2013 Herne Hill Track League (sponsored by Cycling Weekly)

Speedy recovery to all.

Thye need to limit the amount of people on the track at any one time i think. Maybe get some people to go into the C category

Wow, that's really unlucky for Laura. The crash at the Rolla open was definitely not her fault. I think she broke a rib in that one.

it was ridiculous, there were people all over track and no where to go.

It is the VCL guy who came off worst, poor thing - wishing him speedy recovery.

Laura has lots of road rash and broken jaw, but ok. Josh from VCL suspected broken wrist and i bust my shoulder.

can't believe so many of us ended up in hospital.

Ambulance guys were amazing!

Blimmin' heck. Glad to see you're ok Wiesia. I hope everyone makes a speedy and full recovery.

Not sure about VCL guy, fingers crossed he is ok. The rest of us were all in same ward together until early hours this morning.

Sounds nasty, hope everyone heals up soon.

+1
get well soon everyone.

Sorry to hear about this. Speedy recovery to all involved.

Just got home. Dislocated shoulder and tendon torn off the bone at the shoulder. Going to rescan on Tuesday to see if surgery required. They Initially thought I had broken my elbow as well, but CT scan came back negative.

I was in the next bed to an older VCL rider (50 year old, two sons Ethan and Noah also in the race but I didn't get his name). Good bloke that I had a nice chat with today. He fractured his pelvis and elbow and went into surgery on the latter this afternoon.

Thanks to Dimi, Andrey, Olivier, tom, Dov and others for keeping me calm at the track. Accidents happen and organisers do a great job at HHV, but maybe some tweaks needed to reduce frequency of crashes for the rest of the year.

Sounds terrible heal up T-V and everyone.

Hope all involved make a speedy recovery!

may all involved people recover quickly!! I am really shaken at reading what happened :|

Crikey Alex, heal up soon! Not the best first session back after the honeymoon :(

Nor the most impressed wife to get her first A&E call!

That was probably the worst crash in terms of injuries that I have seen at HH, but to be fair, while there have been a few spills in the Saturday and Monday training sessions there haven't been many crashes in track league - the only one I can think of off the top of my head this season was Dom Hill coming down a couple of weeks ago and that was due to a puncture.

Incidents like wednesday's are extremely rare, the last time I remember seeing something like it at HH was in the mid 90s. More often than not most riders would be getting up and riding again after a big spill, it was just one of those freak occurrences where all the planets aligned to create maximum carnage.

Not to say there aren't one or two riders who could do with dropping out of the league and doing a few more training sessions to learn some track craft before coming back, but I'm not sure that there's too much the organisers could do about that, if you have a license you can race.

I also don't think that the size of the field was the problem, road races go ahead with much bigger fields than that without incident every weekend.

Anyway, heal up soon everyone, hopefully you'll be back on your bikes before you know it.

I only heard about this last night, talking to Empties (Adam) who works with Fixed Cheese... Sounds scary, so sorry to hear news like that!

I hope all involved will recover well and quick!

Loic

Yikes. Just finding out about this now. Hope everyone is able to get back on their bikes soon. Horrible to read!

Just back from fracture clinic, where a bumped into VCL Josh having his follow up appointment.

My shoulder is worse than originally thought which is a bummer and i have to have an op next weekend to fix it back together. although still counting my blessings that i didnt come off as bad as the poor VCL guy.

Anyone riding at the front know why the crash happened?

Richard quoted this above, from one of the riders' FB page:

The rider in front of me was going solid on the blue... someone came through on the inside and hit their bars. Nothing they could do - I was right on their wheel, so went flying over the top.

I think I was just in front of the rider in front, and felt someone hit my wheel on their way down.

In front of me, everyone seemed to ease off quite a lot when they got onto the banking, and as there were riders right across the track, we all had to follow suit. The riders behind might not have been able to judge the extent of the change in pace as they went into the banking, so there was a concertina. I'm not sure if the previous lap had been a Prime lap or whether it was just tactical, but it seemed like the kind of reduction in pace you get after a sprint lap. That's my observation and it's not intended to lay the blame on those who were right on the front - I think a lot of people coming up behind them, myself included, could have anticipated and reacted to the change in pace better.

Afterwards one of the commisaires mentioned splitting up the A and B categories from now on. I'm not sure that's needed or whether that will indeed happen, but purely from the selfish point of view of someone who is more likely to be competitive in a B-only race than an A&B race, I'd welcome it.

yeah thats what i thought, the pace suddenly eased and then carnage.

i think there are enough riders to split now, although i know they wouldnt have been able to get 2 x 20k in if they split the group. my issue is that i am not strong enough to sit out of trouble at the front when a's/b's together and when there is such a huge bunch and you are at the back - you risk getting caught up in a crash.

are all the a/b races run together now? i havent been for a few weeks. not much point having two categories if they always race together is there?

i dunno - lots of strong people in there who arent that great at riding in a bunch, but i guess there is only one way of improving and thats to race - we were all there once.

just real shame so many came down.

The 20k has always been "all in" though, so it probably wouldn't have been split anyway even if the other races were. Having it near the beginning of the meet probably made a difference, more fresh legs meant riders who would probably have been shelled out later on in the meet hanging on despite the pace being quite high.

...lots of strong people in there who arent that great at riding in a bunch...

To paraphrase RPM - there seems to be lot of new riders who are all bollocks and no brains. Actually, take out the word new, one or two "experienced" riders could do with some pointers in how to ride properly in a track bunch too. The devil at Good Friday was one of the sketchiest races I've ever ridden and that was all supposedly experienced riders.

The problem that you can't make people drop out and those who probably should go back to the Saturday and Monday sessions for a few weeks of pointers don't have the self awareness to do so themselves...

Would it be useful in this thread to create a consolidated list of key points to riding safely in a track bunch? Would be interested to see guidance from likes of Tricky Business, JC, RPM, Cooky and most experienced track riders.

Yes please - here, or in a separate thread

separate thread, so it won't get lost.

The problem that you can't make people drop out and those who probably should go back to the Saturday and Monday sessions for a few weeks of pointers don't have the self awareness to do so themselves...

Even if people can't be forced to drop out and go back to the training sessions, the more experienced riders should still be able to point out when someone's doing something unsafe; as a newbie racing in the C's, I'd welcome any criticism or advice I can get.

Maybe one of the key points should be that riders accept constructive criticism in good grace, and without getting defensive or giving their critic a hard time...