Bike Races and Bike Crashes

Bad News First, because it really put a damper on the whole race day for me.

In my first race, I heard the unmistakable metal on asphalt sound of someone crashing behind me. It does happen, and the race goes on. However, it turned out to be bad enough that they called an ambulance and stopped the race early.

I've seen crashes before, but in general, it happened to people I didn't know well, or the crashes weren't too bad, and the people walked away afterwards. It's not like I knew Vanessa that well. I had raced with her once previously. At the starting line yesterday though, she called me out to mention she remembered me from the Half Acre Crits, and that I had beaten her. She said it with a smile that acknowledged my win without negative bitterness and promised challenging and friendly competition in the ensuing race.

Another Tati teammate, Janna, was right behind Vanessa before she crashed. Janna saw Vanessa's front wheel rotate far beyond what it should have, Vanessa went down, and someone right behind Vanessa rode over her. Apparently she had a seizure for a few minutes, with no history of seizures, but then she did try to get up. Someone on her team was either an EMT or a medic, and made her stay lying down until the ambulance came. They stopped the race early to let the ambulance through, and the last I saw, they were opening up the ambulance's back. I really hope she's doing ok.

Anyways. Liz got second in our first race (cat 5/4 race) after staying in a race-long breakaway with Cathy Frampton. I got a slow-leak flat tire which I didn't realize until my back wheel felt oddly shaky on the corners, and I finally borrowed Tim Hermanez's wheel to finish off the race. The race finish was confusing because they stopped it very short, and I don't even know how I fnished.

The second race was cat 3/4 + Masters women, and it turned out to be much more challenging and exciting than the first. The women were clearly more experienced, the pack was dynamic and cohesive and intriguingly didn't break up into smaller ones but rather, chased down all the break aways except the one with 3 laps to go. Anona of Wildcard took off, and I tried to chase her but missed her wheel. The chase group mobilized, but I missed that too after trying to chase solo on the end of the back stretch. A couple of riders caught up to me, said let's chase. I said ok ladies, let's do it. This one woman racer, I don't even remember who anymore, pulled me and Cathy Frampton all through the tail-wind stretch, Cathy Frampton took over on the first half of the windy back stretch, and I just barely made it on to the back of the chase group. I'm not even sure they knew I had made it back. On the last lap, I stayed behind everyone on the windy stretch, took the corner wide, and slingshot past most of them (but never caught the breakaway) to get 5th in the race, 4th in cat 3/4. Now that I think about it, I didn't sprint very intelligently. I probably could have tucked behind someone for a while, but what I ended up doing was madly charge past them in stead, screaming on the top of my lungs, kendo style. Of course. Dumb luck?

The rest of the race, I corner marshalled and ate constantly.

I hope I hear word of Vanessa from Spider Monkey soon.