a stupid little game we play as a way to make our lives mean more than the drudgery of day-to-day existence. Our lives really aren’t that hard, just boring. Work, shopping, eating, cleaning – those things are tedious and monotonous and unfulfilling for most of us. We need our lives to be difficult for them to have meaning, and bike racing, like most games or sports, is a way to set up an artificial, safe, inconsequential construct that lets us experience a struggle that feels real, feels meaningful and emotional, but has no actual consequences. No actual consequences, that is, until one person punches another over something that happens in the game."

Nathaniel Ward...

"On heckling: stop it. This seems to be the issue of the season. I have read about it on several blogs, and had many conversations with friends. More than once I have heard people speculate that, like the surge in interest in "Alternative" music after Nirvana's "Nevermind" came out, and the jocks and kids just looking for a fight found out about mosh pits, and the genuinely other-than-mainstream music scene began it's true death roll, 'cross might just crush itself under its own success and popularity.

But really, let's keep this simple up front: saying mean stuff isn't nice."

For sure these are two of my favorite posts of the year.

I just missed seeing the punch, but two very reliable friends saw it and their accounts mirror Myerson's recount of what happened, and I did see part of the heckler/Page's brother-in-law incident after the bike mauling occurred and they were heading back to the bike wash area and another pushing/shouting match broke out. But so many people on the forums and blogs wrote about what they heard had happened or someone told them about that the both incidents quickly became ridiculous and over exposed. So I am really glad that both of these guys clearly took some time to compose their thoughts and put up two very thought provoking posts that put the issues to rest for me, at least until Sam Smith releases the video he has of the bike mauling.

Until then we can all get back to eating a little too much and planning some base miles...