EBC Crit (East Bay Crash-fest weekend)

First off - race organizers put on a fabulous race.. thanks guys! Williams wheels - big thanks to you for the neutral wheel support!!!!!!!!!!! Props!

Ebc 2 - thanks Jeff

EBC stands for east bay crashfest! Wom 3/4 (race together, score separate) - full of sketch riders that cant take bot dots or lean into each other, which is how I ended up hitting the pavement on the SECOND lap. but first: teammates - lots of them! Mo, Ashley, Bergen, Kate, Cathy. Course: flat, fast, great pavement, short. just like merco. also a crashfest.

My goal - points - just needed 2 to upgrade. Team goal - Get 2 lady mice on the podium. I wanted to lead Bergen out. Ideas: Find each other in the pack with 5 to go - and start ramping up the pace to string out the pack and see what we can do.

So - lap 2, one girl hit a bot dot or a bump, over reacted - leaned into Alice from Metromint - they were directly in front of me. I see this happen in slo-mo - and think "dont go down, dont crash, dont crash, dont crash" and.... they crashed - hard. Alice ended up shattering her elbow and may have fractured her cheekbone. She will need surgery to keep her elbow in place to heal. As this happened directly in front of me as we're going 20+mph, I slammed on my new emergency braking skills - slowed way down but had to either bunny hop a bike/person or go down to the right... so from what i remember, I braked and fell over. i have 5 giant bruises. I did happen to think "dont put your hand out" as the ground rushed to meet me. I gathered my arms close to me and rolled - landing mostly on my right hip and forearm and shoulder - and saw my bike skid across the road. Popped up quick, looked around, grabbed my bike and started to get back on - when people yelled at me to go to the pit (Anthony? nole? other teammates... it's all a blur). I ran into the pit - they changed my wheel - it was a bit bent... got me back in the race - unfortunately it took me an entire lap to get back to the pit - so they gave me 2 free laps... which i guess is a no no... anyway, i was bleeding and wanting to get back on so the official allowed it.

Off I chased back onto the pack and got in the field. now i had a chance to think about what happened. i was a bit scared so i got up front and did what i could to stay there - i did NOT want to go down or get near sketch girls again.

fast forward to 5 to go - we found each other - and were getting squeezed back by the dolce train and the code 3 train and the mintys. I said somethign to bergen and kate and i went left, they went right and we 3 went outside, regrouped and hit the gas... we maintained position going into the last 2 laps - pace ramped up big beginning the last lap where I heard the worst CRACK SNAP ever in a race. another crash - we kept going - didnt receive any news about neutralizing - kept our eyes open - and because I had let last weeks race go by me at the end - i wasnt going to let that happen again. So I worked hard to maintain position out of the second corner - into the 3rd corner... and finally sprinted it out - Bergen did well - i thought she was on my wheel for awhile but she swung out by the last straigtaway and left - i saw her charging - it was awesome. I put on my best sprint - outsprinting one or two gals for 5th or so (in the field - but i got 4th in the 4s).

Overall the race was scary - i didnt work that hard - but just as well. flat fast courses are scary unless the pace is so fast that the pack cant get together...

Here comes the scary part: i traipsed over to the pit to get my bent wheel and give back the loaner. The guy in the pit took the loaner - and my right side of the fork came off with it. a clean fucking break. I about passed out from shaking and scared of 'what if....?". Somewhere, my guardian angel (turns out the whole team had a bad ass cardre of Guardian Angels looking out for us this weekend) was working extreme overtime. The only thing keeping me together was the tension of the skewer holding the fork taught, and my body weight holding it down.

I am happy i still have my face.

double happy I have my upgrade points.