Well that was a bust.
Practically a mirror image from GP Beverly. Great weather, a working bike, and a really good warmup had me feeling super confident going into the first bike race that Haverhill, MA has hosted in nearly 20 years, the 4/5 race at the inaugural Shoe City Pro Circuit. It was a course that suited me, lightly technical with just enough elevation to make a difference, in a field that I knew I stood a chance against. I was going to finally get those upgrade points. Things just didn't go my way when it mattered.
I got to Haverhill my usual 2+ hours before the race, well before registration opened. No repairs to do this time, just my habit from years of skiing and running. I rolled from my parking area down to the course, still in the midst of setup and hung out and laughed with the organizers in the registration building, watching the barriers unfold throughout downtown.
Taking my time, I spun around the course easy a couple of times just as a quick note, relaying anything I thought should be seen to the organizers, and went back to the car to kit up for warmup, just a jersey and bibs kind of day. Warm, dry, perfect.
Things went smoothly through warmup, chatting with teammates and competitors about how things post-Beverly have been, excited to be the ones to christen this race.
As the pre-race clock ticked town, I finally took the time to roll up and change into my skinsuit, which had been sitting in my cooler of ice and water all morning: little bit of a cooldown before the race starts always feels good.
I did my final course preview laps and hung out by the line, waiting for the final call to staging. Kramer was on the mic, heckling me for hanging on the barrier, and I was taking it all in. It was a good day, I was going to do well.
The race got off to a neutral start, something we haven't seen much this year. Chilling in the pack for the first lap, we immediately got a prime bell as the pace car pulled off the course.
I forget what this prime was for, either $20 cash or a $10 gift certificate to a local restaurant. Either way I went for it, it's what I do. Took it, sat up for a little, let the pack latch on. I wasn't about to spend 40 minutes off the front again, I was feeling frisky and wanted to play, so I let Adam York set the pace.
Laps ticked by fast, and lap 3 was one of the the fastest laps of the day in all fields. We kept the pace rolling strong through 25 minutes, launching some efforts with Tate and gunning for primes. I took home the other one of the aforementioned primes during this time, and sat back while my teammate Erik controlled the pack, covering breaks and ramping up the speeds if things got a little sketchy. Things were going better than I could've expected.
Coming into the final laps of the race, we had one of the more valuable primes: $175 to Haverhill Crossfit. For some reason I ended up at the head of the race early in this lap, a place I did not want to be for a prime. But for another reason, nobody seemed to go for it. Was it because I didn't react? Did people not know we were supposed to be sprinting? I put in a dozen hard pedal strokes to jump for the line and as far as I know nobody else reacted to it and I took it home.
Here's where things took a turn. That prime was with four laps to go. With three laps I had settled back into the top handful of wheels, and was sitting second going into the third corner of the course. I saw first wheel hop his rear tire, probably a pedal strike, and start to go down. Coming in less than a foot from him at 25mph, I couldn't react and followed him to the ground. Neither could third, fourth, or fifth through seventh. All but one of the pre-race favorites hit the deck with less than 3k to go in the race, our days were done.
I ended up off the course, with my bike stuck in a haybale that was used to pad a telephone pole.
My bars were sideways, pointed skywards, and I was missing a chunk of bar tape. Looking down I could see blood on my elbow. I knew I couldn't finish solely based on the state of the bars, so I made the clunky walk with the other crash victims back to the start to seek medical.
En route, I realized that I had hit the haybale hard enough to snap my saddle nearly in half. Afterwards, before I tried to ride back to my car, I discovered that my left chainstay had snapped as well.
In talking with medical, I found that I had road rash on top of my shoulder as well as on my hip to go along with my bloody elbow. I saw Adam, who sparked the chain reaction crash, with bandages all down his leg from road rash.
I wasn't mad, just dissappointed. I was so looking forward to finally being able to get my Cat 3 upgrade, which I only needed a third place finish for. It was a great race up until my final seconds, and I still think it was one of my favorite bike races of all time so far. Road rash heals, carbon may not, but the time bookending the crash was amazing. I will be back, with a bone to pick with turn-3.
After the race, beers were had with the rest of the Sunapee Team, who had a stellar performance in the Elite Women's race, and I started piecing together what my next move would be to replace my wounded steed. Within hours of my crash, offers were coming my way from all parts of New England cycling with parts and leads as to where I could get repairs done or find a replacement frame and wheels for the remainder of the season.
