Altamont Circuit Race - Sometimes it's just not your day

The last bike race of the season was Sunday in Altamont, NY. I drove out to the race with Rick, Phil and Chad, who will all be teammates of mine next season on the new Solo Break Racing team. I decided to do this race to get to know Rick and Phil a little better and thought it would be a fun way to wrap up biking season for the winter, and switch gears to roller skiing more to gear up for ski season. When we showed up to the race, I had a broken rear spoke, so my rear wheel was a little wobbly to begin with. Great way to start the day.

The race course was 7 laps of a fast, flat 3.8 mile circuit. The race was going fairly well as the field seemed to be thinning down, and all of the SBR guys were still in the main field. I was feeling pretty good, I tried a few attacks, but didn't have much in the way of acceleration. There were a few small breaks, but overall, it wasn't a super aggressive race. On lap 5, a guy to my right veered into me and right after that, a guy on my left moved to his right...anyways, I ended up locking handlebars with one of the two and went down hard. I ended up very lucky that I only had some bad road rash, a broken helmet, and a broken front wheel. A few other riders went down as well including Chad, who's seat broke, and also had some cuts and bruises. Thankfully, everyone escaped major injury. I wish someone had a video of this, because I ended up on the opposite side of the road from my bike. Not sure exactly what happened, but Rick and Phil both said it was ugly looking. One guy that went down broke his front fork and his wheel got catapulted about 20 yards into the woods. The first responders were on the scene of the crash within minutes and did a great job patching us up. Rick and Phil both finished the race with Phil taking 9th and Rick taking 12th after a long solo attack that got caught right before the line.

So, not the best way to put the bike away for the winter, but, all things considered, I feel like I dodged a bullet. Now, I'm looking forward to the snow falling! Lots of roller skiing and running to do over the next two months.

On a different note, Chad and I were out roller skiing on Saturday in Mendon and saw an actual Moped rally...literally 40 mopeds all riding together. I was speechless...It's not often that one is out roller skiing, and not the strangest looking spectacle on the road!