We arrived in Italy for a ten-day stay to participate in four separate races. The first race day was April 25th, featuring a 107-kilometer road race, the Coppa Montes.
We had a strong start, staying together and working well as a team. Around the 50th kilometer of the race, there was a crash ahead of us, and we had to stop. That’s when someone ran into my derailleur from behind. The derailleur hanger got bent, and I was stuck in 6th gear with no way to shift. To make things worse, it looks like their brake rotor hit the derailleur, damaging the connector as well.
I was really disappointed. I didn’t get a new derailleur for the next day’s race, so they had to patch up the broken one. But the chain wasn’t running properly, and the derailleur hanger was still bent. I had about two usable gears. Racing effectively under those conditions was unrealistic. The whole weekend was a write-off, and without a replacement derailleur, I had to miss the next two races scheduled for the following week.
It was frustrating, but with races like these, there’s only one thing to do: forget about those days quickly and focus on what’s coming next.
