Crash!

Yes, the inevitable happened yesterday (Saturday). I was tooling along, at 15 or so miles an hour, when the handlebar just left my hands. I was on the ground in a split second. My bike and I were spread across two travel lanes; I was lucky the heavy traffic hadn’t been right around me at that moment.

What happened was that there’d been some utility work, and the asphalt patch had sunk, leaving a nice vertical 1-inch bump in the road; I hadn’t seen it, and it had knocked the front wheel out of my command.

I rode another 15 minutes or so, but I decided it was not my day. There was something wrong with the bike, and the pain was getting pretty bad.

My biggest concern is my head. I had hit my head (though my helmet doesn’t show it); and 11 years ago I had a Level III concussion I’d treated very poorly, resulting in persistent, though not serious, post-concussion syndrome. I decided, among the pain, the concern about concussion, and the heavy, heavy traffic on my routes, that I’d go home.

At home I found I’d ripped my favourite cool-weather jersey and my Assos bib shorts, and I had skin ripped off my left knee, left elbow, and, oddly, my right elbow. (I don’t remember hitting it.) I scrubbed the wounds with paper towels until no dirt showed up. You think that hurt? Try putting tincture of iodine on the nicely scrubbed-up wounds. Youch! I ended up spilling iodine on the kitchen floor! :-)

I called Monado and asked her to come home from visiting her dad; it was a good thing - this morning, at 2:30, my dressings had slipped off, and it was just too darned hard trying to dress my elbow with one hand!

Today, I don’t know. I think I’ll check out my bike, and try to do some spinning on the trainer. Pool work-outs, scheduled for the next two days, don’t seem a good idea, with my open sores - so it’s off to Coach Steve for some advice.