crash!

No, this is not a post about the recently crowned "best picture of the year". Instead, much for painfully, it's about my bike race on Sunday. Nothing quite like a good crash to begin the new season. Due to luck, conservative riding, and I'd like to think skillful riding, I've avoided racing crashes entirely since my partial return to the sport a few years ago. But that string came to a rude end yesterday morning on Westchester Parkway overlooking the north runways of LAX. Fortunately, the damage to my bike, my clothes, and most importantly, my body were minor. I actually rode home from the bike race! Some 24 hours later, though, I'm still upset about the incident--both at myself and my fellow crash victims. This particular race is run on a flat, boring 4-mile circuit where the wind and lack of hills almost guarantees a big group finish. Since this was my first race of the year, and I really only wanted to test my legs and refind that elusive racing rhythm--combined with the fact that I'm just not very good, especially in a sprint--I had zero ambition for a high placing. All I wanted to do was finish safely with the group and perhaps help out a teammate or two along the way. Everything went to plan for almost the entire race, but on the last lap, with an antsy pack still chaotically bunched together, it became clear that finish was going to be hairy. Rather than an agressive move, I was trying to stay safe and look for any openings that presented themselves. One such opening kind of emerged on the back straight, and I was able to move up to the middle of the pack rounding the final U-turn. Safely through that, I again cautiously looked for openings, neither sitting up nor truly gearing up a sprint. The pack was spread wide across all three lanes, from curb to curb. Guys were bunching up dangerously on both sides, so I moved to the middle and found a nice cushion of open space. Then the carnage began. A big crash on the left, and I happily pedalled away from perhaps the worst sound anyone will ever hear short of a true battlefield: aluminum, carbon, lycra, flesh, and pavement, all coming together in a very unsymphonic way. Shortly thereafter, I saw a teammate in my peripheral vision shoved into and over the curb on the right and take a very nasty tumble. With much of the field caught up in the mess or simply choosing to pull up, and no teammates nearby to assist, I decided to continue to ride hard but safely to the finish to perhaps grab a top-20 placing, which by my unambitious standards would be pretty good. No more than 150 meters from the line, though, my "safe" ride came to end. Maybe 5 or 10 meters in front of me, a guy goes down suddenly and hard. I didn't see what happened, but he must have been bumped and just lost control. I only had a split second to react--one of those slow-motion split seconds that you only experience in a time of danger; there was nowhere to go the right, and I sensed (perhaps wrongly) that there was nowhere on the left. Instead, I grabbed the brakes, scrubbed off some speed, and instinctively began my tuck as I plowed into the fallen rider. Then it's just another extended slow-motion moment in my head that is strangely blank and peaceful--no sound, no sight, and despite slamming into the ground, no feeling either--until sitting on the pavement, a couple of feet from my fallen bicycle and at least one other rider also taken down by the same guy, or perhaps by me, reality began to sank in all too quickly. After a brief check of my body (thankfully nothing broken or truly bleeding) and then my bike--only minor damage--anger set in and I start cussing in a brief angry rage that few who know me would ever think was possible. I mean: 150 frickin' meters from the finish, and we're "racing" for at best 20th place. And you let a little bump take you down?! Then again, what was I thinking? While not racing hard, I certainly could have sat up and truly ridden in safely. Here's the really stupid part: I can't wait to race again. Maybe not next week, or even the week after. But not too much later than that, I know I'll be itchin' to go--hopefully a little wiser for the experience.