If you can ride away from a bicycle accident, there's not much to complain about--your body and your machine are still functioning--so what if it hurts? As my dad, and many seasoned cyclists, like to say, "There are only two kinds of people who ride bikes: those who have crashed, and those who will crash." Though I've taken plenty of spills, Saturday was the first time I was involved in a major wipe-out in a race.
The tears that welled up when I realized I shouldn't sprint back up to the pack with blood pouring from my elbow were not from pain, but frustration. Until a shaky rider went down, 22 miles into the 32-mile course, and took half a dozen of us out, I was having the best road race of my life. I felt strong riding near the front, even taking some pulls. I was getting bored enough to consider attacking. I was working on riding safely but more agressively. I thought I might finish in the money, and I would feel good about how I'd raced regardless of how I finished. Bummer! I guess it's easy to claim you were going to finish well when you didn't get to finish. (p.s. I don't blame whoever went down first, it sucks for her too! and she was probably new)
I went home and rode for two hours to make up for not getting a full race.
While crashing is a risk I accept as part of racing, I'm upset about the negligent and unsafe organization of the women's race by the promoter. I'm sending a letter of complaint (as a know many of the other participants are), and I'll post a copy of it here soon.
After a few days of utter exhaustion, recovering from a long week and the soreness of crashing, I'll be back on my riding legs today at the training race. I still hope to be in relatively good form for the Rhode Island races this weekend--but we'll see.
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that sucks! I can't beleive I didn't even know about the race until it was too late. shucks.
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