Sunny
After two crashes during my cyclocross race last Saturday, I look a lot like someone who had an incident with a cheese grater. In the matter of Cheese Grater v. Sunny... I rule in favor of Sunny.
Why's that? Awesome-ness.
I lined up at Cross Crusade #2 (Wilsonville) in the Women's A field with some of the biggest names in Women's cyclocross/ cycling in the Pacific Northwest. It was the biggest cyclocross race I have been in yet (and #4 ever... almost can start counting on the other hand). 33 women in the women's A, and if you conclude correctly that the Bs, juniors, masters, and beginners were all on the course at the same time.... that amounts to over 175 women looping around a ~1 mile cyclocross.
We all started together, after roughly lining up by category... 100 yds of blacktop pavement and then a 135 ° down-sloping right turn onto gravel, and we were off. I took a position somewhere in the middle of the group as we careened over gravel, construction equipment grooves, miscellaneous hard-packed dirt mounds and wheel ruts so deep that I bonked my pedals on the sides a few times.
With 45 minutes of racing, I figured around 5 or six laps for the total. I didn't get a good look at the course before the race, so I spent the first lap feeling it out. Lots of technical turns, and tricky lines all over the place and only one really good spot to pass slower riders. On the second lap, I started to move up among the field of As, at one point sitting pretty in 6th! And then we started to lap riders, inexperienced riders who were obviously a little bit timid and intimidated by the race and the course. Passing became extremely difficult, and in a few spots I almost rode up on riders when they balked at bumps and turns.
That's how my first crash "went down". Hanging wide on a gravel turn trying to pass a woman who almost came to a standstill, I didn't have a good line. My body turned left into the corner, and my bike stayed straight. Only option left to me was Superman-ing down onto the gravel... a maneuver destined to minimize devastation (a.k.a. no broken bones or torn musculature).
After ensuring my bike and my body were okay (in that order), I jumped back on and tried to gain the ground I had lost. Still in the top ten at this point. I managed to keep rubber-side down for another 4 minutes, when at the start of the 4th lap, I again took a digger. This time on my right side. Nobodies fault but my own. Now I had matching gravel-rash on both elbows and legs... Cool!
The gun show is this-a-way!
I took a lot longer getting up from this one. Also having to massage my chain back onto the chain ring. Thinking, not all was lost, I hopped back on the bike. However, I rode the rest of the race a little more conservatively, taking 12th place in the process. And still smiling.
To get a taste of what I am talking about with cyclocross racing... there are a few people who take some fantastic pictures of these events:
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