I once (in fact, many times) read The Cyclist’s Training Bible. This is a session they advise to improve bike skills!
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School boy error
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There must be something I’m missing here, but everyone’s talking about a pinch point - what I see if you’d got past the pinch point, which is the only way the guy to the left had (or thought he had) space to move over to the right. He probably didn’t think there was enough space for anyone to his right at that point.
Anyway, at the point he swings right there is an entire lane to follow his change of direction and dive into. It’s only a temporary solution as the lane merges soon, but even if you ended up going off the road into the grass it’d have to hurt less/do less damage.
You’d have to be quick so that’s maybe why no-one has mentioned it as a viable escape route but I’d like to think it was possible for someone paying attention to stay up, if not maintain position by doing this.
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Understatement of the century 
In a race situation you’d need to be a ninja to react to that 
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Basically the consensus here, but really no ones fault, but if fault is to blame it isn’t the rider ahead of you. What’s his options? Hit the wheel infront like you did to him?
Watching the first part of the video was hard, and in my mind probably a good contributor to the ending. You’ve obviously got the legs, as you came passed to many riders that you shouldve been at the front coming into it. You were spending the whole climb about 4m away from anyway else going the longest way around the corner. A lot of times I wouldve snuck left on riders but maybe not in a masters race.
I think those actions caused you to be breathing out of your anus, which meant that you weren’t 100% focused ahead of you and just kept gliding foward.
Really it’s just wrong place wrong time, but when you’re overtaking riders in a bunch you should really be looking for an exit point. So how you’re going to get back into draft. I see so many riders hooking the outside of the bunch only to be stuck in the wind because “no one let them in”. You need to be looking for a gap to come back into, and if you can’t then you shouldve buttoned off and stayed behind the rider that hit you. Otherwise you’d need to surge hard to get back in, once you’re stuck out in the wind.
I went to say 100% this but after watching the video again a few times I think op actually does this, just gets whacked too much that it bucks him off. Still a good thing for others to think about.
100% agree with the skills sessions. Something we used to do as juniors, started as a structured skills session on the grass and eventually turned to mucking about in the carpark after training or even up climbs as a laugh. Also reccomend lightly touching handlebars (or even just one rider lifting their hand to tap the others to start) progressing eventually to the point that you can bump into each other without a flinch.
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I think this is right. I was past the pinch point and didn’t touch the curb. But by squeezing through I was in a totally unexpected position for the rider ahead of me.
Totally agree with this and need to be better about protecting that front wheel. At the risk of being pedantic though, I wasn’t sitting there passively half-wheeling. I was passing on the right and there’s definitionally going to be a transient period of overlap while passing. Of course, this overshadows the more relevant point that it wasn’t a safe pass.
The advice about not jerking the wheel and skills training is great. Thanks @Power13. I was going to reply what @IL.Grillo said as well, but didn’t want to come across as defensive. His front wheel hit very hard and his rear mech must have gone into the spokes. Three spokes were ripped out and the valve stem was snapped in half. The wheel is completely trashed. All the damage appears to be from contact with his wheel, not from laying the bike down. The wheel was perpendicular to the bike before I had a chance to react.
When I look at the rest of the race video, I am almost alway sitting on the outside and passing on the right. It’s disqualification if you enter the runner’s lane on the inside of the loop so I find it really hard to hold my position on the inside. There’s always people flirting with the running lane and trying to squeeze through on the right and it sketches me out so I avoid it.
If things had straightened out a bit more, I think there would have been a split-second there where I could have similarly swerved to the right as you suggest. I think the problem was I was still leaning hard into the turn and all my weight was on the inside. With fatigue and race-brain, I was on the ground before I could react.
Appreciate all the insights here!
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Some good news:
- Industry Nine is giving me crash replacement pricing on the wheel
- Rapha sent me a voucher for 40% off another pair of bib shorts as part of their repair program
- Road rash has healed to the point I can sit down comfortably
Bad news is the fork might be toast. Bike shop needs to to drill out the headset screw, they think it might have gotten bent on impact. Hopefully it’s just replacing the screw. Fingers crossed.
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Gotcha….yeah, in some cases there is nothing you can do.
Hope the road rash heals quickly. Tegaderm is your friend!!
Hope the bike’s ok…
You’ve got to protect your front wheel, but I think that’s been said enough now.
Hope you heal quickly and get up and racing again soon!