They were running the women's Cat 1-2-3 and the men's juniors 17-18 at the same time. It was a long, elliptical course with u-turns at either end of a slightly curvy, slightly uphill/downhill four-lane road that has been built for a residential area with no houses yet. They started the women's race and let them get down the road, turned and headed back, and then started the men's, like a giant track with two teams riding opposite each other. It was their inaugural race and at the end of the men's juniors, on the straightaway sprint for the finish, uphill, about 200 meters down, the announcer said was a bad crash and to make room for the emergency vehicle to come out onto the course.

I was taking pictures so I headed down to see what I could get and I stood across the street on the sidewalk, out of the way of the emergency vehicle, but I could hear the motor lead guy who had pulled over and was signaling for the women's peloton behind him to move to the center of the road. He was talking to a race official who had stopped to help the boy who had crashed (lost his front tubular, broke his left collar bone). He called out, "You know, you never see the women run each other into the barriers."

As the women approached and passed, he got back on his motorcycle to resume his leadout position, but I heard him tell the referee, "The men want to race against their friends. The women want to race with their friends. It's a totally different dynamic."

Naturally, I thought of all of you and I wondered if those of you who race feel particularly competitive - like, aggro competitive - or if it's more about the camaraderie for you.

I've never raced except for riding the bike leg of a tri relay team, and I'm not especially competitive at all. Just wondering what you all thought about what leadout motor guy said.

There were at least two other crashes, both in men's races, both resulting in some injuries - one bad road rash and the other I'm not sure about, but the guy was hurt. That one took out several riders.

Nothing like that in the women's race, and they were going pretty fast, too. They just weren't slugging it out in the u-turns, apparently.

Roxy