Dexter Criterium Re-Cap

Ever since Bikeboy got going with his blog, mine seems a bit pointless. No doubt his coverage is way better than mine but I must clarify that my blog is supposed to be about the journey of an over-the-hill, past prime cat 3 bike racer. So, let that serve as prolegomena, (I use this word to throw off some of Bikeboy's fans).

All last week, I had a nagging tension regarding this race. I knew the best of Michigan's best cat 3's would be attending. This meant the race would have a cat 1-2 feel to it. The course would be demanding with a hill that was just waiting for us on every lap. (BTW, hills are my weakness). So, I was not giddy about the race but still confident. I know I can ride with these guys and play a part in the outcome. My sincere hope was that we could get Joey Schaard the win. He is absolutely strong as an ox and a very decent human being. He worked for Rune and I at Frankenmuth when it should have been him taking the win. He is a team guy; the kind of guy you want to see win. So, it was supposed to be Joey's day against the toughest.

Bikeboy covered his race well enough so I don't feel it necessary to comment a whole lot on the junior scene. Suffice to say, he and his posse are really becoming a force to contend with. They work together and become much more lethal than they would be alone. As usual, it was James and Alexey sprinting it out for their age group with Alexey taking Bikeboy by a wheel.

The cat 3 race got underway around two thirty. The course is a bit technical with a 120 degree right hand turn right after the start. From there it rolls uphill very slightly to the base of the only real hill on the course which is not so steep that it slows the field down a whole lot. After climbing the little hill the course takes a right turn and goes back downhill to a series of turns. First, a right hander with a left hander then another right hander back onto the finishing straight. These turns are bunched together and make for tight quarters. The picture on the left is a good shot of the finishing straight.

Below is a shot of the cat 4 field coming around the 120 degree turn.

For the first thirty minutes, no one was able to put in a serious attack. They tried but that hill neutralized them. The first prime lap came up fairly early on and I was not interested in knocking myself out for it. To me, primes make for an interesting tactics but the stuff they usually award are not worth breaking up promising breaks or gassing myself. After a prime sprint, it usually takes me a lap in the group to recover. During this time I am vulnerable to attacks because I can't respond. Because this is true for most, prime sprints become a moment of opportunity when a rider will jump to take advantage of gassed prime sprinters.

Well, on the top of the hill I found myself in second place and because of the all the turns, placing was more or less set from that point until the finishing straight. Not only that but those at the front can hold more speed than those at the back when negotiating all those turns. So, I rolled out onto the finishing straight still in second place and not really interested in sprinting. However, the rider in front of me simply pulled off and no one was sprinting so I decided I would just roll up the speed and see if I could win the silly thing without killing myself. It worked! One rider challenged but too late. I won the prime without getting out of the saddle. This was all good because that rider that sprinted by me gassed himself for nothing! Poor guy.

As I expected the field was fast with all the soon-to-be cat 2 racers putting in what will, in all probability, be one of their last cat 3 races. I was working but I was there and felt as though I would be there at the end. After the thirty minute point, (the race was scheduled for 60 minutes plus 2 laps), things were beginning to sort out. You could sense who was going to fall by the wayside and who would be there. That winnowing effect was proceeding as usual.

It was at this point that I crashed. The strange thing was I didn't crash where I would have expected a crash to take place! It wasn't on the sharp 120 degree turn or on the technical section after the hill. It was on that nice long finishing straight!

The field was tiring a bit and started to bunch up as we approached the 120. I don't have perfect clarity with regards to exactly how I crashed but it appeared to me that a rider was trying to move up on my left and there wasn't a lot of room. We bumped and as he continued to move ahead my front wheel contacted his rear wheel and I went down. It wasn't scary and it didn't hurt at the moment. The funny thing was the bike tracked off the road keeping me from being hit by other riders. I was the only one who went down which was a real blessing. It seemed like I still had wheels in contact with the ground as I made a turn onto a driveway, (avoiding curbs, sign posts and an outdoor cafe that was just on the other side of the driveway), and they were taking me in sort of an arc. I don't know if this was actually the case but it was how it felt. I did see the corner of a building now in my path and I knew I was going to hit it but here is another fortunate thing, I was slowed enough that I hit the wall with my front wheel at probably five miles per hour or less! Oh, and another thing, I crashed ten feet away from one of our junior coaches and a hundred feet away from the ambulance. One could say things weren't going right but I don't think this is a correct view. A whole lot was going right to keep me out of even deeper trouble and even more damage to my already feeble, aging, healing body. The picture to the right shows the corner of the building I hit. If you blow up the pic, you will see the mark my front tire left on it and the blood drops from my finger on the ground to the right.



After coming to a stop, Joe Christy, (the coach I mentioned above), was right there. He wisely told me not to try and get up which was my first instinct. There was no pain at all just an inability to draw a deep breath. I must have landed heavily on my ribs and had the wind knocked out of me. With Joe keeping me seated and encouraging me to just be still I slowly regained my ability to draw a deep breath but then with some pain. After a minute or two Joe told me to sit down on one of the cafe chairs while the paramedics took a look at my wounds. One finger was bleeding a lot and needed to be stopped. They took care of it and checked me for a concussion because some thought I banged my head on my stem as I went down but I had no recollection of this. My helmet didn't have any damage to it so I think this wasn't the case.

I left some of me on the Dexter sidwalk

Paul Alman, one of the race officials, came over and I asked him if I could get back in the race. Jean was there by now and she lamented this. Paul said I could but you could just read the concern on their faces. Then I started to feel the pain in my ribs and in my shoulder and started to become concerned that I might have a real problem especially considering the existing injury to my ribs from the last crash. As I pondered this and thought about what it would take to get back in the race and not get dropped I reasoned that it was pure folly to not just retire. So, I made the decision to bag it and went to the ambulance for clean up and patching.

This turned out to be a good decision because the pain slowly dialed up the rest of the day and even into this morning. I am having pain in my shoulder from the blow I took there. (My jersey was ripped up pretty bad on my left shoulder and I have some road rash there also.) Sneezing today is a real excursion in pain. I feel okay just sitting here typing and breathing is getting better but when I think of how I would feel today had I jumped back into that race I shudder.

What really bummed me out was the recovery that I knew I was facing. This probably means a week or more off the bike. It was disappointing.

I have never crashed like this before. My competitive juices were flowing and I wanted to finish the race and be in contention and now I was sitting in an ambulance while Joey, Craig and Rune were out there without me. I confess I was felt some anger towards the rider who crossed me up but I confessed this to the paramedics, (like they really cared), after which I corrected myself. Whoever did this didn't mean it. It was an accident and whenever any of us line up at one of these races we run the risk of this happening. In that respect it was as much my fault as his.

After patching up I was able to watch our man Joey take that victory that I wanted him to get so much. He got himself into the right placing on top of that hill and came out of the last turn two or three riders back. He jumped as just the right time and no one was able to close on him.

I think this was probably my last chance to race with Joey as the win will probably propel him to the next level. I knew it wouldn't last for long but I am glad for him...he deserves it.

After the race, I heard someone yell my name from across the race course. It was Scott Kroske from the Wolverines. From a distance he was trying to tell me something which I couldn't hear. So, after some riders went by, he ran across the course and told me that he was the rider that I bumped. He was very apologetic and kind in his remarks. He said that if there was anyone he didn't want to have this happen to it was me. Kind words indeed. He said I was moving to the left when we contacted which very well might have been the case. I may have been trying to get some more pavement for the 120 turn coming up. I don't remember this but there is a lot about the fall I don't remember. (Joe Christy told me the field was bunching up a lot and that it looked like it was becoming unstable when we contacted.) I released Scott from any guilt in the whole thing and I really appreciated this kind gesture on his part. He is a class act.

I learned a few things from this:

A. You don't always finish. That is part of racing.
B. Crashing doesn't always hurt which may cause you to make a foolish decision to get back into a race when you should retire.
C. The bike racing community is filled with quality human beings
D. There is a God in heaven who is caring for me and guiding me! It could have been a lot worse!

Last week I had a good day and I gave God the glory. Yesterday was a disappointment but God is still God and he ordered a different result. As Job said, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."