Oregon State University Musings: In Which I Learned How to Avoid Crashing in a Crit

“Well this sucks,” my brain repeated endlessly. At every corner or hill, I kept attacking in hopes of splitting the pack (since it worked so well for me last week) but the hills weren’t long enough and with no teammates on the front, I had no one to work with to sustain an attack. No one wanted to work with me and form a break. And I pulling way more than I wanted to. Apparently, the field had learned from last week and was gonna try and force Western, Whitman, and me to pull them all the way to the line. 

Finally on the final climb to the line, the three of us jumped and finished 1-2-3 (I obviously took 3^rd as I still can’t climb.) I was frustrated. I didn’t like the way the race had gone (it wasn’t even a race for 90%. As no one else wanted to pull and I wasn’t gonna exhaust myself on the front, the average pace was pretty damn slow.) I didn’t like that I was still racing B’s (after pretty much demanding that I upgrade last week, the official changed his mind saying he didn’t know if I could compete at the level of the A’s.) And I didn’t like that I couldn’t do anything useful on a hill.

I suppose that’s the nice thing about collegiate, if you don’t like how one race ended up, you have two more races to try and fix things (though it makes for an extremely tiring race weekend.) So a few wet hours later (it started raining again to my eternal consternation) and back on the bike for the TTT, then onto the crit on Sunday.

Crits take place in one of two locations: in industrial sections/business parks or on campus. This one was in the latter category, weaving through the streets and parking lots of OSU. It was also a bit more technical than the last one with more corners, including a particularly sharp corner after the first straight away. After a 2 hour delay due to illegal parked cars in the middle of our course, racing finally started.

Whitman and I rotated on the front—neither or us willing to let the other get away. There were 20 or so other girls out there that day, in my mind, this was a race purely between the two of us. Though neither of us sustained a breakaway, our speed was enough to split the pack in two and we slowly started gaining on the back half of the pack.

We caught them right at the one sharp corner and that’s when Whitman made her move, accelerating around the corner and using the slower pack to block the rest of us from chasing. Being the stubborn bastard that I am (and lacking in the common sense to realize that this might be a bad idea), I hammered to get back onto her wheel and, in trying to squeeze by the slower girls, ended up taking the corner way too sharply and way too quickly for my bike handing skills.

Oh shit. Back wheel came off the ground. Then the front wheel. Fuck fuck fuck. No rubber on the road is a bad place to be. I jerked my handlebars away from the corner and corrected my precariously tipping bike, but placed myself on a path that took my directly in front of the following riders. Shit. Why weren’t my feet clipped in anymore? When did they come out? While my mind was sorta busy trying to avoid what could end up being a rather painful situation, a loud voice in my head was more concerned over the fact that we were at 5 to go, so if I crashed, I didn’t get a free lap and my race was done.

Jamming my cleats back into the clips, I narrowly avoided not only the curb on the other side of the road, but also all the other racers. My heart was racing so fast, I couldn’t distinguish individual beats anymore, so filled with adrenaline and the rush of avoiding disaster.

So I used the adrenaline to my advantage and drilled it back to the front, until once again, it was Whitman and me sprinting hard for the line and the win.

And once again, I find myself chasing Whitman’s wheel as she crossed first. Yeah, she’s definitely my nemesis. 

Last week with the B’s as I get to upgrade next week. Maybe I can ditch Whitman when I jump to the A’s.

On to Central and Week III.

(Side Note: Check out Whitman Cycling's Race Report to see another perspective on my unsustainable attacks during the RR.)