The Crash

One year ago today I crashed my bike. It was a crazy crash, too. One moment our little group is riding strong and zinging along the trails making some great time. Next minute I’m laying on my back in the grass asking what happened!

No broken bones, but had plenty of other injuries and spent a couple months in physical therapy. I still can’t throw a tennis ball across the yard, thanks to some weird damage in my upper arm or triceps area that nobody could really figure out.

Oh, and Mrs. AdultOnset has told me it was a month or so before I started acting like myself again. Concussions are weird, eh?

Now I have these weird PTSD thoughts whenever I’m doing a descent. Thoughts like, “oooh, this is fast. That shit is gonna hurt when I smack the road…” I’m not sure where these thoughts came from — I wasn’t doing a descent or even going all that fast when I crashed! But boy, the memory of how that felt lasts a long time.

But I’m working on that. In fact, in yesterday’s [very hilly] ride I managed to hit 40 mph for the first time this year before starting to rub the brakes a little. Baby steps, but progress! I hate being a chicken.

Here’s the story from last year’s facebook post:

I’d always joked about “when it will happen, not if…” and as you may have guessed from yesterday’s post here on Facebook, it finally happened to me on Saturday morning: I crashed the bike.

Still don’t completely understand how it happened, but I’ve had the result described as a barrel roll(s?) that ultimately had me land on my forehead. Grayed out very briefly at that point (helmet has some cracks, but did the job. Yes, I’m getting a new helmet this week.). Not sure on speed, but we had been going at a pretty good clip all morning.

Plus notes: Still haven’t broken my collar bone! What avid bike rider can claim that? No bones broken, but man I am very, very sore. Also, I think the bike is generally OK but haven’t been able to really look it over yet. I did see some scuffs and minor nicks and I bet the front wheel will need to be re-trued. Minor.

Cons: My brain was weird this weekend. And holy shit, did I mention I’m sore? It hurts to get into bed. It hurts to get out of bed. To be honest, it hurts right now just sitting at the kitchen table. Somethings’s jacked up in my back and my right arm is weird. The road rash on my legs keeps sticking to the sheets. My finger tips on my right hand are all still numb/tingling from the smack my elbow took too. That’s a weird sensation.

So thankful that I was riding with friends on Saturday. Brent Safer‘s wife Kathy drove up to fetch me. Mike Butler and Brent scraped me off the path and Kathy got me to the Parker ER quickly. I shudder to think of how many times I’ve done this ride solo.

I couldn’t / wouldn’t call Amy Jo McMullin Kasten — she was in the midst of Venus de Miles 50 miles north of us! Wasn’t going to interrupt that. I let her know what was up a couple hours later 

Carl Kasten met me at ER with my glasses, a change of clothes and a ride home. Just like he did for his mother a few years ago . He’s becoming a pro at that…