When I saw Augusto go, I thought he was wasting energy.  When I saw Jermaine go, I was in a bad position and waited a few moments too long.  The break looked go  When I saw Elvi go, I thought he wasn't going to make it.  I had hoped Jermaine was a threat to Stalin's lead in teh series and that would force Somerville to chase, but he wasn't.  Alas.

As I was considering options at the start of the descent, a guy crashed right in front of me.  I slammed on my brakes and swerved left into the jogger's lane with my rear wheel fishtailing right.  I was controlling the skid, and the someone ran into my left shoulder, hard.  Somehow we both stayed up, though my left lever was bent in, and there was a lump somewhere on my rear tire.  I straightened the lever and then asked if people could tell me what was wrong with the wheel. "the wheel looks a bit tweaked" was the response.  This didn't make sense as it was moving through the brakes perfectly.  I feared the tire was bulging. Whatever, after five people thought it was fine, I decided to ignore it.  Then, the next time down the hill, the rear tire blew out at 38mph on the right curve.  I headed straight as a mengoni swerved around me.  Stayed upright, but race over.  Seems that the skid not only partially pulled the tread off the casing, but also shredded a bead.