MDcatV

stuff like that always shakes me.

God bless.

Jobiensis

I was at that event, though I didn't stick around for the later races. Big, wide streets, but many light poles on the edge of the road (without any hay bales). Didn't really think much of it at the time. A tragic accident. RIP

Jandro 

Really really sad. He did a lot to foster the younger generation of racers in LA, especially at the track. A handful of the Wolfpack Hustle guys were introduced to sanctioned racing because of him.

Fat Boy

I would not call this a particularly dangerous course. Yes, there are light poles, but they are all off the actual road and over a curb. Hitting one has never even crossed my mind when racing here, which I've done many times. Putting hay bales around every light pole here would be prohibitively time consuming and expensive. You'd probably just get a different place to race rather than go through that effort.

It's a tragic accident which I think will have all sorts of repercussions.

rkwaki

Awwww c'mon the fun was just about to start.....

Cleave

Here is turn 3 from Google Maps:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=domin...uez+Hills&z=19

We were racing counterclockwise yesterday. I was told that the crash was in this area. I am posting this because you can see the light poles on the edge of the road. Like Fat Boy, I have raced thousands of laps and maybe thousands of miles on this course and I haven't thought about the danger of hitting one of the poles either. I doubt anyone would promote a race there if you had to put hay bales in front of every pole at the appropriate height.

You can also see that the roads are very wide.

Given the number of races and total laps that we have collectively raced on this course, this tragic and horrible accident is probably a 1 in a hundreds of million probability.

Agree about the repercussions but I currently can't think of what they might be.

When my club promoted criteriums and circuit races we were probably paranoid about potential crashes and hay bales were a significant part of our budget and race day logistics. I see hay bales and protective padding much less at all races than I used to see in past years.

Last year's tragedy in Connecticut had nothing to to with course hazard protection.

Is all of this just one of the risks we take as bike racers?

carpediemracing 

Appalling. It brings back a lot of emotions and such.

Enthalpic... reach out to people, whether here or in real or whatever.

JohnKScott

gsteinb

more guys die driving to races than die at races.

shovelhd

That turn is so wide, I wonder if he got shoved on the inside after the apex of the turn.

I agree that there are a lot fewer hay bales or other protections on criterium courses today than what I can remember from the past. Last year's Nats course was surprisingly dangerous. I did not expect it to be that way.

rkwaki

Buddy of mine went down at Nats and scraped up pretty well.

I don't get the hail bail thing. I ride the course a few times and take a look. If something doesn't seem right I go get someone (down to and including picking sticks up off the road and looking for dirt on the race line). Based on the way I race I don't want to have any of those questions in my mind...

waterrockets 

Yeah, we had an unfortunate incident of that as well...

Flatballer

So were there two seperate "bad races" or just the one?

waterrockets 

The one in CA (near RX), and the one in Canada (Enthalpic). I'm sure there are bad crashes every weekend (bike and car), but hits closer to home when they're BF races, as we chat so much.

Thoughts and prayers out to those families, teams, and organizers.

carpediemracing 

I didn't know those were two different places. Jeepers.

waterrockets 

I did the same in my first racing season. A cat 5 sprinted into the bell when he heard it, crashed into the guy in front of him and face planted. Broke cheeks, jaw, nose, lost teeth, and concussion. The "breathing" sounds -- stayed with me. He was ok, and I was amazed to hear it.

Racer Ex 

Ideally you pad any hard, stationary objects around a course. Barring that you pad those objects in the obvious impact zones, mid to exits of the corners. To say that something is "well off" a course is often ignoring the physics of speed...at 25 MPH you are traveling 37 feet per second. Something 0.3 seconds off the race course is not very far away.

Folks that want to trot out the "racers get hurt" or "padding doesn't help much" carp can spare us all now. Nothing's perfect and we are talking about risk/cost/mitigation, not creating some perfect world. Haybales and foam padding aren't expensive and I've set them up and arranged to have them on site.

We could muddle through a whole seminar on energy disbursement but I've hit enough solid objects to know that some padding is better than none.

I have no idea if this would have helped our fellow racer still be here with us. But I know it'll decrease the injury rate for people who hit things.

rkwaki

I think I posted this once before but I actually saw a guy fly through the air into the timing trailer that was at the start/finish line. His Colnago took the energy...

Racer Ex 

So I meant to throw this up a few days ago.

And I'm trying to figure out why bees are angry with me. Got stung in the chest a few days ago and still have swelling. Was bombing down a hill yesterday past another rider and had yet another idiot Cat 5 bee flies under my glasses. Nothing like riding one handed while ripping your Oakley's off and trying to shoo a stinging insect away from your eyeballs at 40 MPH.

Fat Boy

You're right, of course. These light poles are not really 'well off' the course, they're right next to it, as light poles are. There are no poles that are along a road with no curb or actually on the riding surface (like you might find in a 'parking lot' venue). You have to be already crashing to hit one, but you do go smoking through that corner at times and during a wind up at the end of a race I had to check up once several years ago because I ran out of road on the exit of that corner. It only happened because I was on a very high line to begin with, but it happened none the less.

To fix this situation, you'd have to produce a cylindrical foam barrier that was banded/wrapped around the pole. It wouldn't be a terrible thing to come up with. These things can disperse a lot of energy. I'm not sure what the cost would be, but I doubt if it would be insane. If you could just put them up and leave them, then there might be something good come out of this.

rkwaki

Throw up might be the best description...

Fat Boy

It's the little things that make me happy:


You've been upgraded from Los Angeles, CA (LAX) to Houston, TX (IAH - Intercontinental) on Wed., May. 29, 2013. Your new seat is 1L. Below is a recap of your flight information:

787, so I get a full laydown seat prior to the batteries failing.

johnybutts

Coming to visit me? awww!

waterrockets 

Gah. Bees not good.

merlinextraligh

we had lay flat seats coming back from Spain. It was very nice. Unfortunately had the old business class seats on the night flight over where it would have made more difference.