Back on The Bike Following The Cancellation of The Board Meeting

Top (just left of center) is my SS laying where I landed.

Took my first bike excursion yesterday on the single speed out to Red Rock Canyon since planting myself on the pavement last week. I had planned to ride the crashed S-Works, but noticed that the titanium rails on my SP gel Toupe saddle were bent from the impact.

The committee in my head had called a board meeting across the top tube to discuss closure on the event. The photo above is at the entrance to Calico Basin, the location where I left over 75 square inches of my DNA across two lanes of a busy road through the park. I'm still trying to come to grips with the realization that I could have been run over as I went down. Anyway, I managed to ride through the site yesterday without crashing, but not without chills running down my spine. The passage of the site ended the board meeting abruptly, and I'm moving down the road toward another horizon.

It Was a Good Day To be Alive Across the Top Tube.

There comes that time in every cyclist's life when more than rubber meets the road. It's a right of passage I suppose. Or, if you look at the Zen side of the experience, it's a clear pathway to inner enlightenment. Once again, Rick, you have beaten the odds my friend. And, the cat's nine lives are now down by three.

Such was my day yesterday when I tried to imitate a pro peloton racer fighting for position on the road, only to find myself eating pavement because of a front tire blowout at 28.6 miles per hour. In the elapsed time of only a few seconds I left a great deal of my DNA across two lanes of a busy roadway, destroyed my cycling shorts, and had the most surreal sensation that time was suspended as I moved through space across the ground.

So many different outcomes were possible and entered my mind as I was going down:

1. fractured pelvis
2. broken leg, ankle, arm, elbow, knee, ribs, or wrist
3. head trauma
4. shoulder separation
5. fractured collar bone
6. loss of teeth
7. being run over and killed by a passing car

Four hours in the ER and twenty-eight x-rays ruled out #1 through #6; and blind luck ruled out #7. 

Hadn't picked out the gravel yet.

That hurt! Thanks chip seal...NOT!!

What I did get was more road rash than is shown in these photos and a sobering realization that going to the well too often might lead to a dry bucket someday.

No one ever said life isn't full of risk.  It's about living....It's about riding the bike! LiveStrong, Ride Long