BurlinGame of Death

By Pete Billington

At first I thought it was the 7am start that kept most of the CAT4 Tam Cycling riders from making an appearance at the 19th Annual Downtown Burlingame Criterium. Nick Agate and I arrived by 6am in order to warm up and recon the course. At least the recent hot weather would not be an issue. In fact, I had to put on my leg warmers it was so cold.

Once I did a few laps on the course, I realized that there may be another reason some of the more experienced "Tammers" had chosen not to participate. The course consisted of a downtown "L" shape, with a fast right-left-right chicane over brick and cement. The last turn was more of a sweeping right hand curve than a turn, with a 100 meter sprint to the finish. The start/finish had a small crest at the line, which immediately narrowed by one rider-width from the left. Not merging meant hitting the curb, or worse the metal fences. There were no hay bails on the course.

At the beginning of our race we were informed that there were a few cars left out on the course, and that the officials would attempt to remove them between LAPS! WTF? How about removing them between races? Or better yet, before our race? By lap ten all of the cars had been ticketed and towed out of the way, and we were able to take full advantage of the course. The pace started fast, but slowed down after about lap 15. Pescadero was the day before and many of the riders had burnt up a lot of energy climbing in the heat.

Both Nick and I sat in the top of the field. Waiting for the opportunity to move forward. The chicane made it difficult to move up, and the sweeper was a very dangerous place to pass. With 10 to go I heard the first rider go down right behind me. After the race a guy named Russ from Galaxy Granola came up to me and told me that he was the one who had gone down. "I was in your draft when someone crossed my wheel. You block a lot of wind, so I thought it was a good place to be, but apparently so did someone else."

Nick was caught behind this crash and had to fight to move forward. I saw him get into the top twenty on the inside line. I had elected to stay on the left side so I could carry more momentum through the right hand turns. The race was shaping up nicely. I was in a good position and needed to move up again with 2 to go. But Nick was not putting down the hammer. At the time I didn't realize it, but he could not see the lap cards from the inside line. With 1 to go he thought that there were 10 laps left.

As it started to stretch out through the chicane it was impossible to pace. The pace was fast and into the sweeper another guy went down. I had to pull up and lock the brakes. The race was over for me. A guy from Roaring mouse had endo'd and landed on his head. When I came around on the cool down lap I stopped and talked to him. He had a nasty cut around his eye, but was in good spirits. He joked, " I will live to race again." Nick had managed to avoid the crash on the inside and came in for a mid-pack finish.

I decided to stay and watch the rest of the day's races. It was like watching re-runs of our race in fast-forward. A crash at the beginning of the sweeper, and a crash at the end of the sweeper. Over and over, the same thing. What is it about a gradual turn that is so much more dangerous then a sharp one? The pro race was amazing to watch. I walked around the course twice, observing all of the subtleties of their lines.

Halfway through the race Andy Jacques-Maynes of Cal-Giant led a three man breakaway that managed to get a turns-length on the field. Once they were out of sight, their lead increased. One rider was dropped and the finish was down to a two man sprint, followed by a pack sprint for third. As the field came through the start/finish on the last lap, a rider clipped the curb on the narrowing left side. He careened into the peloton and twelve riders went down. It was awful. They blasted into fences, knocking a whole section into the crowd. Two riders were hurt badly and could not be moved. In seconds the finishing sprint would be coming through the same area. It was a very dangerous situation. The safety officials did a great job of flagging the remaining riders to the right side of the course. Andy won the sprint. It was a very exciting and terrifying race.