BBC Racer

BBC at the Sacramento Grand Prix

May 17, 2010 at 8:15 AM | Posted in Racing | 1 Comment
Tags: Berkeley Bicycle Club, Bicycle Racing, Bicycling, Cycling, Sacramento Grand Prix

Headed up to Sacramento for a planned day of racing well, eating poorly and watching the women and Pro Tour riders put on a show.

Going into the race, I expected a number of crashes. Combine the hype of racing the Tour of California finishing circuit with the irresistible pull of a 165-man draft mixed with a dash of non-selective course and the outcome is predictable.

Now I am usually the last person to hope for wind. However as my fitness has slowly come up, all week I wished for the NorCal winds to open up on Sunday to enforce a hierarchy on the field. As I cruised along I-80, I watched small bushes sway to the will of the wind and felt the gusts buffet my car. Perfect!

I called Bender, who was driving 20 minutes behind, with two messages:

- It’s windy, yes!!

- CHP is out in force, watch yourself.

Since he is accustomed to my non-stop kvetching about high winds at races, he must have assumed that I was either going crazy or being sarcastic. People can change…

Bender graduated from Haas School of Business on Friday, so have to give him his due, though I will now hear about how pro he thinks he looks for weeks on end:

(Photo courtesy www.cyclelicio.us)

Got to the start line and the morning winds apparently took a detour away from the city center leaving us with dead calm, uh oh…

The nerves manifested themselves early within the field. A fall occurred while clipping in during the first ten seconds. Then the big crash on the first lap.

A rider on the far right slowed innocuously, but the following racers rode up his back. A careless fall that ended the day for many, but that’s bike racing and we’ve all caused or been affected by crashes.

Update: The crash was caused by the officials making the idiotic decision to let riders out of the wheel pit in front of the oncoming pack. Not sure which is more difficult, accelerating from 0 to 32 m.p.h. in 3 seconds or avoiding somebody going 5 m.p.h while you close on them at 27 m.p.h. shoulder-to-shoulder in a tight pack…

A bad outcome, but I’m mostly disappointed because we finally had our full team lined up and I was looking forward to racing with the squad. Next time.

I learned that some other people went down later in the race. Best wishes to those involved for a full recovery.

Video from the first lap crash (speed data is erratic due to poor GPS signal):