Bone to Pick
Hey there, NorCal Cyclists. It’s me, Hernandito.
Remember me? I’m that “guest blogger” who talked all sorts of big game about the plethora of blogging that he had in store for the 2010 season, then disappeared from the face of the interweb. Yes, I’ve failed the greater blog-reading community, but it’s not for lack of trying; you see, now that the originator of this website (the great Michael Hernandez himself) has begun writing again, I’m out of a job.
I’ve tried to write a few snippets about races thus far, but by the time I manage to scrawl a few illegible paragraphs, Mike has already written a three-part novel about the very same race in iambic pentameter, and has included hundreds of candid photographs. I’m like an old set of 9-speed Dura-Ace shifters compared to 2010 Super Record: I can get the job done, but not as smoothly, elegantly or rapidly as others.
That said, I have returned from today’s Wente Vineyards Criterium with an unusually potent desire to throw some words into the digital void.
Does everyone remember the old Land Park course? Yeah, that’s right, the never-ending mobius strip of doom. That race was renowned for its crashes, and more than one armchair pundit of the NorCal scene attributed the frequent wrecks to the lack of corners on the course. After many years — and countless collarbones, no doubt — the organizers made an attempt to fix the problem. They added a chicane to the course, and I think it’s crystal clear that this simple modification has made the Land Park criterium a much safer experience for all categories.
What does this have to do with today’s crit?
(Photo Credit: Jeanine Bates)
I’ve attended the Wente Criterium several times, and each time I’ve witnessed some harrowing spills. It seems as if nary a year has gone by where a race hasn’t been neutralized due to some horrific dismemberment or chainring-between-the ribs action.
I say the experiment has gone on long enough, and I implore the organizers of this race to try a different course.
Now, the naysayers and better-than-thous will inevitably tell me to “HTFU,” or they’ll claim that people simply need to learn how to ride, but I don’t buy it; in fact, I’m of the opinion that the racers with that attitude are the most likely culprits in the “who started the crash” game. Statistics don’t lie, and while I’m not exactly filling out an Excel spreadsheet here, I think it’s obvious that more crashes happen at Wente than most other criteriums, even though the composition of the fields is the same from week to week.
Is it the botts dots? Is it the lack of hard corners? Is it the width? Is it the large fields? I don’t know. What I do know is that people are getting hurt, and they’re doing so with frightening regularity.
I’ll conclude by saying that I abhor complainers, and I hope I don’t come off as one. In addition, I’ve promoted my share of races, so I know the headaches associated with procuring a new course. However, operating under the assumption that safety and quality racing are of the utmost importance, I believe a course change — even a minor one — would be prudent. Look to the Land Park course for guidance.
For the record, I did not crash in today’s race. I simply hate to see others get hurt.
P.S. Jane Despas won the W/1/2/3 and Sterling Magnell won the P/1/2. That’s all I’ve got for you in terms of race reporting…I bet Hernando can fill you in on the “deets.”
April 26th, 2010 at
The “mobius strip of doom” — classic! That line’s a keeper.
April 26th, 2010 at
It is absolutely the course, it is not the people. Most racing organizations take the position that racers try to be good but in the end they are there to race and they will take advantage if they can, so rules and courses have to take that into account and allow for graceful resolution when you try to take advantage and it doesn’t work. (think, F1 runoff areas as opposed to a curb)
Wente Crit fails in this respect because of the gentle curves and wide roads with no features to string it out. You head into a series of gentle curves 10 wide, and the front guys predictably try to “straighten” the course out, compressing 10 lines into 6 or so. Doesn’t sound bad, but at the same time you’ve got some folks trying to take advantage by moving up on the inside, meaning that every gentle curve had around 4 lines disappearing to begin with, with 2 extra people fighting for them. Lots of brake checks, and sometimes people don’t make it in a pack that is dense to begin with and always moving fast. Physics takes care of the rest.
On the face of it that seems a little humorous doesn’t it? Like we should all ride better, right? There is something to that, however these are our best riders - when the P12, M35+123 and W123 field *all* have problems handling the course well (and they *all* did) I think it’s no longer funny. It’s a serious safety matter.
I can’t believe the fire department didn’t shut it down actually - they were out there every 20 minutes for the 5 hours I was there. I wish I were exaggerating. They must have thought we were the stupidest group of people on the planet putting ourselves at risk like that.
The course either needs to actually *be* mostly straight (barricades to straighten it?), or have some features that string it out (a chicane, an “ohno turnaround” - hello Napa River _rix - that actually worked believe it or not)), something, anything.
I will never race this specific course again and neither will many of my buddies, but if they change the course I promise I’ll sign up to give it a shot. Hopefully they do.
April 26th, 2010 at
“I can’t believe the fire department didn’t shut it down actually - they were out there every 20 minutes for the 5 hours I was there. I wish I were exaggerating.”
You aren’t exaggerating? Proof base. I find your numbers hard to believe. I was there too.
NOT disagreeing with the general message, just not a fan of “fact” spewage.
“I believe a course change — even a minor one — would be prudent.”
Check your history. There HAVE been attempts in the past to modify and make the course safer. They just failed.
I agree a complete venue change is in order. I HATE the crashes that come out of this race. But I don’t think it’s fair to put so much on the shoulders of the organizers when the registration numbers make a case for putting it on every year. Why do so many people keep coming out (for 13-? years now)?
I’m all for public forum but people need to vote with their dollars and actions and so far they vote for this course year after year. So go easy on the organizers (who also work their tails off to on the Wente Road Race - an above average race on a much more difficult course to set up than most of the road races that fill the calendar).
April 26th, 2010 at
An example of an easy course that was therefore really dangerous is the Menlo Park GP course. A few years ago it was an easy four corner crit and nearly every field had crashes. This year (and last) the course included a chicane and despite rain and slick roads, there was only one crash over all the fields–granted the fields were diminished by the weather, but still well attended. Technical crits are safer and more fun.
April 26th, 2010 at
I wouldn’t put blame on the course only. The course doesn’t seem that bad to me and the Pro race was safe minus one “large crash”;-) How about a downtown L shape. Or my favorite, a circuit race with a short climb. Some thing to make it less of a drag race!
April 26th, 2010 at
Oh, and some Nitz posted the road race results for the criterium on NCNCA/USA cyling site! I want to see my result up there man. I’m proud of it. My friends are just going to take my word for it!
April 26th, 2010 at
This course is garbage– both lame and dangerous– and I have no idea why folks spend money to come out there every year. I’d rather race a friggin’ triathlon than Wente Criterium. Seriously.
April 26th, 2010 at
Sorry Mr. G. The Wente Crit results haven’t been posted yet, just the RR results. The date is the key (in fairness, the name of the link does imply it is for both races).
Good job taking all those primes by the way. That was fun to watch.
April 26th, 2010 at
super record? that old man is on 9-spd and even the 46t “big ring” is too big for him.
April 26th, 2010 at
test
April 26th, 2010 at
Rather than being so negative and down on what you won’t do again–GIVE some constructive criticism so the promoters can make a change.
April 26th, 2010 at
Umm…what the promoters can do is pretty clear: find a new venue. The current location is pretty much irredeemable. Most of the crashes happen in the chicane and there is pretty much no way to fix that section or remove it from the current course.
April 26th, 2010 at
Thus the reason for constructive criticism. If the current doesn’t work, the new venue is in order.
April 27th, 2010 at
I think if you put the finish line on the back, tailwind stretch is would change the crash dynamics a great deal. There are so many crashes because the finish is a LOOONG headwind stretch that bunches up. Put the finish at the end of a long strung out tailwind stretch and you’d have less crashes.
Still not optimal, but it would be better than it is now.
April 27th, 2010 at
Kev, this year there were no crashes on the finishing stretch … mostly cuz there was little wind on the day.
The issues came in the middle of the first turn ’sweeper’, the chicanes on the backside, and the two tight right-handers entering the finishing straight.
It’s hard to say the crashes didn’t come more from operator error than anything to do with the course. It’s the same course … it doesn’t change during the laps ~ and yet, riders were touching wheels, tangling bars, and bouncing themselves off bot-dots to fall on the ground.
But Hernandito makes an excellent case example of a course cutting down on crashes with a simple addition of a technical aspect tossed in. The Sacto Landpark race had some of the most idiotic of crashes taking place until they added that tighty turn and chicane. With the Wente Crit … it’d be near impossible to change the existing course, and instead calls for a course relocation. That’s just as daunting of a prospect, though.
I think the VSRT folks make the current crit course about as safe and racer friendly as humanly possible. Great parking, awesome shade, and a course that riders just need to frickin’ ride safely on. It’s discussions like these that highlight the absolute necessity of club/team mentoring from within. Racers learn how to ride safely and well through the modeling behavior and getting good feedback from their teammates. If you have teammates involved in crashes - please talk to them about it. Ask and discuss about how the crashes happened and what they might have done differently to avoid being involved in the spills.
I know that almost every one of my crashes I’ve ever had on the bike has been avoidable. I either chose stupidly and caused my own fall, or didn’t watch closely enough and react quickly enough to avoid a spill.
As we all know, even the Euro-Pros crash quite a bit … so, we must ready ourselves for the inevitable. However, there is also a huge amount of self-responsibility we must all uphold … so, please talk with your team/club mates about crashes and what positive techniques/lessons can be taken from them so they are less likely to repeat.
Courses don’t crash people, people crash people.
m
April 27th, 2010 at
Hate this race. Not sure there is much more to be said. Masters race is bad enough on that course, but when they called 6 laps to go after we had been racing for about 25 minutes??? Watch out….
April 27th, 2010 at
Lots of clamoring for “constructive feedback” but I think some was offered. The finish move thing I think is fairly refuted though - this time the long finish had a tailwind and there were no crashes there. Had it been a headwind though - yes, that long straight would have been a slaughterhouse as well.
The crux of my point is that racers will take advantage of places to move up. You have to, it’s racing. When a course offers you those places only in places that don’t offer any “outs” you get pile-ups as a sort of “tragedy of the commons” thing - I take away a little safety margin, the guy moving up inside does as well, the four lines next to me do, next thing you know even though we’re all making very small risk decisions we have this aggregate huge risk and eventually it doesn’t pan out.
As a specific illustration, the P12 stack was exactly one of those spots. You finish the hard right, and now you have an opportunity to move up on the left side before a left sweeper starts. Well - it is already 4 wide there, and the follow-the-wheel lines *will* close that corner off. You move up there and you’re relying on 4 riders at once to each make an allowance for an inside rider who wasn’t there before. If they don’t do everything perfect with some spacing, someone has to hit the brakes. Everyone is accelerating out of the corner though so that sends a ripple of braking into a pack that’s already dealing with line compression -> stack.
And I wasn’t intending to exaggerate - M45-123? 1 race before the M35s? 2 wrecks? 3? M35s? 1. cat 4 women, 1? P123 women? 2? 3? P12? 1. That is a lot of truck rolling. Was it one every 25 minutes? 20? Let’s say a reasonable threshold is one a day while you hope for zero. It’s unreasonable, and shooting for precision is picking nits.
The only way I can think of take away the wrecks on the existing course (note: constructive part coming, sensitive types!) is to take away the “move up the inside” lines *before* the outside lines pinch them off. Squeezing the course. A mild way would be straight line barriers prior to the corners, or cones. A more severe way is chicanes or similar. Those are both artificial though and it’s probably better to just look for something like Chad’s talking about - an L or something with a vertical feature.
With regard to the promoters I have nothing but great things to say, the race was fantastically well run, it’s just the course was a charnal house.
I’ve never done it before personally but what grabbed me was the location. It’s a 25 minute drive, that’s why it’s popular. Land Park and Menlo were popular too, and also dangerous. They fixed themselves anyway. Hopefully Wente Crit does as well - if so, like I said: I’m there. If not - no way, and I’ll be hoping I don’t hear about spinal injuries the next day…
April 27th, 2010 at
This crit reminded me of the Miles Standish Road Race in New England. It used to happen early in the season and it was always a bloodbath. It was my first eyewitness to a rider’s complete flip in midair landing in the bushes. At the Wente Crit I raced the 45/55 race and on one lap off to my left into the first hard turn a bike went flying through the air but without the rider attatched. Cooling down after the final lap the EMT’s were tending to a rider farther up the road in the right gutter from the other crash I had witnessed earlier. That crash delayed the next race for quite some time. I rode most of the race on the far right side but everytime we went into a corner riders on my left would lose their line and push me hard into the gutter. I can see less experienced unskilled riders just not able to cope with this race. It was more efficient to be as far to to right as posible going through the corners and that attributed to many riders pushing their line farther off to the right more than most crits that I have done in the past. The few laps that I rode on the far left I had all the room in the world but it was more work. Riders in front of me had this stupid nasty habit on swerving out the way of all the bott dots which made me feel I was racing with a bunch of 5’s. I just ignored the dots and if I hit a few it was no big deal. But I think that the dots and some of the potholes were a huge distraction to less experienced riders. In the end I enjoyed the course and will do it again but wish it was a bit safer course.
April 28th, 2010 at
Ok, so everyone seems to feel the Wente course is “broken” in some way because we racers crash on it. How does that work? Yes the course could be more technical, and yes that may change rider tactics therby improving the safety of things, but ultimately it comes down to us to not ride eachother into the curb.
I have done this race for years and am still scared of the finish, but I love the darn thing. How can you not enjoy a race where you can realistically get away with doing a full crit without touching your brakes, you get to go as fast as you want! This is where I think the problem comes in, you get 80-100 guys out there and some may be stronger than others, but they all feel like they can go a million miles and hour on this course. Sometimes that doesn’t workout too well and you find yourself in a situation where it is either, bump into the guys next to you or hit the curb. Then you get a crash. The course didn’t make you crash, hell we’ve all said the course is easy, it just gave riders to go a bit “bigger” than was safe. Change the course and you’ll find that there are still a bunch of crashes and maybe even one in every race…just like many other races.
Stop and think about this though, with all the times that Laberge, Metcalf, Nolan, Carpenter (yes I do race Masters!) have either won or done well here, have you seen them crash?
Just a thought.
Cheers and keep enjoying the race!
April 28th, 2010 at
Regarding Robin’s comments, I pretty much agree. I can’t comment on this year as I did not attend, but in the past, most of the crashes I’ve seen have been on the last lap. Mostly they have been because the pack got too bunched up, gutter to gutter in the final straight and then bad things happened. The head wind makes it harder, but if the race was fast enough coming into the finish, bunching up would not be a problem.
Robin is right in that the racers could make it safer if more people would just go to the front and wind it up for their team mates who can sprint. Face it people, not all of us are sprinters! If you are not a sprinter and you have a team mate who is, then you should be slaying yourself for that team mate on the final lap. If you are not, then you are not being a good team mate.
I have on occasion brought the masters field into the final straight fairly lined out, but once you hit the head wind the speed goes down and it bunches up. Maybe you come out of that turn at close to 30, but then the wind and your efforts slow you down and everybody if happy to slow down and bunch up behind you. And then you hear that terrible sound…
I think that to really wind that sprint up and keep it safe you probably need three riders on the front. One to get to and through the final corner and then two more to get your sprinter close enough to the line while still keeping the speed high. That is what good teams do. Throw all your efforts into the one person who you think has the best chance of winning and go for it!
April 29th, 2010 at
To the people who think the blame lays with racers: Yes, but no. Sure, everyone should be able to ride safely and not cause a crash. The reality is that that doesn’t always happen and no matter how well you personally ride, you can always be an innocent victim of a crash. The Wente crit course has been proven dangerous time and time again. At some point, we need to protect each other from ourselves. Just because people line up to do something stupid, doesn’t mean that we should let them.
April 29th, 2010 at
women 123 field on a course known to be a crash fest= bad things happening. Why the need to put the 3’s in the same race as the 1/2? Yes bigger fields is always good, but to put rather inexperienced cat 3 racers with the likes of professional women is just ridiculous. Especially if the race is known for crashes. Moral of the story here (constructive criticism coming), do a 3/4 field and let the women 1/2 race their own race. This way you let the more experienced riders race their own race. There is no need for a lower category rider who is “on the rivet” end the chances of the top field for women with careless crash. I know, I know, even the pros crash, but chances are that a more inexperienced rider is more likely to cause a crash.
April 29th, 2010 at
If you take the womens pro/1/2/3 field out of the discussion, it was a quiet race crash-wise this year. The 5’s, the 4’s, the 3’s, 35+4/5’s, all crash-free. Not quite sure about the 45+1/2/3/4’s, but I think no crashes there as well. One crash in the pro men, nothing unusual there, just a fluke as to how many riders it took down. So what is it about the women’s race? This year wasn’t the first time their field had a lot of crashes.
May 1st, 2010 at
incorrect on the crash count. there were spills in all races you mention. just minor, but still some butts were showing through chamois.
May 1st, 2010 at
not “just minor”, there were fire trucks and ambulances around on some of those crashes…
in fact, I flatted in the P12, and you know what caused it? A mangled safety pin! Must’ve picked that up on course - how’d that happen? I pity the racer…
Gotta side with anonymous in that we should use a bit of empiricism here. We should race better but we don’t. We should have 4-person lead-outs but even CalGiant and Yahoo struggle with that much less the rest of us.
The course has more crashes than normal. Safety should be a priority and not left up to a “let’s try harder” plan - we should care about it and be proactive.
As such, we should agitate for a safer course, and I think that’s prudent and fair otherwise I wouldn’t be yammering here.
I’m actually surprised that appears to be such a controversial stance, but I recall a lot of push back by venue operators as the MotoGP and F1 courses were being modified for safety too. In the end, the racers had to push for it, but the racing is much safer.
May 6th, 2010 at
The question is, what is a safe course? Davis, Merco, Burlingame, all are good technical courses where there should be a bit of attrition which would whittle the pack down to a manageable and safe size. Doesn’t happen on any one of those courses and every year there are multiple crashes throughout the day. So technical (read NOT wide open) courses are not, specifically, the answer.
Then you have a course like this past weekend, the Joseph Mendes crit in Pleasanton, flat fast and wide open with a sweeper for turn 1. Given the nature of Wente (similar in nature)and the arguement for a more technical and safe course, we should have seen a ton of crashes here…but we didn’t. The race was strung out and fast coming in to the finishes, leaving the finish a bit more open and safe. Yes, there were a couple of crashes (did ya see the guy ride up the grass hill on the finishing straight??), but it was safe. The reason, guys were aggressive and they strung out the field by attacking, plus they used good old Mother Nature- the wind definitely played a factor.
My suggestion….beware what you ask for, you may just get a course change that winds up to be a crash fest for one reason or another. Like Kevin said, the best bet is if those who are NOT sprinters leave the sprinting to those who ARE….do the wind up and then pull off (safely please!)and let the few duke it out. Trust me, your day in the sun will come.
May 10th, 2010 at
As the race director for the last three years I really appreciate the feedback I have read on this site. I wanted to state a few facts in regards to some of the comments. First off there were four ambulance calls from noon to 4pm in three races not every 20 minutes. Tough I am not allowed to go into the types of injuries I can say that all 4 where in different locations:
Straightaway (cause = hand bar to handle bar)
Sweeper (bunched pack, overlapping wheels)
Right-hand Jog (unknown)
Right-hand 90 (BOT Dot avoidance)
I have studied the last 3 years and can tell you there is no one location that sees more accidents then any other.
We did take action during the race. We reviewed and adjusted the course at one of the sweepers’ entries. After the event we met and discussed the course and category changes. We have also already had a team meeting to discuss the idea of a course change.
We will continue to be proactively focused on safety trough the year and hope to put on an even safer event in 2011.
Feel free to contact me directly with any concerns or suggestion.
Don Williams