As Sam Elliott once said in The Big Lebowski, “sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes…well, it eats you.” Today, I got eaten.
The course was a technical, mile-long, 8-corner course…a rough “figure 8” where the top half of the “8” stretched out for two long blocks, and the bottom half was a small square around a park. The weather was sunny and warm with a pretty stiff breeze going south for those long blocks after Turn 2.
Kev, Chris and I rolled to the line with about 40 other riders to do battle for 22 laps. Even after my hard effort yesterday, I felt good during my warm-up and was confident that I could post a good result today. However, it became clear after the start that today was going to be a struggle. The field almost instantly strung out, and the pace was hot…close to 30 mph. I was pretty far back in the pack, and was subject to the whiplash braking and accelerating through all eight of those turns.
The worst part for me was the acceleration out of Turn 8 and onto the long Start/Finish straightaway. The strung-out riders at the front could take that turn at full speed and mercilessly hit the gas, while we bunched-up riders at the back lost a lot of momentum in the turn and had to accelerate extra hard to maintain contact with the front riders. A few laps in and my legs were already screaming on that particular segment. I fought to maintain position, and moved up if I could. I did my best to hang onto Chris’s wheel, as he appeared to be riding strongly.
About 7 laps in and I was already starting that fatalistic “am I gonna be able to finish this thing” kind of thinking. Chris asked how I was doing, and I let him know that coming out of Turn 8 was killing me. He advised that I take the turn in a lower gear, spin through it, and then shift to a higher gear after we're already out of the turn, rather than pushing the high gear through the turn. I take this advice to heart for the next few laps.
I recall coming around to the Start/Finish and seeing that there were 12 laps to go. I think to myself “OK, almost halfway there, you can do this…” And then came Turn 8.
We were strung out, so I didn’t have to brake because of anyone in front of me braking. I remember pedaling through the turn to maintain as much momentum as possible. I was upright one moment...and then the next moment I was sliding across the pavement on my left hip and elbow. I saw Chris hitting the pavement in front of me. I remember apologizing to Chris for taking him down, as I was still sliding across the pavement. And, sure, there was probably some profanity in there, as well. I also remember mentally bracing for the impact of other riders hitting me, but fortunately that didn’t happen…I had slid out far enough to the right that anyone behind me could steer to the left and avoid running into me.
Fortunately, Chris only sustained some road rash on his elbow, and no damage to his bike. He was able to make it over to neutral support and get back in the race, where he finished with the field. As for me, my day was done.
Other than my front wheel getting popped off during the crash, and having both of my brake levers turned inward into the bars and getting scratched up, there was no real damage to my bike, either. My body…that is another story. The emergency crew was on me within seconds, checking me out and making sure that I wasn’t seriously injured. I was a bit shaky (that adrenaline was still pumping like mad!), but was pretty sure that my injuries were merely superficial.
I walked over to the support truck, where two EMTs checked me out, cleaned my wounds, and bandaged me up. I sustained some good road rash on my left elbow, the outside of my left knee, almost all the way down my left shin, my left hip, and some “road burn” behind my right knee. I count myself very lucky that there was nothing broken, nothing sprained, and that no stitches were needed anywhere. My shoulder is a little sore right now, and once the Advil wears off I’m sure I’ll be hurting elsewhere, too.
So, the million dollar question was “how did it happen?” It occurred so quickly that I couldn’t tell whether I had been bumped by another rider, or whether I went in so fast that my wheels just went out from underneath me. Turns out, it was neither…in the turn was a rough bit of pavement that formed a “lip.” I hit that undulation in just the right spot, which bounced my wheel as I was leaning into the turn at about a 30-40 degree angle, and thus ended my day.
The worst part (other than having crashed my own teammate) was finding out that there had already been several crashes in that exact same spot. In fact, Kev and I were speaking with a police officer afterward and she stated that she had pointed out that very spot to the race organizers and requested that they paint it with bright orange caution paint. The painting of such spots is de rigeur for our sport, so that we can quickly identify problem areas and stay away from them. However, when she pointed this out to them, they pooh-poohed it, saying “oh, that won’t be a problem!”
So now I begin the process of healing. As the Black Night said in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “it’s just a flesh wound...’tis but a scratch.” I’m really wishing now that I hadn’t pre-registered to race tomorrow. We’ll see how I’m feeling, and how the weather holds out. Storms are predicted, so if I wake up and it is raining, I’m just going to go back to sleep and eat the entry fee.
STATS: I have none, because my Garmin apparently crapped out in the crash. All I know is that I got in about 11 miles of racing, and that we were often going at close to 30 mph. I would be curious to know what my heart rate was doing, but c’est la vie…
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