CODY SHIMIZU

A look into my life, a journal to look back on, a blog for others to see.

The infamous Tour De Bowness has always been on the same weekend as other mountain bike events in the past years. This year I finally had the opportunity to go and participate in the event. Since I was still working on the weekend I decided to just go do the criterium on Monday. I registered for the hill climb on the Saturday as well but I ended up not waking up early enough to drive down from Edmonton to Calgary since the event was at 10Am.

Drove down, slept in the back of my car since the crit was early in the morning the next day. The morning of I made my way to the event and pre-rode the course. I’ve heard of how bad the roads were, but thankfully it seemed as though they have repaved half of the course, the other half was still.... pretty bad. It was exciting, other than the midweek Castrol Raceway crit this was the first ABA race I was doing. Knowing how out of shape I am from the Castrol Crit I was excited but I was nervous in hoping that I wouldn’t get dropped.

As the race went off, there was already a small attack off the line. Foolishly I followed. Caught in the middle of the guy out front and the peloton behind me I just sat up. Wasting unnecessary energy, I let the peloton do its thing. Everybody was back together by lap 3, Ryan and Luke (Juventus) went on their dominating attack. I couldn’t follow, I just didn’t have it in my legs. I decided to sit in with the group for a few more laps and try again to go on the attack. As the peloton rounded a course a few more times I rode as efficiently as possible, sitting in the draft, and through the technical sections. As I was regaining my composure plotting my next move it happened.

Everything happened so quickly I didn’t even realize what happened, except for the moment, a split second before the crash everything felt like it was in slow motion. The rider 2 in front of me going down, moving left to avoid the rider I point my front wheel towards open road, for a moment I thought I’d avoided it until their bike comes sliding in front of me. Next thing I know I’m flying through the air ejected from my bike. The first thing that hit the ground was my right forearm, I remember thinking in that moment how bad of an road rash I was going to have on the forearm. Then my helmet scraping along the ground. The thought of my favorite helmet, broken, having done its job. Everything goes back to normal speed again as I hear 2 other riders crashing behind me, I don’t even know it they hit me or not. By the time the fact that Id crashed had actually sunken in the paramedics are already yelling at me to stay down fearing about the hit to the head. They quickly ask me a few questions confirming that I hadn’t lost any consciousness. As they run over they ask where hurts, I immediately notice my left knee cap I had hit on something as I tried to get up. But for some reason I tell the paramedics my left patella. Maybe I was trying to show off my anatomy knowledge, but a split second later Id already regretted saying patella rather than knee cap. I mean seriously what kind of petty fool would say patella. Feeling embarrassed, I quickly assured the paramedics that Id be fine and got back into race mode. Quickly grabbing my bike I tried hopping back on to get back into the race only to realized both my wheels front and rear was completely bent. It wouldn’t even spin in the frame.

That was it. My entire weekend. The race entry fee, gas, food, all the money Id spent, I didn’t expect to win anything but at least I thought I’d get to race but rather I ended the weekend with a broken helmet and wheels, worst of all I only got to do maybe 10 out of the 30 laps of racing I was hoping for. But what can I say, that’s racing. Better luck next time.