I’ll spare the whole race report and keep it short. Was racing a crit yesterday and decided to play domestique for a buddy trying to get upgrade points. Another team mate and I launched attack after attack - this was kind of fun. On the last lap I dropped back a little - fried from the attacks, but got a second wind (or maybe tenth wind by that time), so thought what the heck - why not get try to get back in it. I positioned up pretty quickly on the outside vs. inside as that appeared safer on the earlier laps. Well on the last corner two guys both stacked right in front of me - one crossed the others’ wheel after going too wide on the corner and not holding his line. The one guy hit so fast it was incredible and was totally laid out in front of me. At 25+ you don’t have a lot of time so I had to run over the guy – I’m not sure I even could have swerved and that was probably a worse option (sidewalk on left and other riders on the right). I was not able to react quick enough to bunny hop, hit the guy in the stomach or ribs and went from 25 to 0. Over the bars and onto the pavement – sort of like an E ticket ride at Disneyland. Fortunately, those ole mtb days of crashing and rolling helped out. As I was in the air the only thought that came to mind was the broken collar bone about to happen. I somehow managed to tuck my head, rolled and ended up off my bike and on my butt almost sitting up. I was expecting some major damage and found myself ok - well a little road rash on my calf and shin and some scrapes on my back, but no broken bones! Wow - I absolutely cannot believe how lucky that was and am counting my blessing big time.
but more importantly: is your bike ok?
glad you’re alright.
What happened to the other guy? (the guy you ran over)
monk your such a softie.
The bike is OK!!!
The other guy was pretty beat up - he had road rash everywhere.
The race also had two other crashes at the end. One guy bumped into by buddie’s wheel who had already sat up and caused a four person crash.
Another guy went into the sprint with his head down trying for something like 30th place. He ended up stacking four or five guys and was taken out on a stretcher with a busted collar bone.
Makes me wonder how much I really want to do crits.
There was a 5+ crash in my crit tonight. Another reason to ride towards the front!
Congrats on escaping something more serious. There’s a lot to be said of people that crash properly…
monk your such a softie.
Trolling for clients.
Ahhh, the memories.
I’ve been lucky and not so lucky in some of those crashes. Actually, the “ass over teakettle” usually results in fewer injuries (if you stay tucked and keep your hands in) than the side sliding “cheese grater” maneuver. When you go over the side your shoulder, elbow, wrist hits first and then you get snappage. Ow.
Glad to hear you’re up and the bike is cool. My crit bike was a battleship steel Trek with a mishmash of cheap parts including an old BarCon for the back six. Oh the scars (the gals like em though).
Keep at it until you get tired of picking scabs and replacing parts.
Cheers.
I hate crits and will only do them if they are part of a stage race and I am working for my teammates, otherwise, I skip the carnage.
My crit bike was a battleship steel Trek with a mishmash of cheap parts including an old BarCon for the back six. Oh the scars (the gals like em though). Yeah I should have kept the ole steel Bianchi for crits - it just sat there collecting dust and cobwebs so I sold it to a newbie
I wasn’t, same thing happend to me in 94 and I got a lucky collarbone break, bike was fine. I bruised my shoulder and back so bad I couldn’t get up and they had to call an ambulance, I almost passed out several times. Next day I go to work and run out of gas, my sister in law sees me walking down the highway and thought I was just out for a walk.
Glad you’re not too bad off. I had to skip the crit but heard about the problems. Usually when it’s going slow like that I just attack just to increase the speed. When it’s slow too many people are in contention for it to be safe.
Not exactly relevant to the post…but figure folks might be interested in speeds of a crit.
Miles 0-9ish are warm-up…the 9 lap crit is pretty obvious, along with the sprint finish.
Thanks.
You must be thinking of the masters 4/5 which I did hear was slow - I raced senior 4/5 which I heard was a little faster than the masters 123. I think they may have had rain.
For Smitty - no download to show, but my average HR including 15 minutes after the race was 164 (max is 193) so I would guess avg for the race only was high 170s.