Bill and I were just wrapping up an awesome night ride. We were cruising back to the car down Heritage road coming out of a dark area into an area with some street lights. Up ahead I saw a dark object in the road. By up ahead I mean about 0.1 seconds before I got to said object. "Oh shit" went through my mind as it looked very large and up the front wheel went. Everything after that happened very fast. The front wheel cleared or mostly cleared the object and something went wrong. The wheel went right, the bike went straight and I got tossed onto the pavement at 30mph. There was some tumbling and from the damage to body, bike and clothes I surmised that I hit hard on the right side of my body and then rolled across my backpack and slid on the other side. The bike hit hard on the saddle, dug in and flipped over and slid on the handlebar and pedal. After I stopped sliding Bill flipped around (narrowly missing me as I crashed) and we did damage control. He ran to move the big object out of the road so a car wouldn't crash or punt it into us. I thought it was a rock but it was actually a giant piece of ice (12x12x18?) that must have fallen off a car coming from the mountains. Luckily nothing appeared seriously broken. As we stood there deciding what to do a passing motorist stopped to check on us. As luck would have it he was also a cyclist who had a very bad road crash 6 weeks ago. He repaid some karma by giving Bill a ride down to our car while I walked just up the road to the gas station with the bikes. I didn't catch his name but thanks a lot man!
At the gas station I inventoried the damaged body and clothes further. Ripped my Smartwool shirt and tore up my right elbow and got a big bruise. Ripped up my new Marmot Driclime shirt slightly but it survived amazingly well. Bike had a flat tire, splintered handlebar end and pretty chewed up SLR corner. The major damage started at my bellybutton. Rash from hip to hip along my butt with a particularly painful spot on the right where I first landed. One pair of totalled bike shorts. Chainring punctures above the left knee, both ankles scraped up and some bruised ribs on my left side. I'm very happy nothing is badly broken and I'm healing up day by day. Biking actually feels ok as it warms up my muscles well enough but with cold muscles I'm pretty darn sore.
Poor bike doesn't like getting tossed on the pavement.
Oww!
No really, oww!
Hmmm why is that black?
Ooooh I see. That's where the chainring went through and stabbed me.
Be careful out there and watch out for giant ice chunks.
7 comments:
Poor Christopher. That looks so painful. I'm glad you're ok and I'll take good care of you. I'm going to find that ice chunk and kick its ass. No one messes with my husband...
Super bummer!
You well bounce back fast!
Wow! Glad to hear that you at least survived with no major, long term type injuries from this. Its a good week to take a break anyway...
Wow, that sounds like a serious crash. Hope you heal up soon. Did you destroy your front rim from the impact?
Thank god the orange leg warmers weren't harmed! Glad you are ok!
Luckily the front wheel survived intact thanks to the bunny hop at the last second. I flatted it but no tire or rim damage. I"m glad too because that's my front rim off the 1400gram wheelset.
And yes Scott, the red knee warmers live through yet another crash...
Healing is going okay. I've been riding some although I'll take it easy offroad so I don't go down again. Riding is actually about the best I feel all day since it warms up my bruised ass muscles and they don't hurt as bad.
Man Chris! I'm glad that you're okay. The real bummer is that your outfit matches so perfectly. I mean, the pictures are already studily, but even more so now that you added the war wounds with them.
Seriously though, glad you're okay. (And I hope that your tetanus is up-to-date)
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