I crashed too!

In no way as spectacular as some of your crashes I have read about here, but a little frightening nonetheless.

On Montreal's Women's Championship course (on road) this morning at 7:30 I was just finishing my warmup and going down at pretty good speed from one side of the hill (Mont-Royal) and preparing to turn right to ride up on the other side. When I entered the curb, already slightly bending toward the inside of the curve, I saw orange cones "announcing" a pile of gravel/small rocks/sand but actually the cones were way too late into the curb for me to slow down or get back to full vertical position. In that split second I had the time to think about Caligurl's crash and probably smiled thinking about the ambulance and firetruck, but there were none behind me, just a guy about 200 feet before me, and there I went, my wheels skid and I was on the gravel pile myself, with the orange cone in my face. I must have braked with the rear brake because I landed on my left side, while I was turning right.

I'm mostly okay, just a pretty good cut on my knee and another smaller one on my elbow, plus a few crash rashes. I cleaned up with water on the spot and then at home with soapy water. I had sand IN my shorts and basically everywhere else. A girlfriend living nearby came to check out the bruise on my elbow as I could not figure it out myself. As for the bike, the left-hand shifter of the bike was displaced, the front wheel seemed a bit false and my handlebar tape is just totally torn. According to the CGBS (I love that Cute-Guy-at-the-Bike-Shop thing), the tape should be the longest thing to fix, the bike will be back tomorrow afternoon. I've dialed the city maintenance "hotline" before I started writing this message but I'm still on hold.

I have had a great fear of crashing ever since I started road biking but frankly it wasn't too bad and almost fun: when, as an adult, do we have a chance to get bruises? Ok my case is not serious so I can smile, but still, it feels childish to get bruises and then to clean them up and say "ouch" and gently blow on them...

Just had to share this.