Thom wrote:
It's probably not as dangerous as it's made out to be. 3 crashes in a p,1,2 race seems way out of the ordinary. If you race regularly though, you will go down at some point. I've been doing a weekly race for almost 20 years and I've crashed 3 times. One of those crashes involved being knocked out for a few minutes and a minor concussion. It's great fun but the risks are real.
x2. I've had about the same experience. ~20 years and hundreds of starts from Cat 5 to P12. I went down twice in Cat 5, once breaking my steerer, but walking away from both. I crashed once in P12, sliding out in the rain, walked away. Never so much as a scratch on my helmet, no broken bones.
I will add that not crashing isn't just dumb luck (though luck certainly factors in). In a crit I spend nearly 100% of the time exactly where I want to be in the field (until crossing the finish line, when I'm usually not exactly where I want to be). I'm always riding behind guys I want to be around, and almost always in the top 15. I'm always aware of my escape routes if something happens in front of me. Crit racing involves making hundreds of little decisions every minute. If you're just going along for the ride mid-pack and not thinking about much, you're probably not minimizing your crash risk.