"If you do not fall over, you will not learn"
I do not know who
Tour de Rybnik 2013
[dropcap] N [/ dropcap] [dropcap] and [/ dropcap] [dropcap] e [/ dropcap] I like street racing in the city. They are spectacular, on loops, with fans, but ... well, loops require a lot of turns. I skip the cycling criteria as much as I can. I always check the route before choosing the start. Rybnik doesn't suit me on average. Long straight lines followed by a sharp turn. However, I have a fondness for this race, because it is not enough that it is my hometown, it was my first start here exactly a year ago. What's more, I finished it in the peloton. This time, the plan was ambitious, or I would stay ahead or die. Maybe even some jump will succeed, since laps are scored. I almost made it. I almost made both plans.
Do not brake on the bend
It was not a good day for racing. From the morning rain, slippery streets like an ice rink, in places water to the ankles. It will happen. Already during the first race of older categories, it was obvious that falls would be inevitable. Rybnik is not without reason called Rondnik - there are the largest number of round intersections in Poland - currently over 40. I think that every day that was on the route was rubbed with a buttock a few times. Start careful, if it could be done at the first turn everyone would stop and turn the bikes in place. Six laps, I do not see any other option how to try to drive away. Twice I fail, because local groups are effectively welding me. So I'm setting myself on my favorite, strategically the worst, last place of the pack and I'm going this way. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower - I control how far I can position myself. Idyll continues until the first of the section 3 turns slides my wheel and I stand at the curb. In order to have any chance of reaching the peloton, all I have to do is to chase after them before they start their first escape and welding. I was able to chase by the dizzying ~ 500 meters, when I realize that it is slippery, and I am going faster than my skills allow me. Minimum skidding of the wheel on the white roadway, panic, brakes, turn bounced. Estimating losses: broken door handle, one extra knee, you can not go. Police, ambulance, hospital, return to Warsaw. Tramadol can do wonders, Sky riders know what they are doing taking because before the races - the pain disappears.
Do not leave your bike. Never.
When someone asks you if you are able to get to the hospital yourself, say no. Always. I brought the ambulance to the finish line and left it there. It took me a while to find my bike. I do not know who brought him, but he was standing alone on the fence near the competition office. The joke of the rescuers in the ambulance seemed to me doubly funny at the time. "You do not worry about your bike, it's Rybnik, it's probably gone." Somehow limped with him to the car, I packed, I looked for a hospital, I parked, stood in line, X-ray, stitches, pharmacy and home ....
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It's good that two days earlier I managed to ride my favorite Czech territories. A little over 100km and over 2km of climbing is a decent result. Adding to this quite a good movie, I find the weekend interesting and successful.
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