My 15 year old son did his first and last Cat 4 Senior Mens Crit last weekend. This looked like a relatively safe course, wide streets, four corners, no other turns, fairly flat. My son was doing his best to stay out of trouble, in the first third of the field, not taking risks, etc. Unfortunately the pack was a disorganized mob. Riders got gapped/dropped on the uphill straight, but the leaders didn't work on the opposite downhill side, allowing all the gapped/dropped riders to catch back up, just before the most critical turn in the course, the corner leading to the uphill straight. These less fit riders were attempting to pass in this corner so that they could get a jump on the uphill section and do less work there, and hopefully not get dropped. In the middle of the turn, my son was being swarmed on both sides by these riders coming up from behind. About halfway through the race, a rider dove to my son's inside, going for a gap that wasn't there. This rider chose to run into my son instead of the curb, hooking my sons handlebars and taking him down. He landed on my son (breaking his own fall), and then immediately scrambled back onto his bike without a word to my son and continued racing. My son was not so fortunate. He landed on his tailbone and was just laying in the road for about 30 seconds from the pain. About $300-400 damage to the bike, saddle bent by my son's crotch, amazingly both the left pedal and the right brake lever shifter trashed (we can't figure out how that happened), front wheel tacoed, tire tracks on my son's back from riders behind running into (over?) him while he was on the ground. Needless to say my son was a little depressed, as this was his first real Senior Mens race. Thankfully my son's injuries appear to be fairly minor; sore tailbone, crotch and some road rash. I knew Crits could be a little dicey, but after this experience my son is going to stick to road races, time trials, and mountain biking. There are too many desperate, reckless, unskilled characters doing crits in the lower categories. My son told me that the race was no fun even before the crash, because it was too nerve-racking just trying to avoid a collision and there was no selection going on (couldn't get rid of the less fit riders). Only one rider out of a field of 29 had been dropped from the main pack at the halfway point of the race.
LewisBricktop said:So, just to reaffirm my disgust for criterium racing, i went to my first in a while today. 20 or so in the pack. Everyone sits steady for the first few laps, but after watching the race before me wait until the last 2 laps to do anything exciting i decided to shake things up early. after the next 2-3 laps, the field was split roughly into 2 groups (contenders and pretenders). it stayed this way for awhile, accelerations from the lead group being marked quickly.
as we're crossing the start/finish with 5 laps to go i can see the pretenders up ahead about to get lapped. im looking to the officials on the sideline to pull them off since we should really be heating it up soon, and nothing. whatever. first turn, were right behind them into the headwind. second turn, bad news. im not sure exactly what happened, only that riders from both groups got tangled up into the crosswind and i hit the bike of the guy going down in front of me. bruised collarbone.
why do officials feel the need to treat riders like 5 year olds and let them finish the race when they are only getting in the way. its annoying and ive certainly done my last crit.
