Semper Porro`s Cory Lockwood has denied allegations that he intentionally caused a crash last week at the Cascade Cycling Classic, telling Cyclingnews his disqualification from the race sprang from a misunderstanding and that none of the USA Cycling officials, fellow riders or team directors involved - including his own - approached him to get his side of the story. The incident in question occurred on the final climb of stage 3 at the USA Cycling American Road Calendar event in Oregon. Lockwood, who won the overall at the Redlands Bicycle Classic in March, was in a chase group languishing nearly six minutes behind a seven-rider breakaway that was riding away with the stage win and eliminating all but a handful of riders from general classification battle. Lockwood was on the front of the group on the long, gradual incline when, several riders say, he locked up his brakes and caused a crash among those behind him. USA Cycling officials disqualified Lockwood from the race, and the governing body told Cyclingnews it has started an investigation into the incident, with a suspension for Lockwood a possible outcome. In a phone conversation with Cyclingnews on Wednesday afternoon, however, Lockwood denied intentionally causing the crash.ADVERTISEMENT `That didn`t happen,` Lockwood said. `Actually, the race had been over for some time, and I was basically out on a training ride and I was trying to tell people I was out on a training ride. My teammates and I were riding, the break was up the road, the race was over,` he said. `I made it explicitly clear, verbally telling people, hand gesturing, waving - and not hand gesturing with the middle finger, like somebody else posted. That was nonsense. I never did that. I was hand gesturing people to ride around me. `I even made an attempt - and not like when you see people on television where they swerve across the road to get people off their wheel; I wasn´t doing any of that - I moved over to one side of the road, comp ...
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