Bad luck. A lot of bad luck

I guess that this isn’t my best racing period of all time. Last year at Baia Mare Marathon I had a broken chain and finished 3rd (at my category and 4th overall) but yesterday’s race was simply ridiculous.

I had a pretty good start and after some minor problems with the rear derailleur, which I’ve managed to fixed them while I was riding the start of the 3rd lap disaster struck. On the climb right after the start line another rider tried to pass me on the inside, even though he had 4 meter wide road on the other line. Because he couldn’t pass he pushed my hand and got down. When I’ve felt down I’ve hit with my ribs on the edge of the handlebar and destroyed the front wheel. Of course I was nervous, frustrated and I was swearing in those moments, but what should do? Give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek? It’s absolutely ridiculous because in all my 11 years of racing I didn’t saw such a behavior.

Before this incident during the race he tried to overpass me, I’ve always sprinted and didn’t let him, but I’ve never changed the lines, I’ve always tried to do this with my own legs. I believe that this kind of bullies don’t belong in this sport.

After I’ve changed the front wheel and managed to finish the race, I’ve made an appeal because I didn’t seemed right what he did. I even had a lot of witnesses of the incident to confirm but the organizers decided to disqualify not only him, but also me. He motivated that I didn’t let him pass me. I tell you one thing: it’s racing! you try to keep your opponent behind, but you don’t push him to pass. In my opinion this decisions is not discouraging this kind of behavior.

The only things that I regret after this race was that I couldn’t have a good training for the upcoming National Champs, I’ve destroyed my front wheel that now I have to fix with money from my own pocket and for my bad language ( I usually don’t get mad). I had some great supporters that cheered me up and I would like to thank all of them.

Passing everything behind this was the second race for my dad (first on offroad) and first race for my girlfriend Simona (second offroad RIDE for her this year).

My dad finished 7th, 7 minutes behind the winner after a hard crash. He is pretty bruised but the helmet did the job. Simona, finished second but merging the categories and the bustle on the course created some problems that almost made her loose this.

Running all over the course to take some photos and cheer them up was pretty hard but now I know what they do during the races and they know too how racing is 🙂

I wanna leave behind this incident and look forward.

I am proud of them!

Hear you soon.

Cheers,

Vlad