Eight weeks later, Ross saw Zwizanski . . . at another bike race. Zwizanski spent 4 days in the hospital, took a month off, spent a month training and got back in the saddle. He was out of shape, and, oddly, disappointed.
Zwizanski's crash in Trenton meant he missed his first chance at racing up the Manayunk Wall, where Zwizanski had fallen in love with the sport a decade before as a spectator, in high school.
Scott Zwizanski might ride a bike, but he's as Philly as labor unions and parking tickets.
Next month, Zwizanski, the 33-year son of school teachers and a West Chester native, will ride in the TD Bank Philadelphia International Cycling Championship, this time for UnitedHealthcare. It is his sixth team in 8 years as a late-blooming pro.
He can't wait.
"Every time I go up the Wall, someone's yelling my name," said Zwizanski, whose name annually is graffitied onto the side of Lemon Hill Mansion, which is visible along the race route in Fairmount Park. "Everybody's going crazy. You can't even hear yourself breathing."
When Zwizanski finally got the chance to run the Philly race, in 2005, he didn't finish. That was typical of the abysmal season he was having, a season full of setbacks and trepidation, all traced to the crash in Trenton the year before.
"The next year, he didn't have it," said his father, Myron. "He told me he wasn't comfortable in tight spots."
Cycling, of course, is all about tight spots. Zwizanski was racing so poorly in 2005 that his team didn't want him to race in Trenton again. He begged his bosses to let him; he needed the therapy. When he arrived at the race, his fears took over.
"It was probably the hardest thing in my life," Zwizanski said. "I almost died there."
