Originally Posted by
shovelhd
It seems like the guy on the left dive bombed the right hander while the OP was setting up behind the rider in front of him. However I can't see that doing much except bumping the OP's hip. Did your bars hook? What happened that lead to your losing your balance? Were you tense? Just too tough to tell even with two cameras.
I had my elbows out, but he was slightly ahead of me and hit my handlebars with his forearm. He was fixated on following the wheel of the rider who passed in front of me and completely lacked situational awareness when he turned into me. I was one of the front 5 riders virtually the entire race, and there wasn't much I could do to be positioned better. There was about 3 miles to the finish, and it wasn't as if he had to fight for position in the final corner. He had plenty of room to take a safe line, but didn't purely out of negligence.
My biggest frustration is that the crash was absolutely needless. I was riding a 10 year old bike and planning on upgrading it, but in the meantime I have nothing to race and train on for at least a week, and it'll take longer than that for the road rash to clear up. At least I didn't break any bones. I simply hope that this guy learned from his error, and rides safer in the future.