Not the Ending I was Looking For
So yeah. Tonight wasn’t going that well. I had moved up at on point, and I felt the effort from that for the next lap. It looked like I was getting dropped but then the pack slowed down. I figured, one good burst of effort and I’ll be back in contact. Okay, let’s do this. So I did. Unfortunately right as I was really getting back to everybody I went around a turn, stood up to sprint out of it and…
CLACK
Down I go, sliding across the pavement. I stopped decently fast, could feel that nothing was broken and hopped up. Luckily, I had been at the back of the pack so I didn’t take anybody else down with me.
I clipped a pedal. Ugh. My only consolation was that I did it because I wasn’t letting myself give up and just get dropped. Unfortunately I was also somewhat cooked, so I wasn’t being as careful as I should have been.
Don’t worry though, the bike is fine. Well, I think. I think the back wheel got knocked out of true. The handle bar tape is toast, but I needed to replace that anyway. Honestly, the bike needed a trip to Austinbikes for a once over/tune up, so now it’s definitely going.
Oh, and I’m okay. I have some raspberries on my right thigh, and my right elbow has two nice brushburns. The sting is starting to go down, and I have some tegaderm on the two ones on my elbow, as they are the worst. Sleeping tonight may be a little tricky, and I showering was a tad unpleasant.
So my streak of getting caught up in wrecks and not going down has come to an end. Better tonight by myself then in a few weeks at the Tour of Austin in the middle of the pack. Unfortunately crashing in bike racing is a “when” not an “if” issue, so I’m sure it won’t be the last.
Well, this sort of changes my weekend riding plans. I need to take the bike in and get it fixed up. I’m hoping that I (and the bike) will be ready to go on a nice long ride on Sunday, but obviously until I get the bike working I’m sort of sidelined.
Oh well, road rash heals quickly, so no biggy.
Lucky
Last night at the driveway it was a small group for the cat 4/5 race. With all the rain we had received that afternoon, I wasn’t surprised by this. It wasn’t raining at the track, however, so I was expecting a good race.
After the first lap my brain was convinced that the track (even though there was standing water) was as grippy as ever. With the small group things stayed pretty calm. I just hung out at the back (not necessarily intentionally) and kept up with the pace with no problem. I felt really good. Even though I had to get out of the saddle every so often to keep attached after a turn or something, my heart rate was staying down in a very manageable level.
The lap cards came out, and I figured this was going to be a good finish. I saw the 3 to go card, and decided I would take the next 3 laps to try to move up and get towards the front. We go through the finish, go into the turn, and I see it plain as day in front of me. A guy dives into the corner, and then he loses his grip. He goes down, starts sliding. The guy next to him goes down, starts sliding. I’m headed right towards both of them. I hit my brakes… my rear wheel locks up. I release the brakes, catch my grip, and accept the fact that I am about to t-bone one of the guy’s hamstring. I get my feet out of the pedals, and I put my heels down, and slam right into the guys leg, bounce around, but I stay up.
I consider myself lucky. I have no idea how I didn’t end up on the ground. I go to click back in and realize that I have of course dropped my chain. My race is done.
All I got from the incident was a few cuts from my chain ring on my calf, so I definitely feel lucky. Lessons learned:
- STOP RIDING IN THE BACK, DUMMY!!
- repeat #1
- the pavement at the driveway is super sticky even when wet
- I am getting more confident in turning
- I still need to get better and more confident in turning
- I need to learn to not give up positioning to more aggressive riders so much
All in all, it was good to get out and race.
On the bathroom front, both bathrooms are now fixed and functional. We are currently letting the caulk and grout cure, but tomorrow we should be back in business. Taking a shower in my own bathroom, how novel.
Finally, on the photography front, I did complete JiBW2. While I have not posted the pictures to flickr yet, I did take them. I believe I did miss two days of the month. It definitely seemed harder this year. But it was interesting nonetheless.
Happy weekend!
A good race gone bad
I threw out a tweet last night about this, but I wanted to break it down in more detail. I don’t know why, call it cathartic.
The course last night at the Driveway was very interesting. It had you going up the corkscrew, and then quickly afterwards taking a sharp, over-90-degree turn to the right. At the top of the corkscrew you turn to the left, so ideally you want to be on the inside of the turn at the top of the hill so that you can have the nicer line going into the sharp turn.
So while I felt great, even up and over the corkscrew, I let myself slip back in the group beyond halfway. I was maintaining that position with no problem. I just wasn’t working to get any closer to the front. Bad mistake.
Every time we went over the corkscrew I would line up early on the left side of the road. And every time I had to pull some maneuver to not get pushed off the course by some jackhole who decided he wanted to be where I was because he hadn’t thought fare enough ahead entering the corkscrew.
Then we were going up the hill, and I am looking ahead of me and see this group of people, and they all seem to be trying to get into one spot. I think to myself, those people aren’t all going to fit.
CRACK CRACK BAHM SCRRAAPE
Yep, they didn’t fit. The pile of bodies and bikes continued to grow to the right. I squeeze my brakes enough to keep me from plowing into it. My job is to protect my front wheel. On that subject, my front wheel does role over or get hit by something on the ground, but I stay up no problem, though I come to basically a complete stop. The people further back all zoom past me.
Here is my fatal mistake. I didn’t instantly jump up out of the saddle and kill it. I got rolling and waited until we got around the two sharp corners and then started back down the hill to get on top of it. I chased like mad for a lap, slowly making ground, but when we came back up the corkscrew my legs popped for just a few seconds.
I kept riding with an AT&T guy for several laps just getting some workout in. With a few laps left a side stitch cropped up. I am not sure why. I’m assuming the humidity had me sweating more than I thought, and that I didn’t hydrate enough pre-race. Who knows? I was able to fight it for a lap, but it got worse with like a couple laps left in the race I pulled out and spent some time spinning around the general area to cool down and get the stitch to go away.
So very frustrating. I mean, I really felt good. I felt comfortable in the pack, I didn’t feel nervous. I was able to keep up with the accelerations and never feel overexerted. My two mistakes were not staying near the front enough and not reacting fast enough after the crash to get back on. Oh well, live and learn. I was excited that I reacted fast enough to the crash itself to not go down.
I am feeling great in my training, and the results are starting to show up in the race. I think this is the strongest I have ever felt. I am looking forward to the race next week before our cruise. I am hoping to actually come out of that with a solid finish.
Quick discussion of the paper. This paper, being about my dissertation work, is at times bringing me back to a weird place in my life. Finishing my dissertation wasn’t the happiest time ever. This paper, unfortunately, has occasionally brought back some weird ghosts of that time. I will be very glad to ship it out next Friday. That being said, cycling has been helping to keep me sane. Going out and riding my bike has helped me to focus and to let out some of the anxiety and frustration. While I have traded time working for riding, I find in the long run I have been more productive and more sane.
