Down

So this weekend was Tracklocross: First Mud Part II, mattio et. al's beautiful clusterfuck of an alleycat, a checkpointed, semi-off-road race around Randall's Island, in the mud and rain, wherein you are allowed to choose one: gears or knobby tires.

At the last minute I decided to take the Viner, my sleek road racing bike, rather than the Raleigh, my old crit bike. The major impetus was my desire to have a modern drivetrain, or, conversely, my fear that shifting a friction drivetrain in the mud would throw chains and just be unplesant (see: last year's Nyack and Back). So I threw the Raleigh's bad weather wheel (a dura-ace low flange hub laced 2x to an Aerohead with a 25mm slick) on the viner and set off.

I should note that I set off in the car, because I left with an hour to get to the race... MY birthday party was the previous night, and I was up until 5am drinking beers. Totally, totally race-ready.

It was downright cold and rainy. I was wearing three layers when the race commenced. There was a running start to the race, and though I was thoroughly bleary, my legs felt damn strong. I grabbed the Viner from where I'd propped it against a tree, hopped on, and pedaled off. I settled into a good cruising pace (about 20mph) over potholes and puddles, and found myself about mid-pack at this, the start of the race.

For those of you unfamiliar with Alleycat racing (like myself), the idea is that there are checkpoints that you must reach, but no course. Its up to you to find the most navigable route. I knew the island less than most, so I figured, at mid pack, I'd follow the leaders. We began crossing a narrow wooden bridge. I overtook two competitors, and was coming up on Corey, an old messenger who'd been talking a big game all week. The bridge was ending fast. I zoomed around Corey, who was spinning way too small of a gear for the terrain, and angled myself for the left turn off of the bridge to the first checkpoint. I looked up off my path and noticed that the leaders had all gone right. That didn't make any sense... had anyone gone left? I looked further up the left most trail. Nobody. Hmm. I began to wonder what to make of that, but then flicked my eyes directly in front of me.

A traffic bollard, a big, metal, traffic bollard, was directly in my path. My hands were on the flats of the handlebars. I couldn't get them to the brakes in time. BAM!!! at 20mph directly into the bollard. The most jarring feeling, as my shoes disengaged from the bike, and I thuded hip-first to the pavement a split second before the Viner. I shouted something about being OK to someone who had shouted something inquiring the like, paused, and picked myself off the buzzing floor. I picked up the Viner, looked at it dumbly. Crashing a beautiful machine into a stationary object always evokes the oddest mixture of adrenaline and shame. I spun the front wheel. It spun.

Body check: standing? yes. good. moving? yes. good. Pain? I looked. My jersey was rolled passed my elbow and the elbow was bleeding quite a bit. deal with that later. My hip was throbbing. Roll up the jersey, that's bleeding. Wrist? Wrist. My left wrist was still holding on to the bars when I went down, and now its starting to swell. OK. only a few minutes more use I'll get out of that.

This whole time an identical process in my mind is running bike check. Bike check is harder. Still a bike? yes. good. Wheels? yes. wheels.

Somewhere in the whole awkward and also cotemporal process of mounting the bike, I began to hear a hissing noise. I was losing air to the front tire.

I was only a quarter mile from the start, but something in my brain said "checkpoint. get to the checkpoint."

And so the race became not about my competitors, but about covering as much ground before my tire deflated or my wrist locked up. Somehow, to my adrenaline soaked brain, this made perfect, rational sense.

***
I got about another half mile. I was disoriented and in increasing pain, and then the tire flatted. Still wanting some form of race out of my weekend, I shouldered the bike and ran back to the starting line, finally slowing to a walk for the final 1/4 mile. That's when the adrenaline wore off and I began to actually take stock.

I spent the remainder of the race siting next to mattio, wrapping my wrist in shop rags and cleaning my wounds. In the end I sprained my left wrist moderately, my left ankle very slightly, and tore up my right elbow and hip. The bruise on my hip is pretty impressive.

The Viner also took quite the blow. The wheel is fine. Needed a minor truing. (I build good wheels, everyone. see?) The carbon fork developed stress cracks all along its upper joint and needs to be retired. The frame, my cherished Italian steel racer, was also bent, with the headtube (the tube the fork runs through) getting pushed inward, bending its joints with the top and down tubes.

Terrified that this would weaken the boutique steel beyond ever racing again, I contacted anyone and everyone I could with regards to fixing it. Malcom offered to help me braze new tubes into the frame, the bicycle equivalent of open heart surgery. Or, more appropriately, a skeleton transplant. Finally, Dave Perry at Bikeworks, was able to bend the headtube back out. He says that as long as I don't race on coblestones, the damage was light enough that the Viner should be fine.

So the bike and I are healing at about the same rate. My sprains are all but healed, and the road rash is clearing up. I need a new fork, but not a new frame, and I'm feeling pretty damn lucky to have gotten out with so little damage. Gonna use the Viner's down time to solve a few problems I'd been having with it, have been using my downtime to great ends... for instance, the Williamsburg bridge is GORGEOUS if you take the time to walk over it...

So, you know. Wear helmets, pay attention, Ride steel frames and let me build your wheels.

Mattio once imparted to me the overly-campy saying, "don't race what you can't replace." I think I get that now.