Mountain Bike Nationals 2011 – Canmore
I put a lot of effort into this one: over 20 laps on the course, wider tires for descending control & confidence, injury management, all the good stuff. I actually “felt good” in the context of the past few weeks and made it to the top of the course in about 20th/35. Since my strategy was to “start conservative, finish strong, and attack the downhills” everything was according to plan.
Unfortunately I “over-attacked” the laundry chutes. At the very bottom I overcorrected on a turn, which initiated a momentary pause in time – like when life flashes before your eyes. During the next half second, my slow motion thought process (and associated actions) went like this:
-hot damn, I’m killing this course.
-Whoa! This gets hairy at this speed.
-I think I’m too far over to clear that rock.
-I am definitely crashing/Shit there is a lot of trees there/ Which ones look bendy?
-Was that my face? Yep, definitely upside down now. Who’s calling my name?
-Turtle!
As time and reality flooded back into my brain, I am quickly back on my feet and under the direction of pure adrenalin/automated response from >15 years of racing.
-Find bike.
-Drag bike to course.
-Ride. Must ride now & assess damage on the roll.
-bike’s not riding. Chain/air/wheels…
-Wheels. F***!
Automated response converts to a forced evaluation of the situation. This is where most will start swearing – lots. But in my case there was a volunteer nearby and I had a race to get back to.
-This is really bent. I bet I can smash it on the ground enough to make it clear the fork.
-Nope. I don’t even think I can ride this to the tech zone.
-I should have put wheels in the tech zone.
In the end there was not much to say. Actually I was literally speechless for most of the afternoon b/c a DNF happens so rarely (lifetime count = 4). When you spend hours of anticipating, preparing, and training for a race your brain is hard-coded for a result that lasts more than 10 minutes. Sitting on the sidelines after half a lap just doesn’t compute very well.
I didn’t let my luck get to me though - I ate some cheese. I ate a hotdog. I had beer and a pizza (pizza = singular, beer = plural). And another beer. There is always more racing…
I like your post-crash mindset of "Ride. Must ride now & assess damage on the roll". It is a true sign that you are in the zone, when you multi-task between inspecting crash wounds while at the same time you're zooming through coal shoots and tree roots (which is crazy, but always makes sense at the time). It's too bad about the taco'd wheel, I'm sure you would have had a great race.
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