The Friday Top Five

The Top Five Things I've Learned After Falling Off My Bike Going Over 20 M.P.H.

5) You're a Long way up! :  You don't really realize that you are atop a small pony on your saddle. Instead of legs that could carry a grown man down the side of the Grand Canyon, you are praying that your 23 cm tires can withstand that small pebble for a few more seconds on your way down a hill going 40 m.p.h. with nothing between you and your chiclets but five feet of air which you catapult through at a speed that can only be calculated by a high-tech NASA computer that has yet to be invented.

4) Road Rash Sucks: Holy Burning Flesh Batman!  I remember getting road rash as a child, but never to quite the degree that I received from my fall this week. Road rash can only be described as feeling like your skin is on fire for several days. Showering was dreadful all week. In fact—as gross as this sounds—I managed to avoid showering for a couple days following the crash. The first time I did, I thought that I would have rather have been subjected to listening to Lady Gaga for 12 straight hours (minus the apparatus to keep my eyes open like that scene in a Clockwork Orange. That was just weird.)
The good news? I was coaching my son's LL team just hours after the crash. The wifey came up to me and said "... you are so macho" and gave me a little wink. I thought... "hell yes... hell yes, I'm macho." I then cranked some Justin Beiber on my stereo when I got home.


3) Get Back Out There Right Away: When I was playing Little League as a kid (I am now coaching my son's Little League team—that is a WHOLE other post!) I got hit by a pitch right in the ribs. I did not think I could breath for what seemed like hours. My father made me get right back out there the next game and stand in the box. I am glad he did. It took a little bit of time before I felt truly comfortable hitting or catching a line drive hit 60 feet away, but I eventually managed to conquer those fears. I got right back on my bike the very next day and rode... slowly.


4) It's Okay To Be Scared: I have been a tad tentative on my rides this past week. You know... when the wind blows I am thinking, "Oh dear Lord, please don't let me fall off and break something." Nothing really hampers your season like breaking something.

There should be signs like this one warning
unassuming cyclists of unmarked potholes!

5) It Will Happen Again: Look, I am no moron. I do not welcome death. No one does, but we all cheat it. Everyday. I am smart enough to realize that it is not a matter of "if" I am going to take another spill, but "when." The best I can do is minimize the amount of damage I do to my body by making sure that my bike gets regular service (it is a good thing to check those brake lines and pads occasionally), and realize that going 45 m.p.h. down a hill when you have five children is just not necessary. Honestly, 35 m.p.h. is fine. Every once in a while I think about how fast 40 m.p.h. is on a bike and think about falling at THAT speed. That scares the hell out of me. I am still a bit tentative after the big fall, but I am sure that I will lose some of those inhibitions soon enough. I have been a lot more careful about looking well ahead of me for debris and unmarked potholes all week. The blood has almost stopped seeping from my knee.

THE KNEE: I may have finally had a bit of a revelation about my knee. The thing about an injury is that you really have to determine how the pain started developing. Post to follow.

Train Smart!

Hitting The Pavement...Literally!

It does not matter how careful any of us are. If you ride, sooner or later, you are going down. I have been really fortunate that in the five years I have spent riding road bikes, that I only went down twice. Both times were borderline catastrophic. The first time I went down was three years ago. I was getting my road bike out for the first ride of the season. I was psyched. I put on my tights, my new Louis Garneau fall jacket, and my helmet. I then put my shades on and was moving my bike out of our garage with one clip in when I hit my son's Razor scooter and was catapulted to the floor. In my attempt to make sure I did not scratch my brand new Trek Madone, I threw out my arm and dislocated my shoulder. On the way to the hospital in an ambulance, the EMT's asked me to describe my pain on a scale from 1 to 10. I felt like breaking out with my Spinal Tap reference and saying... "but my pain is an eleven." Then I remembered that anytime  I complain about pain, my wife is there to modestly remind me that she birthed five children. So, after a couple of seconds of thought, I literally said to the EMT's "Well, the pain is not as bad as childbirth."

There was a moment of silence. Then, the woman in the ambulance said "Yeah, we're going to go ahead and give you something for the pain."  They probably thought I was delusional. The other really funny thing I remember about that day was when they came to take my pulse inside my house. The woman taking my pulse said, "Wow, your heart rate is really low. Are you a runner?"  I looked at my wife and said "...well, I run, I mean someti...." My wife interrupted "Yes!  He runs... You run! My gosh Mark, how difficult a question is  that?" Ah, wifey!  I can see it now. Me on my deathbed slowly answering questions about if I ate my jell-o that day, to which my wife responds "My goodness, yes!  You had your jell-o you old fool. Remember?  You took your teeth out?"

Yesterday, I bit it hard. Real hard. I am here to tell you that I am lucky that I did not break a single bone, let alone die yesterday. I am not trying to sound overly-dramatic (although I have often been told that I have a real flair for Dynasty-like melodramatic stories.

I really can not say I know how it all went down, except for the fact that I went down. Hard. I was riding down a road that I am really familiar with. I was about five miles from my house. I had ridden on this road more times than I can count. I was on my Kestrel in the aero position and working a nice little steady clip back home... maybe 21, 22 m.p.h. All of a sudden, I was on the road sliding on my body. Within seconds there were a couple of cars pulled up beside me asking me if I were alright.

I sat there for a second and assessed the damage. It is amazing were your brain goes in stress. I looked down and said "Yup, I can move my legs, that's a good sign." All of a sudden I felt severe burns all over my body; my wrists, my knee, my elbow. I sat there in shock for a couple of seconds—maybe a minute. Oh, I completely shattered the glass on my second Garmin 310XT. The ironic part is that my HR monitor has been acting... "funny" and I just contacted Garmin. They are sending me a replacement 310XT. Of course, I will have to notify them that their watch probably withstood more impact than my wrist took. Miraculously, it still works!

I guess all things considered, my spill yesterday could have been much, much worse. I mean, I could have hit my head, or broke some bones. What the hell is going on with my season? First my knee, then this!

AND, I ripped my Trakkers kit. I am almost scared to ask, "Could it get any worse?" Don't answer this semi-rhetorical question.

Seriously, after emerging relatively unscathed by my impact with the pavement, I felt pretty badass, but I am no hurry to meet that fate again.

Friends, be careful out there! What I learned from yesterday is just because you have ridden a route a hundred times, that does not mean you can take a second off from focusing on everything ahead of you.

Be safe out there.