big crash at hillingdon today

ozzzyosborn206

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204729540774262&set=a.4671662745420.184456.1109178625&type=1&theater

Anyone know what happened? Riders relatively ok?

iron-clover

That is one heck of a crash- just saw a post in a local bike club as one of their riders was probably in the race somewhere.


Not entirely sure how that lot happened- looks like 2 or 3 separate collisions all over the track all at once- brilliant timing on the camera though...
Apparently it was in the E123 race, but I don't know how badly hurt anyone was- I guess none serious but I can't imagine they all survived without breaking anything.
I hope they are all OK though.

imposter2.0

Can't see any race numbers?

tlw1

jesus that looks a bad one

JackPozzi

Someone posted this shot taken slightly earlier on the TT forum, one number on view on one of the fallen riders

proto

E123 race. Usual sort of crash with unusual consequences. Two riders lent on each other in the bunch sprint and one went down, others then went others avoiding the debris. A rider taking avoiding action rode off the track and knocked over a timekeeper/official and then ended up colliding with the judges cabin. Yet another stray wiped out the gazebo.

The bike from one of the fallers bounced around in the middle of the track and took out the HWCC rider. Nothing he could do, he was blamless. Amazingly he got up and walked away, bad road rash to his bum, cut finger and bruising to his back. The timekeeper fellow was down for a long time but in the end was fine. Another rider was down even longer but he too got up and hobbled back to hq, although I suspect he might have injured his shoulder (speculation on my part).

The HWCC rider's bike had very minor damage to a shifter but otherwise unmarked. Somone had a wheel with a couple of broken spokes but didn't see anything more serious than that.

Browse through these photos from Dave Hayward and you can see it all unfold.

https://m.facebook.com/digi.dave2/album ... 361459778/

okgo

The bike didn't take him out from that did it? He slammed the front brake on and went over the bars to avoid it...

I've raced a few times there and there is always something silly going on. Hillingdon needs a strong field to make it fast to keep it a bit safer IMO; I enjoy racing there when in a break much more than in the bunches

DavidJB

I'll stick with Bath.

ozzzyosborn206

okgo wrote:

The bike didn't take him out from that did it? He slammed the front brake on and went over the bars to avoid it...

I've raced a few times there and there is always something silly going on. Hillingdon needs a strong field to make it fast to keep it a bit safer IMO; I enjoy racing there when in a break much more than in the bunches

+1 raced there a few times this year without team mates and without being able to ping guys off the front till something sticks it seemed to stay together and got very dodgy in last few laps

Benjamin Hall

Stuff like this is why i only race cross and xc now. Open road racing is fun and dangerous in an 'interesting' way, crits are a mug's game.

okgo

Not really. I still think the best fun you can have on a bike is a good crit circuit with decent riders. And I have had some really enjoyable rides at hillingdon, but the riders have been decent which helps a lot.

dilatory

Benjamin Hall wrote:

Stuff like this is why i only race cross and xc now. Open road racing is fun and dangerous in an 'interesting' way, crits are a mug's game.

This is why I never ride my bicycle and only sit inside browsing the internet lest I get a boo-boo.

fastandfurry

okgo wrote:

The bike didn't take him out from that did it? He slammed the front brake on and went over the bars to avoid it...

I've raced a few times there and there is always something silly going on. Hillingdon needs a strong field to make it fast to keep it a bit safer IMO; I enjoy racing there when in a break much more than in the bunches

I seriously doubt that anyone experienced enough at racing to be at front end of E123 would do that and crash in that way...If you look, the stray bike is tangled in his front wheel...

I agree that a few strong riders to break it up or some serious wind in the right direction always makes the racing here more balanced; I try and avoid racing at this circuit despite it being my closest one, even if this means riding for 90 minutes to race at Hog Hill! Mostly because the racing is boring rather than any danger though...

As regards the comments on crits being dangerous, all activities in life have risk, it's just a question of whether the benefits outweigh the risks for you personally. For me, racing activities almost always have a pay-off above the chance of road rash, and trivial risk of a broken collarbone.

okgo

Well he did exactly that if you look at the photos.

It's 4 posts above! That bike is nowhere near his front wheel. He goes over the front and that stray bike is still clear of him by the looks of it.

fastandfurry

okgo wrote:

It's 4 posts above!

Quite. Look again - he's riding one bike and there's another locked in with it...his is red/black; the one that's tangled is blue/white...(not immediately obvious)

JamesFree

He 100% braked himself over the bars as I knew quite a few people in that race including someone who got caught by the first flying bike but managed to stay upright as he didn't panic and slam on the anchors.

With regards to being at the front at the end of a E123 at Hillingdon 90% of the guys in the race don't see the first 3-5 wheels. For example yesterday for the middle 50mins of the race while being active and getting away for a total of about 25-30mins I averaged 263AP 289NP for the 50mins yet for the last 10 mins when I just sat in and rolled around I averaged 168AP 211NP. So even a very unexperienced/unfit person can get round in one of these and be near the front for the sprint if they are willing to risk life for limp for a BC point or two in December at Hillingdon.

proto

One of the issues of the current format is that the E12 and 3rd Cat races are run at the same time with one finish for both races. As a consequence, even a 3rd Cat well down the field has an incentive to contest the sprint as he doesn't know what cat those ahead of him are. He could come in eleventh but still win the 3rds race and bag 10 points.

Regarding the crashed rider last week, 3rd cat, plenty of racing experience, and I think braking hard to avoid a bike in his path seems fairly understandable. Hit a bike at full speed, or brake as hard as possible and risk going down? Rock and hard place and a few nanoseconds to decide. Fairly certain his bike tangled with the other.

Watched yesterdays finish, no crashes (in the sprint at least) but it was frankly terrifying and I'm really glad I don't ride there any more. The speed, the size of the bunch, it makes me think that racing the same direction but the finish at the top of the draggy slope was safer.

JamesFree

Main problem this winter it would seem is the racing generally seems quite slow especially the last 4-5 laps and means there are 50 people who all try and move up and have a go.

Last year and especially the Tuesday nights they were much faster with generally a very fast last few laps which strung things out a little.

crapaudthepitbull

Makes me laugh why anybody would risk life n limb sprinting for 20th place. Also the problem with flat circuits where there is nothing to really break it up.