Yes, I crashed, it sucked. On the last corner, I was a bit overzealous and took the corner on the outside really hard. Coming out of the turn, I hit some dirt which threw me off my rhythm just enough for me to clip my pedal. In an instant I was on the ground. My only thought was hoping that I would not take anyone else down with me. I felt pretty embarrassed about my momentary lack of bike handling skills, especially because I am normally good at cornering. Maybe in the excitement of the finish, I lost myself. It was a pretty stupid and avoidable crash, but aren’t they all? But, if you race your bike, you WILL crash sometime! I guess it was just my time, as I haven’t crashed in over a year and a half.
Jon not working hard enough, haha! Photo by Shama Cycles
Other than that, the race went really well. The Shama team consisted of 4 Cat 2′s. We decided that Bill and I would be aggressive and be in every move, while Jon would sit back and conserve to try to sprint it out. Brian did a great job of following bigger moves to make sure we were always represented.
Bill was riding really well, and probably was more successful at attacking than I was. I did my share of following promising moves, but most of the time the moves were brought back pretty quickly. I found myself off the front accidentally at one point, completely alone.
It was fun racing hard and seeing just how strung out the field was. Shama was definitely not the only team attacking. Bike Barn Team, Michael Pincus of SuperSquadra, Brian Jones, and Ruarri Day, were up there in the mix most of the time. There were others too. It was just great to see such a talented group of riders from Houston going hard. Jon came out with a 4th place for our team, which is good. But I think we can do better!
I have got a couple of days to heal before the weekend racing in Dallas!
