carpediemracing 

I'll pitch in a bit too. I think bantam you must be feeling a bit beat up, and not just your shoulder.

I think it's great that you entered the practice crit but from your description, there seems to be a few things you can work on to prevent this from happening again.

First, when you're in a crit, as you learned, you rarely have the opportunity to follow your own line. Instead, you're forced to follow others. Since the rider in front of you probably has no significant equipment differences, it should be possible to simply follow their line. This is a great way to corner safely in a big field, even when you have no idea what's happening with the course - just follow what the guy in front is doing.

Sitting on the inside actually gives you a lot of "error" room. The only thing is that the other riders are your buffer. If you make a mistake, they pay for it. However, it's a good place to witness the semi-chaotic situation you always see on the inside of corners.

The outside is a faster but more dangerous place to be. Anyone who crashes will slide out and take you out. Or if they avoid a pothole or make some other riding error, they'll be heading your way.

Second, there are two ways to corner. One maximizes stability, the other maximizes the ability to change your line (at least where the tires go). The stable way to corner is to hunker down and lean the bike and yourself about the same (or you can lean yourself a bit more, but usually you both lean the same). It's stable because your bike is happy resisting cornering forces vertically, i.e. there is very little lateral stress on the wheels, fork, etc.

The second way to corner is to lean your bike more than your body. Since your bike weighs less than your body, you can radically alter its course while your body moves only a little. You can use this technique to, say, avoid a fallen rider in the middle of the turn. The second type of maneuver might have kept you upright a bit longer, enough to either unclip or brake a bit.

Incidentally, when you're in a pack and you see a pothole or something, do NOT swerve to avoid it. Taking out 5 or 10 riders is not a good thing. Suck it up and hit it, unweighting the saddle if you can. Or use the first technique below to avoid it.

Third, it's important to learn some basic riding techniques (and this is beyond simply riding in a group):
1. Bunny hops - if you can bunny hop your bike, you'll give yourself a new out in a situation like your crash. Instead of watching the curb take out your wheels, you can simply bunny hop up it. (Plus you can ride around campus easier if you can bunny hop). One of my first races I went into the final corner of a road race way too hot (40+ mph at the bottom of a descent) and realized I wasn't going to make it, just like you in your crit. I straightened out, bunny hopped the curb, and disappeared into the woods. Other than a lot of scratches from a prickly bush, I was fine. You risk damaging your wheels/tires but I've used bunnyhops when I've gotten pushed off the course, ridden along the sidewalk or grass, and jumped back in (carefully).

2. Cornering on the drops. I'm making an assumption and we know that sometimes backfires - I'm assuming you weren't on your drops or your bars are set a bit high. If you go into a turn at the same speed as everyone else, even a bit faster, and you don't make it, you probably didn't have enough weight on the front of the bike. Weight on the front of the bike allows you to turn more aggressively, brake aggressively, and do some radical maneuvers to tighten your line (like you can skid your rear wheel and slide a bit before trying to recover, or stop, or reduce your impact speed). I see way too many racers (I promote races as well as race them) racing hard on the hoods and sitting too far back on the bike while cornering.

Hoods means you're putting more weight on the seat, i.e. moving your weight rearward, and you take perhaps 30-50% of your braking force away simply because you can't adjust your weight when you grab your brakes. Being on the drops is much better. If your drops are a bit high, lowering them a bit might be something to look into.

Slide forward on the seat a bit to push the front wheel down. It's amazing how hard you can corner when your front wheel doesn't slide. Just don't touch your rear brake because it'll probably lock up pretty quickly. Which brings me to...

3. Braking. You should practice all out braking. Even if there is nothing you can do to avoid a crash, slowing down will reduce the impact. All out braking involves using both brakes and practicing stopping hard enough that the rear wheel starts to either lift or skid. That is your tipping point, i.e. at that moment your bike is slowing about as hard as it can. Try and repeat this braking exercise so the rear wheel gets light. Move your butt behind the seat to keep weight as far back as possible. Now try it on the hoods. Very difficult to stop on the hoods. When I do panic stops, I am braking with my front brake perhaps 90% of my stopping power, the rear is very slight. The rear wheel only exists to notify me when the bike is about to tip over. I practice braking every time I end my ride - I ride up to my car or my house and stop firmly enough to lift the rear wheel just a hair.

4. The final thing is learn how to fall. I took Judo and really only learned one thing - how to tumble. One of the exercises I had to do was jump over 3-5 guys standing with their heads tilted down. I'd land from about 5+ feet in the air on a mat and tumble to a standing position and repeat perhaps 10 or 15 times. This is almost exactly like crashing off a bike if you go over the bike (vs slide). Perhaps there is some free Judo classes there (or some other non-punching type thing like gymnastics). Once you get the technique it's a matter of trying a bit.

Finally, if you're in a race and find yourself off the back, use the time to corner as hard as possible. I find it's incredible how hard you can corner given a clear road. My first race I was off the back and a teammate caught up to me. He yelled at me to corner like I wanted to fall over. I did and I was flying. We chased a bit but never made it back on (you rarely do). At least I learned another element of racing that day.

I can't say I never crash - in fact, I used to crash quite often. But knowing these techniques will make the crashes less frequent and hopefully less painful.

I hope this helps. Get your shoulder healed and good luck in your next race,
cdr

*edit* was wrong about tyler's crash so took it out