first 50 meters... no problem. just as i was latching on to a wheel to follow through to the actual loop, another rider came up between the rows...
somehow, my front wheel turned 90 degrees, and i spun out. luckily, wasn't going fast enough yet to endo.
i tried to remout right away, but my rear wheel wouldn't turn, the reason
for which wasn't readily apparent. that's when i noticed my knee really hurt and was reminded of the advice from my friend Joe "if you go down, stay down!" of course, i went down 'cause i didn't remember the advice from my friend Hans "just keep pedaling!"
after quite a while of pain, i finally could think straight & found the problem with the rear wheel: a spring lever had spurng, sending the brake caliper into the spokes. since the team car had already passed and there was no neutral service to be found, i got the rear brake re-assembled and was off.
funny thing was that by that time, the spectators who had watched the start (and had been quite nice and offered to help me, but i was too busy swearing to accept any help) were walking the course up to the loop. so, i shouldered the bike and just trotted past through the weeds (er, "prairie restoration"). "excuse me. look out please! pardon!" sorry to the guy i whacked in the shoulder with my rear wheel on the way by.
i'm really not sure where i finished. after thinking about it, i was probably two laps down. i aksed the offical who was at the start if i took anyone else down with me, he didn't think so, so that's good.
in the parking lot, a guy asked "how'd it go?" of course i bitched about crashing during the start. he went on to tell me that he missed the race because of a mess up with when it was supposed to start. i'm told some of the flyers said 10am while others said 10:30am.
so, lesson learned. guess there's always someone a little worse off than you are. oh well. maybe i'll do better at brazen's race on sunday.
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