Jun 02 2009
Pound of flesh redux
Monday PIR last night. I don’t do many road races anymore. There’s a number of reasons I guess but it generally boils down to I just like off-road a little more. I think it’s the challenge of seeing what I can do by myself. My results are largely dependent on my fitness and ability to ride the terrain, unlike road which does require fitness but frequently takes team tactics, and a small amount of luck. So late last year, I decided to upgrade one of my bikes and it was a no-brainer to go with a new MTB.
One of the other primary reasons I shy away from road is that I dislike road crashes. You’re usually going fast. The ground is ridiculously hard and unforgiving. And it seems like there’s better than even odds that it won’t even be your fault.
It’s interesting though to see the perspective on crashes in the two (or three) disciplines: MTB, cross, and road. In the first two, it almost seems like an accepted part of the sport. It’s tough to push the envelope in uneven and unstable terrain without going down. It’s almost a given. Yes, you can get hurt. Stitches, contusions, rashes, sprains, broken bones, whatever. But we take our lumps and come back for more.
Without question, road is different. I hate going down. I hate seeing anyone go down. I don’t even like hearing about it because odds are it ended badly.
So 11 laps into a 14 lap race, I found myself in the front after making a very poor choice to not attack on the tail end of a few other unsuccessful ones by other riders. I surged up to the front with the energy but lost confidence at the last second. With a ’shit or get off the pot’ choice, I busted out the Sunday crossword puzzle and stayed put. We/I rounded corner 11 where we started getting waved down. It looked like 3 or 4 women were down right outside of the corner.
With 3 laps to go, we neutralled for the lap. By the look of it, I wasn’t optimistic they’d be up any time soon, but at best we’d have a 2 lap sprint to the finish. Coming around the same spot again, we heard the ambulance in the distance and knew we were done for the night. One woman from Ironclad, Kristin, was still down.
Rolling back in to the pit, one guy in our field seemed a little bitchy that we couldn’t keep racing. I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into it. Then again, maybe not. I was a little tired and, admittedly, a little frustrated at the race being cut short. But I also found myself slightly angry that someone got hurt doing something that is supposed to be fun. So hearing some dickhole complain about not getting his 13 bucks worth didn’t help.
Relatively quietly, all of us got our shit and went home.
Ironclad has an update here. Good luck to her and her family. I hope she recovers soon.
Heading out for a lunch ride to take out some frustration on my bike. It’s overcast and about 65 out. I’m no weatherman but it doesn’t look like 79 and mostly sunny like the forecast said.