BlogPrints: October 2010

Because I am a weight weenie and I am emulating one of the set ups that Lance used on a bike in the TDF, I use a downtube shifter for my front chainring. I also don't shift the front chainring very much (hardly at all) so it seems a little silly to devote the weight and sophistication of a fancy Campy Ultra shifter to its use. I have noticed sometimes the chain will drop to the smaller chainring on its own. I think what happens is on occasion when I take a drink from the water bottle, I will slightly nudge the shifter and over time it is in a position to shift on its own.

Saturday I went for a ride and this is what I remember and have pieced together from the evidence: As I approached Winchester on Ninth East the light was red and then turned green before I had to stop. I charged away from the light pedaling out of the saddle. The next thing I know, I am dreaming and wake up in the bike lane portion of the street in front of the Red Cross building. There were at least three people around me, and I suggested that we get out of the road. They told me I wasn't moving anywhere. I was in and out for a while. I remember EMT's in the ambulance asking me things. I was able to rattle off my SSN (not sure I should have done that.) But, I had trouble remembering what the date was. I finally figured it out.

They took me to IMC Emergency and set me up in a room. I called Jensen at home. She said mommy and Ailsa were on their way over to the hospital. Then they hauled me off to xray where they took a lot of pictures. By the end of that I was pretty consistently staying coherent and I was pretty sure nothing was broken, so I was a little anxious to get out of there. The concussion wasn't as bad as in 2002. They cleaned up my wounds, gave me some percocet after offering a couple of times. They put two little stitches in my eyebrow (Laney took them out last night) after I waived off the shot of lidocaine.

This was the shape of the bike: Chain was off. Handle bars and stem turned 90 degrees clockwise on the fork. Small patch of tread on the front tire peeling off. Small wobble in the front wheel coinciding with said patch of tread. Front of brake levers scratched up. Other than the head wounds as shown in the pictures. I separated my AC joint on the left shoulder and had a nasty scrape on the top and back of it. Also a bruise on my left elbow. Nothing much else. No hands scraped as if trying to catch myself.

This is what we have pieced together: as I was pedaling hard away from the intersection, my chain dropped off the crank. I had taken a drink right before I think. Anyway if the derailleur was slightly off and if I pushed hard I could torque the frame enough to bounce it off the chainrings. After that I came down on the handlebars and since the bike was rocking back and forth the front wheel went sideways (the tread peeling off the tire) and/or I grabbed a bunch of brake levers and the wheel went sideways. Regardless of the order, at that point I wasn't going to make much more forward progress and I went over the bars, landed on my head first, rolled onto my shoulder and the bike probably came down on top of me.

I could have easily hit my head hard enough (even with a helmet on) to kill myself. In which case, in retrospect I would have simply awakened on the other side, slapped myself on the forehead and said, “I must have done something stupid.” No pain, no anxious anticipation of the end.

The injuries settled in over time. Right now is 5 days after the fact and my shoulder hurts a lot. So, though nothing broken, I do feel like I got worked over by a couple of thugs.