Ouch...

Had a nasty fall this weekend on my bike. Went on a training ride on saturday with J. Wasn't paying attention, bike went out from under me, tumbled, next thing I knew, I was sitting up, scraped up, and bleeding. I checked myself, no broken bones, and I couldn't detect any sign of head injury. My bike though, was a bit beaten up. Two spokes pulled out the front rim, handlebar knocked off center.

To be on the safe side, I drove myself to the hospital, and subjected myself to almost six hours of waiting at ER. Even though I didn't break any bones, my left shoulder was killing me. I didn't have the usual signs of head trauma (dizziness, nausea, fainting, vomiting) but the left side of my head did hurt a bit. I also had road rash all over me.

After all the waiting, a CAT scan to verify that my head was OK, and a shoulder x-ray, I was let go. I came out of the crash with a sprained left shoulder, a bruise covering over half the surface of my scalp, road rash stretching from the back of my left shoulder down to my elbow, patches of road rash on my left butt cheek, both knees, and the insides of both my arms.

The last time I fell this hard, when I was 19, I ended up breaking my collarbone, destroying my front wheel, and twisting up my metal frame. This time I'm much more scratched up in terms of road rash, but have come out of it without any broken bones, and (thus far) my bike looks repairable.

So I'm sidelined for now. I'm committed to the MS Ride, so I'll have to get back on the bike again after it gets repaired. But I think I will probably slow it down a bit in terms of intensity & speed, the exception being going up hills. I essentially crashed because I wasn't paying enough attention at a moment when due to speed & road conditions I should have had both hands on the handlebar.

So for at least a few weeks after I get back on the bike, I think I'm going to take it a bit slow.