shovelhd

Most of what has been said has been spot on. In your next race, spend the first half of it in the middle of the field. You cannot spend all day on the outside and expect to do well. You have to learn how to draft much closer (tough habit to break as a tri-geek) with riders surrounding you on all sides. That is all about practice. You need to learn how to take a wheel. Move over slowly, using the wind, another rider, or a course feature to get ahead of the other rider and move them away from your wheel without contact. As far as the wreck goes, it's hard to say what you could have done to avoid it if you were both in the drops, short of not swerving, but that could have been the wind. If you sense that things are going to get tight, get wide. Spread your elbows out a bit to fend off any potential contact. As a little guy, I have to do this often. I'd rather have unintentional contact on my arm than my bars.

carpediemracing 

Recovering from hooking bars is tough. By definition the thing that keeps your bike upright is your ability to steer. It's not the wheels, gyroscopic effect, head tube angle, trail, none of that. Individually all of those things have been proven to be non-critical. Lock a headset in place and the bike suddenly becomes unrideable for normal people (circus people etc not included).

Everyone minutely falls one direction or another, steers into it, and recovers. It happens so often it seems like it's not happening, and at some level it doesn't once you're super experienced. This is why a trackstand requires you to go backward or at least be able to power backward - it maintains your ability to steer because you're moving backward and forward minutely. An experienced trackstander will move their body instead of their bike but the result is the same, that of adjusting trajectory.

if someone hooks your bar then you lose your ability to steer, at least at some significant level. You need to disengage as quickly as possible without exacerbating the situation.

If you hook someone then you want to lean into the rider and hit your brakes. By leaning into the rider you avoid the opposite instinct of trying to pull away (worst thing possible). By hitting your brakes you back out of "the hook" and you disengage.

If you get hooked then you want to try and lean into the other rider. Steer at the rider a bit and hang onto your bars hard because if the rider pulls away from you his action will force your bars to turn quickly away from the rider (as his bars pull yours) and you may lose your grip on the bars. If you can hang onto the bars then the other rider will fall and there's a possibility that you'll be able to clear the debris. If you lose the bars then you're probably hitting the deck.

kevmk81

Great feedback. This is what I was looking for! Thank you!

Poohblah

[off topic]
This - "bikes stay upright because of the gyroscopic effect" - is one of the two biggest lies I was told in science class as a child. The other one being "airplanes stay aloft because the difference between the speed of the air over the top of the wing and bottom of the wing causes a pressure differential".
[/off topic]

carpediemracing 

what?

Poohblah

I was agreeing with your post, not disagreeing with it.

Bikes do not stay upright because of the gyroscopic effect (as I was told in elementary/middle school). They stay upright because we steer to correct for our weight shifting.

Sorry for the confusion.

Fiery

Somewhat on topic


Of course, the balance of the system is too labile for the bicycle to keep itself upright once a rider is included without the rider steering. But still, it's cool to see a bicycle steer and right itself without a rider and without any outside input.