>>1007785Interesting that you should mention something like that, since I have direct experience -- just not like you might think
About 3 years ago, I crashed about a mile to the finish of a road race I was in. We had just turned right off a frontage road and were heading up over an overpass. I had been riding strong the entire race, and was in the top ten position in the peloton, which is exactly where you want to be, that close to the finish.
>This is IT, I have a shot at winning this!I think to myself.
Where the overpass starts, the road gets narrower. I'm near the front, but I'm surrounded by other riders. We're all moving along at >=25mph, and I'm focused like a laser on what's in front of me, the impending finish, and what my next moves are going to be to get free of the other riders so I can sprint my ass off and try to win this goddamned race. But some asshole on my right, who I never identified, must have run out of room, and jumped his line literally on top of mine -- and took me out, at the aforementioned high speed. I and a few other riders went down, HARD..
I had cuts and bruises all over me. My kit was ruined. I developed a gigantic hematoma on my left hip (size of half a large canteloupe). I had a huge dent in my helmet (as a sidebar: without the helmet, I would have ended up in an ambulance with massive head trauma, not driving myself home with swelling developing on my hip). Months later, I discovered my handlebars were bent (no wonder the bike was handling strangely!).
A month afterwards when the hematoma on my hip had subsided and I could ride again, I tried a road race again.
As soon as I was surrounded by other riders, I literally vapor-locked internally; I stopped pedaling, dropped out of the peloton, and quit the race as soon as I came back around to the parking area.
>can you say "PTSD"?More in the next comment, OP.
