BTW...one of the biggest mistakes I see made consistently by riders is not understanding how to ride a course from different lines at speed.
When an auto racer goes out to qualify, they can drive any line they want, but they want the fastest one. Their car is set up in a different way than for the race where the other cars might dictate the line they can take. So, they practice running different lines, especially through turns for race setup.
Bike racing's the same. In other words, if you ride the course for a warm up mostly alone, you'll ride whatever line you want. Suddenly, in a pack you are forceed to take the line from the inside at 25mph and realize that you might not make it. So you practice that before the race...taking five or six different entry and exit lines through turns at racing speed so that you are capable of doing that in the race. If you realize you can't do a particular entry point safely, you set that up BEFORE you get into the turn, and avoid falling and taking a bunch of people with you.
One of my problems was that I arrived later than I intended to and didn't get much time on the course itself before the pace picked up.
Before cycling I rode Downhill and longboard skateboards. I used to love late night parking garage runs because they were fast, and the technical turns helped with cornering experience, the elevator ride to the top was nice also. I would mess around with entry, exit, apex points, speed, and drifting so I could adjust when we would race and my prefered line was taken. I know a good bit about cornering theory, I'm just trying to translate it to the bike now.
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.
Thank you cdr, there was a lot of good stuff in your post and I think it will help me out a lot. I'm not feeling too beat up. My shoulder is getting better and I've been around enough forums to have built a nice flak sheild.
Anyways, I have not yet switched to clipless pedals, and I think that had a significant impact on how I landed. I would have had plenty of time to unclip, and maybe enough time to avoid the problem, but I didn't want to make a sudden movement and crash someone else.
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.
You assumed right as I was very much on the hoods, something to work on.
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.
As I mentioned earlier, I have a skateboarding background, so I am very good at absorbing impact. I just could not tuck and roll with a bike straped to my feet.
PS: Anyone want to buy a longboard so I can buy shoes and pedals?