I’ve had enough.
Raced yesterday at Birmingham Circuit races.
Fantastic circuit and great organisation.
Big field of about 60.
There had been a few squirrely moments with people braking for no reason at all. Saw a particular lad cut people up at one of the roundabouts a couple of times and doing the dreaded bombing down the inside on the approach to a corner.
1.5 laps to go I was feeling really strong, ready to sprint. I was keeping out of trouble near the front, on the outside of the bunch (exactly where I wanted to be) and I saw same lad do his stupid bombing down the inside on the approach to a left hand bend. He had no room at all and knocked into two others.
I thought FFS, they are going to crash, thank god I’m over here.
Cue one of the riders shoot out over to the right on the ground, right in front of me.
Cue me going over the handlebars right up in the air.
I landed on my head/left shoulder/back
I felt my helmet explode as I landed and as soon as I got up (lucky I wasn’t hit from behind) I knew I’d done my collar bone.
The lad that in my opinion caused it said ‘never mind your shoulder, this is the first time I’ve used these wheels and they’re wrecked!’
Anyhoo, I’ve got 3 fractures to my left collar bone and a compression fracture to my T11 vertebrae.
I’ve got a career that relies on me being fit and healthy. I have 3 kids (one of whom is 10 weeks old) and a wife to support.
For that reason, I’m out.
From now on I’m just training on the turbo to keep fit and *may* do local 10s.
As an aside, I had a crash in Dec where I banged my head and was concussed. My helmet was ok but a little cracked. Obviously you are supposed to replace as they won’t work properly but I had just been thinking ‘sod it, I’ll be ok’ but after Wouter Weylandt’s crash, even though it didn’t help him. I discussed it with my wife and despite being skint I thought it best to buy a new helmet, so on Thurs I got one.
I’m sooooo glad I did. It really did it’s job.
