Gastown Crit

Vancouver is such a great city! It reminds me a little of San Francisco, only cleaner and the mountains are prettier. The gastown crit was Wednesday night in downtown Vancouver that we were to go around 30 times. I have never seen that many people cheering at a woman's race before. The course was packed and even the 3 story parking garage that was along the course was filled with spectators. I was very nervous standing at the start line with world class athletes such as Gina G. from Colavita in front of me. After all the hoopla that the announcer does before the race, the gun went off. Five seconds into the race, I found myself already in a crash on the ground. I taco'd both of my wheels, my fork broke in two places, my hoods were all twisted and so were my brakes. Also, the part on the frame that holds the cables on broke off as well. Basically, my race was over before it even finished. I also hit my head pretty hard on the pavement because I had a splitting headache afterwards and I still have a bruise on it. Well, I had a really great first five seconds, with a great spot on the start line. My gosh, it's kind of embarrasing to do all that damage to my bike ending my race going about 5mph. It would've made a better story if it happened on the sharp turn with the cobblestones going 25mph.
The rest of the VB gals did really great!