I hit a scooter doing 20mph. Should I feel guilty?

It happened at the perennial sufferfest known as the Mt. Evans Hillclimb. This year I was joined by a friend and race rookie, Seth Terry. The wreck (detailed below) wasn't much to write home about, but makes a good title :)



The race was especially challenging this year, the pain of ascent was directly correlated with the amount of time I didn't spend in the saddle this year. On the suckage scale, this ride went to eleven. This was my fourth year in the race and all of my times are still within 5%, albethey slower. So I guess that's ok.


The real motivator for me this year was a guy on a unicycle. I was stuck behind him on the bottom part of the course, which meant that anytime we past people they would cheer for him, then look at me with that 'you can do it' encouragement; but we both knew I was the guy who was losing to a unicycle. Truth be told, he is an amazing climber, and had there not been any flatter parts of the course (where I could shift up), he would have beat me.

Anyway, the real excitement this year was coming down the mountain. Since the citizen group started first, there were a ton of people still on the way up so uphill lane was off limits. And the downhill lane was fairly crowded as well, full of half lucid riders surviving at this point on fumes and hammer gels.

About 4 miles down I was following Seth and passed by a support scooter. The road was still fairly windy and steep, so we were all going at a pretty good clip; I think he was just trying to position himself better when the road opened up. But not 30 seconds later we rounded a corner and scooter guy spotted a rider in the uphill lane who had pulled over, and, being a support vehicle, decided to stop as well.

Now, perhaps I was a little too close, frankly I wasn't really paying attention as I half expected everyone headed downhill had the same goal of getting off the mountain as quickly as possible. So my hands were nowhere near the brakes when scooter guy hit his brakes and turned in front of me to help the wayward rider.

What happened next was a bit of a blur. I remember ping-ponging off scooter guy and careening into the uphill lane and eating it over the handlebars in the rocks. Scooter guy also fell over but since he was already slowing down, his pong to my ping wasn't nearly as dramatic.

After a few 'you ok?' exchanges, scooter guy took off, which seemed odd as now I was the one needing support. I tweaked my brake levers something ugly, dropped my chain, etc, all pretty minor considering the alternatives. After a few minutes to gather myself, I got back on the bike to try to catch up with Seth again.


Oddly enough, he'd also run into a rough patch on the descent with a front tire blowout during one of the straight sections. This was particularly lucky as front tire flats are really dangerous, especially on corners - so the fact that he'd been able to keep control of the bike after such an event was pretty impressive and lucky.

All in all it was a great day. I think next year i'll try to train a little more, perhaps i'll try riding a unicycle.

pics from the ride