After yet another mid-race collision a few years ago I worked out a simple philosophy about crashes: they happen because you're where you shouldn't be.
At 2.54.30 and 77 kilometres into my 12th Argus on Sunday past, that thought flashed briefly into my dozy consciousness. I couldn't focus on it, though, because my brain was hammering out a mantra: look where you want to go. Look where you want to go. Don't look at them. Look where you want to go, and that's where you'll go
As minor mayhem erupted - it couldn't have been more than half a dozen riders - bits of bike, polystyrene foam (an exploding helmet?) and bodies tumbled into my path. I leaned, swayed, and swung out to the right. Dipped urgently more right to the edge of the roadway, then whipped back left. Out of the saddle, now.
Look where you want to go. It really works.
Fortunately I captured the action - not in HD, but all I had was a lousy 2 gigabyte SD card, so I was trying to maximise my runtime by minimising resolution.
In the video linked to above, we're passing through a refreshment stop. The rider immediately ahead of me starts turning to the right as riders ahead of him collide. His rear wheel seems to lock up and lose traction, breaking away sharply to the left and swivelling him further clockwise. Meanwhile, on the right, a rider passes me. He also angles to the right, and his rear wheel breaks left. Did both of them grab their rear brake?
It all happened in a blur, but I don't recall braking. I kept it rolling, freewheeling, simply looking where I wanted to go. My body and the bike did the rest.
* Sunday was not one of my finer efforts, but it was within shouting distance of my thumbsuck target of 4 hours with an official finish time of 4.11.
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