Result: DNF (Crash at Start)
Starting Row: 2nd
Call Up: 14th
I was super excited about this race, especially given the amazing call up that I had. I was called 14th, which landed me in the middle of the second row. However, I got taken out in the first 10 seconds of the race. I had the tiniest slip of the pedal, I got clipped on the second pedal stroke easily, which allowed another racer to veer into my lane and take me out; his hip checked my handlebars. I might have been able to continue, but the impact exacerbated an issue I already had with my front tire (more below), so I was forced to withdraw.
Overall, the damage is pretty minimal and the onsite mechanic from velofix.com was amazing. He did a once over on my bike and straightened my rear disc as well as tightened my headset. My sunglasses were also snapped in half. Beyond the minor damage to my equipment, I’ve got a good size bruise on my hip and some road rash on my right calf, but I think everything is OK. I had my camera, but I messed up the recording, so I don’t have footage of the crash.
The only mitigating factor of this race is that I already had an issue with my front tire that I discovered as I lined up. I was actually losing air due to some debris lodged between the tire bead and rim, so I’m not 100% sure I was going to be able to finish the race anyway. Despite the drawbacks, I think I’m going to try and scrap some cash together for next season and get a set of alloy tubular rims. I’ve only had a couple of issues running tubeless, but each time it’s a massive headache. I only get to race so many times a year and even giving up one or two to something silly is more than I want to deal with.
On the up side, a very minor upside, since this course had minimal preview time, I was forced to warm up on the trainer and I tried something new. I had read a while back about team Sky’s warm up protocol they use for basically any kind of race (prologue all the way to road races) and it seemed to be pretty effective. While I obviously didn’t get to test my legs much, I rolled up to the start feeling really good. I’m going to try the same thing tomorrow and see how I feel. As an added bonus, it’s only 20 minutes long!
Oh well, time to go by some new shades and prep my gear for tomorrow’s race. Hopefully I don’t suffer the same fate!
Good:
- Tried the Sky warmup and it had me feeling good
Bad:
- Didn’t actually race
- Minor pedal slip made the other guy’s sketchy move possible